Who Are You?

Who are you? Where do you come from? And where are you going? Except by a very few, a finger count, these questions have never been confronted since time immemorial. You are here now, so let us try to solve them.

We discuss this everyday: You have forgotten who are you. You have forgotten that you are home, you have forgotten your destination, where you have to go. This is why we suffer again and again. Millions of years have passed and we have not yet solved these questions. It is so simple, no time or practice is needed. We are simply otherwise engaged. We are busy with all our occupations, with wanting this and that, with holding to the idea that, “This is mine” and “I belong to this.” Find out who you are and who are your relations.

Every night when you sleep you experience leaving everything behind — your relations and friends, your house, your country, the mountains, and rivers. You don’t see anything when you are asleep and you have no trouble; you are happy. This is a very short experience which we have every night due to the compassion of your own Self; giving you a hint to discover Eternal Bliss. This is for a very short time. When you go to sleep you are at peace. The only troublesome states are waking and dreaming. Who wakes up and gets into trouble? Who dreams? The dreamer gets into trouble, but no one knows who they are and where they have to return to. This is so simple that every reasonable person can solve it, here and now.

We speak every day about this which has been lost. You turn outside to a guide who is deceiving you and you trust that guide. Who is that guide? It is your own mind. Although he has always deceived you, you return to the same guide because you are used to him. He has been your guide since the beginning, but he has always deceived you. Now ask yourself the question, “Who am I?” for the first time. This question has never been asked. You have simply trusted the mind to tell you what to do and you have obeyed. This is the time for all of us here to ask this question. Do away with this guide and you will return to your Eternal Home, to Existence, to Consciousness, to Bliss.

Is there any time when you are not in the mind, when you stop your race after pleasures of the senses, when you simply see? Keep still and this guide disappears, simply with the question, “Who are you?” Then you will know what the mind is, and it disappears. This question has never been asked. This guide has never been challenged before. Wherever you have gone until now you have allowed it to deceive you. It has told you this or that is good, and you accepted it — that this is a world of pleasure, and you accepted it — that these gods will give you pleasures in heavens, and you accepted it. When you challenge the mind it disappears instantly. This is why every day we emphasize the question, “Who are you?”

The qualification needed to ask this question is discrimination — the ability to know the real from the unreal, the eternal from the false, the pure from the impure. Discrimination must first be developed, and it will lead to the capacity to ask the question which dissolves all that is false. When you ask this question with discernment you will come to know what is real and what is unreal. Turn to any thing which has name and form and see where this name and form came from. Was it eternal or did it appear in the past a few years ago, and will it disappear after a few more years? Everything will disappear. In fact the whole world disappears when you sleep.

Whatever is eternal must remain constantly. It never disappears. That which appears and disappears is falsehood. All relationships up to this point have been with appearances and disappearances, and so there has been no relationship with that which is Eternal, which is your own Home, which is your own Self, your own Friend, your Atman, which is Existence itself.

Existence will remain always. It will never become non-existence. Consciousness will always remain consciousness. In the waking state you are conscious of doing this and that. In the dream state you are conscious of the dreamer doing something. In the sleep state you are conscious of not knowing anything, of enjoying the bliss of deep sleep, you are also very much conscious of this. Existence is there always, consciousness is there always, and bliss can also be there always. In the waking state, pleasure is mistaken for bliss. Pleasure is temporary. We may call it bliss, but bliss is eternal. It is your nature. It is your Atman, your own Self.

We may stumble on different experiences but we are still searching for the same thing. The one who is searching — the seeker itself — is what is needed. We are lost in a search without knowing who it is that is enjoying all this. We are attached, so we attribute the source of this joy to the object without knowing the enjoyer. It is the Self — the Atman — who is enjoying; not the object. No object has any capacity to give you happiness. It is ‘I’ who enjoys the object, whatever object it may be; anything, any relation, any idea, any concept, the source of their joy comes from ‘I’, not from the object or idea or notion.

When you rid yourself of all notions, all intentions and ideas, this will be revealed. Stop for a while. Give an instant to your own Self — just an instant that you have never found time for so far. You have spent 35 million years for others, seeking love, seeking beauty, seeking rest, and you have not got it. You have been hitchhiking millions of times and yet again you are here.

If this sounds good you can go through it and it is done, not by any kind of practice for you have done enough. What had to be done is done now. It is finished. What had to be attained is attained. You are here in satsang. In satsang no practice is needed, nothing is done. Only you are asked to keep quiet. Only you are asked to keep still. Only you are asked not to stir a single thought. And wait . … Turn your back on whatever appears in front of you. Now is the time to turn your back on what you have done in the past. Turn your face to what has not been done before. Turn your face towards your own Atman for the first time and turn your back on this name and form.

18 May, 1992