Know your True Self! (You are not who you think you are)

 

Ever wondered who exactly is your true self?

I know it may sound boring to most of us, after all, who has time to find out about concepts like “true self“. 

We are more interested in what the new fad is, the latest celebrity news, the controversial political scandals, the hottest gossips. But we don’t pay attention to what’s truly important. Finding our true self.

We don’t see what’s right in front of us because we are so busy seeing everything else but this. We listen to whatever we want to listen to and kinda neglect what is there for real.

For instance; if someone from a village goes to a city, then the noise of the city, which the people there are not used to listening to, would bother him for some time. For us, it’s normal as we are used to it.

We are all used to fast-paced traffic like this.

Likewise, if we go to a village then the silence there will overpower us and will grab our attention but not the common village people’s.

This silence is deafening

SO just like this, I may say a thing or two but you will understand what you want to understand due to the numerous filters we all have within us. I will say something, people will understand something else, and they will then explain something entirely different. 

Nevertheless, I will give my best shot to explain the real thing, which is to liberate you from all kinds of suffering. So, the number one priority for anybody who’s on the spiritual path is to know what their ultimate goal of life is.

 

Your True Self is Free from all Kinds of Bondage

Now I will say something in very simple language, try to let this sink in. ‘You don’t have to free yourself from any kind of bondage in life; YOU ARE FREE already.’

Read it again.

That is the ultimate goal of SPIRITUALITY; not to be free from anything but simply understanding that we are already free. There actually is no bondage. There is nothing holding you back.

You already are INFINITE! Everything’s inside you. Try to grasp the real sense of infinite. Try imagining how enormously big this INFINITY is.

Yup; that’s you! That’s all of us. It really is a shame that we, who are INFINITE, consider ourselves finite, mortal beings, who are doomed to death one day.

Whenever we are Morose, the problem lies in our own Understanding.

We are something else, but we misunderstand ourselves with something entirely different. Once we understand what we are and what we are NOT, then we just have to drop the things we are NOT (at the level of understanding only, not at the physical level).

In fact, you don’t even have to drop anything, once we understand it, it will automatically get detached from yourself. Once you truly understand who you really are, then you won’t even have to hold on to it. It will effortlessly come to you.

You don’t get up every morning and do anything to convince yourself that you are your name or your body. Because you know who you are.

The problem is our understandings are stuck till there only. We haven’t yet seen what’s beyond the body. We don’t even know if there is anything beyond the physical body.

And why don’t we know our true selves? Because no one told us so, no one talks about it anywhere, in any kind. You won’t be taught this in your school or at your home.

Discussions like this with friends are almost non-existent and considered to be old school or boring. Everyone is just busy filling up their pockets and hustling to provide for their families, which is not a bad thing at all. But hey if that’s all we are doing, then what’s the difference between us and other animals?

 

Let’s Monkey Around To Discover Your True Self

Let’s suppose a monkey is standing in front of a mirror. He is seeing his own image and is trying to fight it off. Will he ever be able to win?

Well, of course not, because he is unable to understand that both are the same thing and because he lacks this understanding he is unable to take the right action.

Quite similar is the case with us humans. We also believe in something else, instead of trying to understand the truth.

The only actual difference between a monkey and a human is in UNDERSTANDING. Otherwise, we are exactly the same. We both have eyes, brains, consciousness.

 

Another One

One of my cousins, during her childhood, used to be terrified of her own shadow. It would drive her crazy that why is this black creepy thing following her all the time.

The faster she would run, the quicker the shadow would be closing on. So what’s really happening here? Would you guys behave like this? No, obviously. 

She just didn’t understand the simple truth that the shadow is a part of herself. For her, it was the Christmas ghost, that she was absolutely petrified of.

So the only difference between the so-called enlightened people and us is nothing but UNDERSTANDING!

To develop this understanding, we need a peaceful mind.

The girl first has to be calm in order to understand the shadow thing. If she keeps on crying and screaming; nothing can make her change her perception about it. All these spiritual talks and meditation are there to make us peaceful, in order to understand our true self.  

 

Addiction of Any Kind isn’t Great News

Some people who embark on this journey, do attain peace; but then they are so addicted to it that they just can’t leave it.

We need to understand the difference between relative peace and absolute peace. Relative peace is the kind of peace that you attain when you get associated with something or someone or someplace.

Eg; you become peaceful when you go to the mountains; you attain peace when you visit any temple, church, or any other religious place. 

So, what happens when you return to your home? Back to normal life. On the other hand, absolute peace, like the name suggests, is absolutely ABSOLUTE. It’s independent of situations or places or people.

Now don’t take it the wrong way, by this I mean peace in your INNER WORLD. Your outer world can’t remain in peace all the time.

If you see a child getting kidnapped you won’t say to yourself that I am peaceful and won’t take any action. That is BS. That’s a very basic thing to understand. You should be clear about this.

For instance, the sound of silence was always there with you, but you didn’t experience it before. Now there can be some people who must have experienced it before but they are unaware of what it is. (In case you don’t know what is this ‘sound’, just read this article.)

Knowledge and Experience are both very crucial. 

 

Let’s Fall Asleep To Find our True Self

Ever wondered how exactly you fall asleep? Try this tonight. After lying down in the bed, take note of what really happens between the moment you lie down and the moment you fall asleep.

First of all, the 5 senses of your body stop sending the respective signals, or I should say the brain starts overlooking it. That means the objects don’t control you, instead you control the objects that enter your body.

You can’t sleep until it’s quiet out there. You can’t sleep with your eyes open. One can’t sleep while there’s something in your mouth (unless you stop knowing if it’s there or not). You can’t sleep while sniffing something fishy. You can’t sleep with the feeling of someone touching you. After all the senses go silent, you let go of the feelings and the sensations.

Then thoughts are the only thing that keeps revolving around for quite some time. Then after some time when all other thoughts go silent, then there remains this one thought.

Why am I unable to Sleep?

The more you think about sleeping, the less likely it is that you will fall asleep. Notice tonight, you can’t possibly fall asleep while there are thoughts swirling in your brain. The single most reason why people love their sleep is that they become absolutely PEACEFUL.

Why they are peaceful? Because there isn’t any thought going on in our mind while we are sleeping.

 

Everything’s Inside You, Literally 

If you actually see things as it is then you will realize there is nothing outside you. Everything’s inside you. The world you see is through your eyes inside your brain, similarly, the voices you hear and all the sensations you feel.

If you smell something then where do you get to know it? Inside. When someone touches you then where do you feel it? Inside. If you hear something, where do you actually hear it? Inside your brain. If you are reading this article then where are you reading it? You think it’s outside but actually, it’s all inside.

Fascinating right?

All this is not mystical or hypothetical, it’s pure science. Your brain sees, hears, and feels everything. If everything is happening inside you, then is there anything outside you at all?

Like I said before, in order to understand such things, you need a very peaceful mind, free of all the trivial and unnecessary desires. Only then will you be able to understand the gravity of all this.

 

PRESENT AND PAST

Once your mind becomes free of all the baseless clutter, you will start perceiving things differently. You will realize that what you call the present is actually the past.

The second you read this word, ‘word’, so by the time your brain catches the light signal through your eyes and translates it for you, some microseconds have already passed and thus it becomes a thing of the past.

We see stars in the sky, let’s say 10 light-years far, so though it may seem that the star is there at the present but in reality, it may not even exist.

Once you actually understand your senses you will realize that the ‘PRESENT’ is actually the ‘PAST’. So, what exactly to make of all this, practically? Well first, make a goal in your life.

 

TO KNOW YOUR TRUE SELF

There can’t be a higher goal than this. In fact, there can’t be any goal other than this which can be called the ultimate goal of life.

People make all kinds of goal setting. Some people make a goal to earn x,y,z money. Once they achieve it, then they set a higher goal and it keeps on growing and growing. It’s never-ending. (I don’t mean earning money is bad.)

Only self-knowledge is conclusive. That’s why it’s the ultimate goal. After achieving this, there won’t be any more trivial desires left for you to achieve. There is no happiness in objects. If there was one, then everyone would buy it and live a happy life forever, but we all know that’s not the case.

It’s totally possible that the object (name, fame, money, etc) you are going after, some other guy who has it all, is trying to get rid of the very same thing. FOOD for thought!

 

Elevate your Understanding

If there really is any meaningful goal in life then that is to increase your understanding of everything; be it your work, health, or relationships. You shouldn’t become mechanical; that’s what the problem is with most people. They have converted into machines.

They wake up every day at a set routine, go to work, do other chores, sleep and repeat; for their entire life. They don’t think. They just don’t think at all that what is all this for?

If I talk about myself, I respect people with knowledge, I don’t care if he’s a billionaire or a priest; I admire peaceful people. I admire people who understand the game of life correctly. Seeing things as it is instead of how 7 billion people are seeing. Very few people have such kind of understanding.

So if you actually are one of them then you are actually INTELLIGENT, otherwise, you can also run in the long tiring endless race in which everyone is already running. If you ask them why are they running, it is probable that the reply would be, “Because everyone is running this way.”

Now, you have to decide whether you have to be a monkey and copy what everyone is doing or be intelligent enough to run your life the way you want.

 

You are the Consciousness Itself

Since you have experienced the sound of silence, let me tell you, you are this sound only. This consciousness, this is the real you. The thing that never changes. The sky that remains fixed, the screen where billions of pixels come and go, the constant in this ever-changing world. 

Now, why can’t people understand it? KNOWLEDGE. They lack knowledge. If you understand you are that and take baby steps towards increasing your understanding, by reading the scriptures and experiencing it first hand, then there will be no problem big enough for you.

Everything is inside you and you are inside Everything.

Everything means everything, not just the things in your conscience, but even the conscience itself. Go ahead ask yourself, where is the conscience? Where is it hanging around, if not in YOU?

You won’t even have any problem with thoughts because you will realize that the thought exists because of you; you don’t exist because of thought. A big difference. Some people try to exercise a claim over consciousness. Consciousness is not yours, you are the consciousness.

Just like your body is 70% water, but the water is not yours. The right thing to say is that you are the water, and once you see this truth then you are not just the water, limited to your body, but everywhere in this universe where water is.

Similarly, when you grasp the fact that you are the consciousness, then you are not just limited to the experiences you feel through your body, but to the entire universe—whoever is consciousness.

And can we talk about the universe without consciousness? This consciousness is beyond mine and yours, space and time, thoughts and mind. This is how you transcend at the level of the thought. That’s how you truly fathom the fact that you are Infinite. Now you can actually feel connected with everyone.

Now some people may ask that “if I am the consciousness then why am I not able to experience everything?”

Well, because that’s the limitation of the instrument. A single bulb can only illuminate so much, but it’s the electricity that lightens the whole world. You are “the electricity”, not just a single bulb. A bulb doesn’t have any independent existence of its own, unlike electricity. And that’s your real self. 

 

Final Thoughts

There actually is no difference between the thought and the thinker, the observed and the observer, the experienced and the experience. If you remove the thinker, then where is the thought?

Real spirituality revolves around questioning the very witness, or our true self. At the surface level, the self is nothing but just a bundle of thoughts tied up together that you keep telling yourself. But, from the material standpoint, the story is somewhat different.

Let’s take it from the standpoint of two bulbs. One is a yellow bulb and the other is a white bulb. So, while it may look like they are different from each other as they are radiating different lights, but from the material point of view, they are exactly the same. The electricity in one bulb isn’t different from the other.

Likewise, consciousness is consciousness. The consciousness in your body isn’t any different from the consciousness in my body. Even the bundle of thoughts, feelings, and emotions in you is meaningless without consciousness. Just like the bulb is useless without electricity.

The consciousness just appears to be different but actually isn’t. Similarly, the lights coming from the two bulbs appear to be different because of the bulbs but in reality, the light is colorless.

You can only differentiate yourself from the standpoint of your body(including your thoughts), but from the fundamental level, your true self is inseparable.

 

 

 

The Stronger your Understanding is about your True Self, the Fearless you become, in every aspect of Life.