The Spirit Of Spirituality: The Capital I versus the small “I”

Monday, September 3, 2012

The Capital I versus the small “I”

This is one of the articles in a book I have written on spirituality. The book is available on Amazon.com.

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People may start wondering whether I am blogging on English grammar! Far from it! I am hoping to put out my ideas on the Real I or ME and the imputed “I” or the imputed “me”.

Let us start off with the now familiar principle that this entire creation is nothing but the Absolute Truth or the Brahman. Further using the logic inherent in the four Mahavakyas which I have covered earlier, my essence is the Supreme Brahman. This is the capital I that I am referring to. Typically, in spiritual writings, when the capital I is used, it refers to the Supreme Brahman.

Though Brahman is without attribute, one of the characteristics of Brahman is Maya or the ability to create an illusion. Now, does it mean that Brahman uses some special power to create illusion? No! Just as it is the innate power of the desert to create an illusion or the innate capacity of a rope to give the appearance of a snake in the dark, Brahman has the innate ability to create the appearance of this vast creation. Just as the mirage innately is nothing but the desert or the snake is innately nothing but the rope, this universe is innately nothing, but Brahman.

For ease of understanding, the component of Brahman that seemingly is, in all entities, is called Atman. Readers would easily make out that there is no difference between Brahman and Atman. Just as the sea water in a bucket is the same as the water in the sea, Atman within the confines of a body is nothing but the larger Brahman. But, now the interesting part starts. Just as Brahman has the inherent capacity to create an illusion through Maya, the Atman has the inherent capacity to create a mini-illusion through ignorance. Due to Brahman’s Maya, this world came into being. Due to Atman’s ignorance, the “ego” or the individual comes into being. Whilst the Atman is still the capital I, the ego is the small “I”. The ego is the one that sees itself as something unique. Imagine a situation where we walk into a room full of mirrors of different types, then there would be several images of ours, big fat, thin, beautiful, ugly, whatever. Now imagine, if each of these images assumed an identity of their own! Then, even though I as Shashank is the one creating the several images of myself, each of the “mini” shashank’s are assuming they are separate from the real Shashank and either feeling happy they are young and beautiful or feeling sad that they are fat and ugly and so on.

This is what happens when the Absolute Brahman though only one and indeterminate, causes the appearance of several individual entities called the “ego”. Now the fun starts. The Atman has been dethroned and the “ego” is in charge and it arrogates to itself an identity. Imagine a situation where a young child has got lost in a crowd. It is desperate to get back to its mother. In the same way, though the “ego” has separated, there is a feeling of emptiness and the desire to go back to its roots, which is nothing but the Brahman. Just as the lost child momentarily stops crying when it sees a beautiful doll or a candy, the “ego” tries to cover up its grief at separation by acquiring worldly objects. However just as the child will never be totally happy with the objects it gets, no amount of worldly objects can satisfy the “ego”. The ego is nothing but we people. We try to acquire objects of perception through the sensory organs to satisfy the material void or we try to acquire objects of love, affection etc. through the mind or we try to acquire objects of status, position etc. through the intellect. But just as any amount of candy or toys cannot give permanent joy to the child, any amount of these objects will not give permanent relief from grief to the individual.

Suppose a passerby sees the child and tells it where his mother is, will the child not drop everything and run to its mother? Having got its mother, will it look for the happiness given by the odd toy or the candy? In the same way, the spiritual masters have been repeatedly trying to tell us where our source or the Brahman is. However, most of us, unlike the child which rushes to its mother, have ignored the spiritual call and continued to collect the shiny objects of the world and continue to be in grief. What is this information that the spiritual masters are giving us and we are ignoring? It is the knowledge of our true Self. Just as shining a light in a dark cave automatically removes endless darkness, the light of spirituality, if directed into the intellect will remove endless ignorance and take us back to our roots as Brahman. None of the worldly knowledge can give us this phenomenal liberating strength. It is only spiritual knowledge that can totally free us and make us become capital I from the small “I” that we all have become.

As readers may be aware, 3 of my books on spirituality are available on Amazon.com.

I invite readers of my blog to try any of the books and give me feedback so that I can make changes in the next edition.

1. My Humble Understanding Of Spirituality

My Humble Understanding Of Spirituality