The Spirit Of Spirituality: My Imprisoned Self

Sunday, July 14, 2013

My Imprisoned Self

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

The Spirit Of Spirituality

-----------------------------------------------

Last week as usual I came back from work. I opened the door and noticed that the alarm did not go off. I was surprised since my wife was not at home and I thought I had set the alarm in the morning. All the same, I went up, washed up, changed into casual clothes and was walking down the stairs when it shockingly happened. Suddenly the lights went out and I felt a hand grasping my neck. I was dragged down the stairs and someone tied me up and stuffed something into my mouth so that I could not shout. When I was fully bound and my eyes were also blindfolded, the lights were turned on. I could make out somebody walking around and the person started removing the blindfold around my eyes. I opened my eyes and in the blurry vision, I noticed a man in front of me. As my vision improved and I could see more clearly who it was, I got a shock. Here was a man who looked exactly like me and he was staring down at me. How in the world was this possible, I wondered? I thought of all the Manmohan Desai movies of lost brothers when this “twin” of mine poked me with a stick and asked me to get up. He took me downstairs and locked me up in the storage room. I could hear him on the phone calling up my friends and talking menacingly. I peeped out of the window and could notice this “twin” making menacing gestures at my neighbors. I was wondering how to get over this situation when I saw a big bandicoot charging towards me. In trying to escape it, I slipped and my head hit the floor with a thud. I was sweating profusely and realized I had fallen off my bed. Gosh, I thought, what a nightmare that was! But then what if this was true. What if I was not what I thought I am, but am actually someone else?

What if someone has overpowered my inner self and imprisoned it and started putting on an illusory face outside? This unfortunately is true for most of us. What am I really? I have covered in several articles earlier that in reality I am nothing but the pure Existence or Life Principle or Brahman or Atman or Soul. However its evil twin, the Ego has imprisoned my Soul. The poor Soul, which really is the owner or king of my mind and intellect, is now banished and in its place, my mind and intellect are governed by the Ego. Whereas the Soul was all bliss and non-dual, the Ego has arrogated to itself a separate identity and sees itself as different from others and the world. Once there is differentiation and duality principle has come in, the Ego experiences all the vicissitudes of this changing illusory world. It experiences happiness and sadness, calm and disturbance, birth and death etc.

But why does this happen in the first place? Why is it that the Soul appears banished and the Ego seems to be in control?

We have to blame the Soul itself for this. The Soul has an innate capability of throwing a mask around itself and this mask at the microcosmic level of the soul is called a “Ignorance” or “Avidya”. Please note this ignorance is not the same as ignorance of the alphabet or numbers. It is a much deeper ignorance, which masks the true identity. Just as the eye itself creates the “cataract” which blinds it; Just as the sun itself creates the clouds which seemingly hide it’ In a similar manner, the Soul’s own innate capability creates the ignorance and the identification with Ego. At a macro cosmic level, the Brahman appears to be clouded by “Maya” or Illusion and thinks it is the “universe” or “Jagat”.

So if ignorance is an innate capability of the soul, how can we get over it and stop identifying with the ego? Just as in my dream, the appearance of a bandicoot made me slip and fall and get over the illusion, similarly a hard blow of sorts will wake us up from our false ego-centric identity and make us realize our true nature. In a way for Gautama Buddha, the sight of the diseased man, the dead person etc, were the elements in a dream, which woke him up to reality. I know of another lady who has had a near death experience and has now woken up to reality. In most of our cases, we will not experience anything so dramatic. But if we are not careful, we will miss even the signs that tell us that it is all a dream. If in my dream, I had not noticed the bandicoot, I would still be a prisoner of my twin and keep suffering.

Do we need to worry that we will miss the signs and never be free? No! There is hope still. So long as we are open to a change even in a remote manner, a spiritual teacher will make his appearance in our lives when we are ready and set us on a path towards getting out of the dream. In my case, it was my mother’s failing health and subsequent death which made me to start thinking of something beyond all this, when I was introduced to my guru through a chance article in Business Week. I have made some progress, but the roots of ignorance are so strong that the Ego is much much more powerful than the Soul and I keep getting pulled back into the illusory world. This tug of war will continue for probably several births, till one fine day my intellect is able to totally give up the Ego and become the Soul and merge into Brahman after which there is endless bliss.

I hope such a day comes in my life and in the lives of all my readers. I wish good luck on the quest for eternal bliss.

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