Why would you want to be merely you?

A looked at my teacher, the tree,  outside my window and it said to me :

You have travelled and listened to the wise ones. Have worshipped with them. Loved them.  Been their best friends. Have seen compassion, yes. But also Ego.

Ego is fear. Fear of loss of individuality. Who am I in this world that surrounds me ? The answer is is there if you look carefully at the world that surrounds you, Without prejudice. Without memory.  Just look and observe and you will see you are nothing but an inherent part of all creation. Perhaps an incredibly essential part of creation but no more essential than a leaf that fell from my branch. You are Nature itself. Just because you have mobility and imagination does not make you individual.  The wind that passes by me has greater mobility and imagination that you could imagine through your imagined prejudices.
Your imagination is a gift to revel in the true meaning of existence. But you use it to define and so confine yourself.
You are both God and the servant of God. You are everything that was ever created and everything that was destroyed. You are also everything that will be created and destroyed.
Here and now you are everything. Then why would would you want to be merely you ?
Sit still like me and you will observe. Feel my 1000 leaves rustle in the wind and you will know.

30 thoughts on “Why would you want to be merely you?

  1. extremely ethereal thought!! After reading it i feel even more closer to almighty…really ,frm smallest atom to most giant cosmo in universe ,every creation,including homo sapiens, are part of what hindu mythology call as ‘PARAMATHMA’.Ego should be shed away by all humans.

  2. why i want to be only me, i’ll sit there with the tree as deep as it’s roots as delicate as it’s leaves as stable as its stem as me as you.
    thanks for the thought.

  3. ah! to find there is no me… I am everything…travelling between realms…

    and this…. I KNOW!

    lovely to hear from you and to listen to your beautiful magical thoughts …

    you are often in my mind and I enjoyed deeply your conversation with Deepak on the nature of time…

    expanding my own experiences while upplifting my struggle with structure and the timeless… specially when writing about mystical experiences … where at times … my “nooodles” get burned … LOl

    thus my deep joy when I listened to you and Deepak…

    thaaaaank you …

  4. namaste shekahr…i am chetan sharma from chandigarh..i m a writer and have written a screenplay which i want to share with you…please tel me how to move forward…i m sure you it would connect with you heart….”chetansharma610@yahoo.com”

  5. oh i agree absolutely,,,i am all that i see from the heart…i always njoy wht u do n write..thanks shekhar for existing ..:)<3

  6. “tum aao toh jaan aae
    dil ki dhadkan bd si jae
    aankhien dekhkar tumhari yakeen aae
    jeene ka maqsat sa mil jae…
    yun toh sab jhuth hota hai yahan
    tumse sach kehne ko jee chahe
    yun muskura dete ho jab tum
    khud pe naaz ho jae
    kaise zahir ho
    kaise byan krun
    mere samne jannat cha jae
    jaise ishq mein doobe panchi ka
    dil pinjere se ud jae”
    chetansharma610@yahoo.com
    have a screenplay

  7. Very ethereal thoughts, all our life we strive to find out who, why and what is the meaning of life and the answer is yet to so simple, we are nature, god, spirit, energy, dreams, thoughts, intellect, breathe, ego all rolled in one.

  8. Such wonderful words…so away from the mundane news. So real ans surreal at the same time. IN all my sense, I do know what it means. And with all limitations, I will do try to sense it. Thanks for sharing..

  9. A very good read on Ego..right in the morning, and so required! I , me, myself has taken the prime spot in our daily life! We need to get as humble as the tree! We need to learn! Thanks for sharing.

  10. There has always been reverence associated with spiritual teachers, we simply cannot take the knowledge they are outpouring, but we also want them to behave and act in a certain way, we want them to fit in the mould of “Guru”. And Guru has to behave and act in a certain way, if he deviates from being that, then the very same people who worshipped that Guru, bring him down to human level, and start insulting, humiliating him.
    So a question arises, why do we have to make someone a Guru for spiritual knowledge, why we simply cannot take knowledge from a teacher, just like any other teacher. If Einstein taught physics, we respected him for his knowledge and did not bother about his personal life or his behavior.
    The answer may lie in our need to make someone higher than us. To see someone, who is beyond anger, lust and ego. When these are just the part and parcel of duality, as long as there is duality you will need these tools to function. We have condemned these natural instincts for ages and now we have fixed concepts against them.
    As spiritual seekers we should not bother what other is doing, but raise our own awareness at all times, use the knowledge to raise the awareness, and forget the source of knowledge , and stop associating knowledge with set morality. Just like a thirsty person sees the water and does not look at the source providing the water, it can be well, a river, or tap water, he only wants to quench his thirst.

  11. “Sit still like me and you will observe. Feel my 1000 leaves rustle in the wind and you will know”.

    it is my soul,
    dancing with the wind …
    bringing light
    unto the darkest corners of my heart…

  12. “Then why would would you want to be merely you ?” It has subtle meaning. You can be anything you want to be, but don’t confine yourself. You could be much much greater than what you want to be, or much lesser.

  13. hey, you are amazing philosopher !!

    wish you a lot of apanapan,

    sharvari

    TJHSST, VARGINIA

  14. How True Shekhar. In the same spirit I say

    “I’m the light, the darkness.

    I’m gravity, I’m the blackhole.

    I’m the peaceful silence of the universe.

    I’m an expression of the relentless energy of the universes.”

  15. ” why would you want to be only you ? ” is a profound question for all seekers .

    What is it in the “you” that makes you aware ( even if infrequently) , that you are not you , or not just you ? How many “I”s do we have ? one , many levels of just one , or many different “I”s , some we are not even aware of until the grosser “I” is dissolved ?

    Or is the “I” just a myth , imaginary , self created , like the assumed variable x for the unknown.

    There was once a great Tamil sage called Avvaiyar – a lady saint of great Bhakti to the supreme Lord Shiva. After her husband , frustrated with her spirituality , gave her up – she asks Lord Shiva to transform her great beauty into the form of an Old Woman – what a strange request and so her request granted , assuming a premature old age , she starts wandering in the small villages and temples of South India , singing songs , writing poems etc.

    Anyway , there is a very instructive story of her encounter with a Violent Poltergeist in a dilapidated village temple. The local villagers are scared to go anywhere near the haunted temple. So when she decides to spend the night there , the villagers think she is mental. At nightfall when its dark and scary , the poltergiest wakes up and starts to scare Avvaiyar in many different ways , appearing in violent forms , throwing tree stumps , and getting more and more violent but avvaiyar hardly moves . The Ghost is confused and asks Avvaiyar – ‘ Old hag , are you not scared of me ?!! “. She answers ” Not at all , I have seen and conquered a bigger Ghost , scarier than you , and in front of it , you are nothing “. The Ghost is curious and asks her ” so who is this ghost , scarier than me ? “. Avvaiyar answers ” the Ego, the imaginary Ghoul that haunts every Jiva “. At which point , the poltergiest is released from her hideous form and ascends to a higher world, by the grace of Avvaiyar , but not before she is enlightened by her.

    Hope that was entertaining 😉

  16. There can be no greater truth than what you have written. Our souls are an essence of the Supreme Lord. It is separated from its source only because of this thick veil between Him and us – ego. Once this veil is removed, the soul merges into the Lord just like how a drop merges into the ocean.

  17. @ RUdra – love your story …
    will practice it on my “Poltergeist” LOL
    oh yes …

    the exquisite poem …

    “I am not I
    I am this one
    Walking beside me whom I cannot see
    Who at times I manage to visit
    And at times I forget
    Who remains calm and silent as I talk
    And forgives gently as I move into doubt or anger or fear
    The one who walks where I am not,
    Who will remain standing when I die” – BY JUAN RAMÓN JIMÉNEZ

    I would say…

    I am this I…
    I no longer am…

  18. Hi Shekhar

    Read some reports about you planning to direct the film adaptation of Martin Amis’s London Fields.

    Is it really on or just another project where your name gets associated?

  19. It was years back that I blogged on this website when I knew when I would shift to mumbai I would meet you , and when I did shift I did get to say hello to you at Ficci frames , I was not just sure years back that I would meet you but I even knew when which was around this time , what this goes to say is just an extension of what you are mentioning , that at the matrix level we are a part of the same clay which one can call universal consciousness , salvation would be or the road to salvation would be to start seeing the university in diversity .The moment you start seeing everyone as the part of the same clay manifestations happen you are able to see the distinctions and the oneness , I also think you start understanding why the distinctions are there .

    But realized men and progress do they go hand in hand ? Always ? Is a question I still sometimes ask myself , what do you have to say on this Shekhar Sir ?

  20. Dear Shekhar,

    How do you reconcile yourself with this reflective post and your new post titled “Staff Sergeant Robert Bates kills 16 innocents, 9 children. Yet his life more important than his Afghan victims?” it is an expression of two extremes.

    Some times you reflect deep sense of recognition and some times, you are extremely pained at certain happenings such as above. It is the case with most of us. Which is why i observed that even this feeling of sense of everything… etc.. is just as transient as just anything else, like the pendulum moving from extreme left and right.

    If we believe in ‘karma’ then it is so, that, when one has to die, one dies some way or the other, only,
    and, somebody or something becomes the reason for a persons death, only we interpret it as natural death or violent death.

    I did not want to express myself under the topic “Staff Sergeant Robert Bates kills 16 innocents, 9 children. Yet his life more important than his Afghan victims?” as it would be in appropriate to contemplate about Self in such a topic, hence, here.

    There is no ideal world, that we are aspiring for, the world is full of misery and happiness together. The world and life is composed of all kinds of dualities. If there is happiness, there will be sadness, if there is peace, there will be violence. If there is civilisation, there will be barbarism.

    We only look from the point of view of such dualities, like the pendulum. But in the middle there are no dualities.

    Swinging between sides. From each others point of view, oneself is right. The Barbarian will feel his right violated in the same way the civilized feels.

    Both are equally violent! It is said, more wars have been fought and blood have flown in the name of love and religion, than it is popularly believed so.

    Both are as bad as each other.

    some humble musings.

    Regards
    Ganesh

  21. What I really loved about your words is not their they were inspirational, but calming. They afforded me a certain degree of acceptance and letting go, which is very welcome in the quick pace of everyday life.

    It’s amazing how full of contradiction, we are.

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