I am He!

Chidanand Rupah Shivoham Shivoham Mind, nor intellect, nor ego, feeling; Sky nor earth nor metals am I. I am He, I am He, Blessed spirit, I am He! No birth, no death, no caste have I; Father, mother, have I none. I am He, I am He, Blessed spirit, I am He! Beyond the flights of fancy, formless am I, Permeating the limbs of all life; Bondage I do not fear; I am free, ever free. I am He, I am He, Blessed spirit, I am He! Many a times it happens that I get tired by the hectic schedule of the day. When I reach the home at night I am totally exhausted. My mother has taught me to read the few hymns from some selected books before going to bed. The one that I like most is a small collection of spiritual poetry by Shri Aadya Shankaracharya. His lifespan was very small, of 32 years only, from 788 to 820AD. When I read any poem from that collection, I forget all tiredness. Even if I read the same poem again, it gives different insight about life. Today I have selected the one of the famous poems by him. The original Sanskrit script reads as - Chidanand Rupah Shivoham Shivoham! English translation reads like this Mind, nor intellect, nor ego, feeling; Sky nor earth nor metals am I. I am He, I am He, Blessed spirit, I am He! The words and the thought expressed by these words fascinate me. In some sense, a complete explanation of the nature of Reality and the entire wisdom of the path of Self-Realization is contained in this short poem. Our mind is always materialistic. We are always connected to earthly matters. We rarely forget our ego. We give utmost importance to our feelings. But the thoughts in this poem take you to different level. Your attachment to earthly matters melts down. Your mind is liberated from material things and mentally you start flying in the sky to pursue the goal. And you come to know that the goal is somewhere far beyond the horizon. But because you are above the ground level you get the Birds Eye View of the whole world. That is the power of the words in the poem. The poet is saying I am He, I am He, Blessed spirit, I am He! It means our Self or Atman or Soul or Spirit IS That Whole Brahman! Thus our true identity is neither our small body, nor our mind nor our intellect, but it is all prevailing and omnipresent Brahman! And this is not mere imagination by the poet. It is the fact of life. All the research in basic sciences going on today - let it be in Physics or Chemistry or Biology- is validating all that has been said by our saints. The Physicists are developing various models of the universe. Those models closely resemble to the description of the universe expressed in our Vedas. Further the poet saysNo birth, no death, no caste have I; Father, mother, have I none. I am He, I am He, Blessed spirit, I am He!

Today we have created so many walls and boundaries. There are invisible walls even inside the family. Again there are conflicts between different families. On a larger scale we have also created boundaries between various villages, cities, states and countries. And at each level we fight as if we are crazy. Apart from these barriers there are walls between different races, castes, sub castes and religions. There are also the walls that divide us financially in different classes such as upper class, middle class, lower class and its sub classes. And many politicians having the only motto Divide and Rule, try to keep all these walls intact. It is said that A man becomes miserable because he creates walls instead of bridges. In this poem, everywhere you will see bridges connecting to all of us. When we think beyond our body, mind, ego and intellect, all of us are same as That Brahman! Thus, spiritually all of us are connected to each other. The same is depicted in the poem Beyond the flights of fancy, formless am I, Permeating the limbs of all life; Bondage I do not fear; I am free, ever free. I am He, I am He, Blessed spirit, I am He! This is the most profound knowledge as far as human development is concerned. For centuries, the philosophers all over the world always strived for the equality of all the mankind. There are philosophies such as socialism, communism thriving for human equality. But they were not aware of the fact that the equality already exists in all of us at spiritual level. And once this is experienced, no reason is left to fight between us. And this was strongly reiterated by our saints. I would like to quote here a couple of analogies. The first is about Human Body. Let us compare it to Laptop running on Battery. Once the charging is completed the laptop can run for few hours without any interruption. The Laptop runs on electricity. The electricity is a form of energy. But it doesnt have any consciousness. It cannot take decisions of its own. Human body can also function for lifetime once the Spirit or Soul charges the body. The Spirit is that Whole Brahman! It is nothing but one form of energy along with consciousness. The brain can be considered as the CPU plus Hard Disc of the laptop. There is Operating System loaded on the Hard Disc. Similarly the Great Programmer that is The Brahman loads operating system in human brain. And here is the proof that Our Spirit and Brahman are sameWe have the power to modify the program that is loaded inside. We can modify it at anytime and number of times in our lifespan. We can achieve anything in our life by programming our brain. We are free to take decisions. We can change our bad habits and nurture good ones. We can carry out the task that is good for whole society. Thus we are the Masters of our own life. Only one thing to be taken into consideration is, our force should always be more than the opposing force if any. And the second analogy is about the World Wide Web, that is, Internet. If our computer is connected to Web, we can get all the available information on the Servers. This is possible because all those Servers are connected. In short, there are bridges connecting all of them. And it has made our life more meaningful. The same is true if we can connect our Laptop, which is our Spirit, with that Brahman. There is abundance of knowledge and energy with that Brahman. Only thing is that we should be able to tap that knowledge and energy. And the key to tap this knowledge and energy is through Concentration and Contemplation. At the end I pray that Brahman to shower on us that abundant knowledge and energy so that we can make a positive dent with our deeds on the mankind.