ॐ गं गणपतये नमः
We constantly try to define ourselves by what we do, by the roles we play, by what we experience through the sense-organs or through the mind. So our self-defining statements are 'I am a teacher', 'I am a sister', 'I am short-sighted', 'I am angry', 'I am tall' ....and so on and so forth.
All of this is fine...they try to define me in relationship to what I know, what I experience. But is there a me who is independent of whatever I experience, who is ever-present in and through all that is experienced and yet independent? If such a me is actually there, it means I am free.
Wow! It would mean that I am actually free of all the limitations I define myself by!
To be able to recognize the me who is free of all that I define myself by, we can use the simple rule given by Shastra, to seperate the invariable me, from whatever it is that I experience. The rule is very simple..., I am not what I experience.
Going by that rule I am not this body or mind. I am not the qualities of body or mind. I am not the physiological functions. I am not the roles played. I am not sensations or breath feelings or thoughts or memory or ego.
So what is left? Only 'I am'. I am is an effortless, immediate, self-evident, ever-present independent conscious presence, in whose invariable presence,all that is experienced is illumined and enlivened.
See this fact clearly...again and again. We need to assimilate it well.
Then Shastra pramanam points out that
the effortless, immediate, self-evident, ever-present presence that shines as I am ...is limitless ...is Brahman. Ayam Atma brahman'....this self is limitless. Idam sarvam khalu brahman' ...all that is here is the limitless. This self alone appears as all that is.
Om Tat Sat
