Give Up The "I"

Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj

There is the imagined person in you, and you (the Self) are there. Do not become that person projected by your imagination. It is not that "I" should be Brahman, but that the "I" should be dead. Actually, the "I" is itself an illusory imagined entity. "I" is the essence of what is called sin. It demands more and more sensory enjoyments which only kindles more and more desire for sensual pleasures. It is very greedy. Give up this "I". It cannot be slain by any weapon but it dies as soon as you understand it very subtly. This understanding is not so easy to come by. Your task is to make into Brahman that which is already Brahman. You cannot turn that which does not exist, the "I", into Brahman. This is the subtle difference. This does not require spiritual powers. As Brahman is pervading everywhere without division, spread out with no separate parts,who is to search whom, and where? Who is to know whom? Where is the sense of otherness to be found? How can there be anything that is called "second", separate from the One, and how can it know another? There is only Brahman everywhere without any movement. Then what can be known as 'other', the second? You should know this subtle difference. Here, there is no more knowing and not knowing. That "One Brahman" is all-pervading. There is none other to know, or not to know. 

Lord Krishna says, "By steadfast concentration on Me, one gets strength like Me. He attains the power of taking any form by concentrating on any form. When a yogi takes the form of Vayu or Prana, the vital air, and goes anywhere, in any body, he is said to have the power of consciousness entering another body." However, the one who has very strong faith in My Form, My True Nature, sees only Me everywhere. If a man realizes that he is in everyone, where else can he go, to be in an other's body? Whose mind does he need to read when it is confirmed that there is none other than one's own Self?