What is the True Self, and how do we realize it in our lives?
When you turn to the scriptures, which are the highest source, to learn about the self, you will find a lot of descriptions that revolve around an exact definition. They’re honest about it. They say that they’re going ‘around the Truth’; what they offer are words that give you an idea, an aspect, a reflection. But the scriptures emphasize that to really know the self and experience it, you have to look within and meditate. They even outline different practices.
The experience of the self is one that we can only have through experience, not by reading about it. This is why the scriptures, the great sages and saints have all, for thousands of years, pointed us inward. If you want to learn math or science, the experts will teach you all the equations, the tenets, the details. But you cannot obtain knowledge of the self through someone else’s words any more than reading a menu can satiate your appetite or someone’s description of water can quench your thirst.
We are given descriptions around it. It cannot be cut by knives, nor dried by the wind; it cannot be burnt by fire, nor wet by water. It is eternal. It was never born and it never dies. It is infinite, complete and perfect. It is the Divine. These are certain aspects and attributes of it, but none of them is a precise definition that enables us to know, to truly experience in this moment, the Truth of the Self. For that, we need to go within and discover it. That is why the scriptures and the sages point us towards meditation practices.
The experience of the self is expansive, unbounded, without borders. It is an experience of love—not just love for an individual or several individuals, but simply love. It is awareness—full, complete awareness without judgement—for everything is perfect. Everything just is. It is stillness, but a stillness that is alive, that is full, not a stillness that is the absence of movement. It is silence, but not a silence that is the absence of sound, rather a silence that is alive and full. It is truth—eternal, unchanging truth.
One of the ways in, to understand who we really are, is by realizing what we are not. The meditation practice called ‘neti, neti’, which is literally, ‘not this, not this’, helps us achieve this. As we remove layers of identification—‘I’m not the clothes on my body, I’m not my skin, I’m not my blood, I’m not my muscles or organs’—slowly we reach a place, a state, in which the self just emerges.
The rationale behind these practices is that we can connect with what the self is through realizing what the self is not . For example, if you ask me, ‘What does a naked body look like?’ I could try to use words, to verbally describe it to you. I’d talk about some tone of flesh, hair, orifices, but all of that is talking around it and I’m not going to be able to give you a clear idea of what nakedness really is. The best answer I could give you is to tell you to go take off your clothes and look in a mirror. So this is what the practice of meditation is for. It helps us identify and remove that which is not self, layer by layer, until we can see the True Self. It is the experience through which we can actually know the True Self ourselves, and not merely conclude based on what we hear someone else say about it.
What is meditation?
Meditation is a noun, not a verb. It is more who we are than just what we do seated on a cushion for a few minutes or hours each day. It is knowing and living as the True Self. It is not a complex, esoteric skill that only experts can perform, such as feats of gymnastics or long division without using paper. Meditation is what gets us back in touch with who we really are, but without judgement or analysis. Meditation creates stillness in the mind so that we’re able to genuinely live and experience the Truth of who we are. Our problems are not outside; they’re inside. Our minds run around and repeat stories to us—stories that we’ve taken in from our culture, our life. Stories that we’re too much of this, not enough of that, that we should be like this and not like that, and so on. It’s that judging, commentating voice. We internalize that voice, and most of us hear it all day long on repeat. If we listened to our thoughts intently, we would notice that the vast majority of them are utterly useless and make little sense.
If you consider yourself intelligent and thoughtful, there’s nothing quite as humbling as watching your thoughts. If you’ve never done that, you may assume, ‘Yes, I think very deeply and I’m very contemplative.’ But the truth is, most of us really aren’t, most of the time. The mind simply does its thing, running on indiscriminate autopilot most of the time. Of course, in the midst of that chaos in the mind, the judge bellows loudly about what is wrong with us and how we should be. That’s what fills our minds most of the time.
Then there comes in thoughts about who others are, who they should be, what they’re doing, what they should be doing, and all of the judgement, yearning, longing, wishing and aversion that clog our minds. It’s not who we are, it’s just what our thinking mind has been habituated to doing mechanically.
Meditation gives us the experience of what it would be like if this weren’t going on all the time. It’s not a very complex skill, but the lack of complexity doesn’t mean it’s easy. This is because of the games that the mind plays. Don’t think that unless you’ve got lots of free time to learn meditation, you won’t succeed. If you’re able to just breathe it out as it comes—whatever ‘it’ is that comes—and bring your awareness back to the breath, you are meditating, and it will ground you back in the truth of who you are.
A deeply powerful way to recentre ourselves, even in the midst of our daily busy lives, is to bring the breath and awareness to the area right below the navel, about two inches below the belly button. It’s a very special energy centre, a chakra. It’s considered, in many cases, in many ways, the core, the source of the self, and the place from which many saints and sages (even from different religious traditions) meditate.
Resting there, connecting in this energy centre grounds us back in who we are. Otherwise, most of us tend to just flop around in our minds and consciousness. We react, rather than act. Who we are is determined by what’s happening around us. If somebody says something, we react. If somebody does something, we react. The awareness of who we are usually tends to exist on this very superficial level, simply in how we are interacting with the world around us. We are peaceful, elated, angry, frustrated, powerful, powerless, fulfilled, unfulfilled—all based solely on the situation around us and how we react to it.
Meditation brings us back into a place of real awareness—awareness without judgement and analysis, open-eyed witnessing of who we are and what’s there when we remove the non-self from our identification. Through meditation, we are able to peel back layer after layer.
Just train your awareness on your breath, and keep bringing your awareness back when it wanders. You can add in a mantra if you find that your mind wanders too much. You can even add open-eyed meditation if you find that closing your eyes causes the mind to wander too much. Watch a candle flame, look at an image of the Divine that evokes feelings of divinity in you. While you do that, just keep bringing your awareness back to the breath in the body. As you breathe, you’ll notice there are places that are tighter, places that are freer. We’re not analysing, we’re not going into stories of how our body became tight or injured. It’s not psychotherapy. We’re simply noticing if something comes up, and then bringing our awareness back to the breath.
The body is a very fluid container for the breath. The breath grounds us in the body, and also connects us to a divine consciousness that’s not just outside, but both outside of us and inside of us—that entire spirit or soul or divine universe. Like a tree, we can then grow—rooted in the earth and rising into oneness with the universe.
Why must the mind be controlled?
The idea is not to control or subdue the mind with a whip. The mind simply needs to be trained to work for us rather than against us. The mind is a beautiful tool, organ and muscle in many ways, and what it needs is to be understood and trained. I avoid words that imply a struggle or a fight, because ultimately it’s all taking place within ourselves, and we don’t want one part of us trying to suppress or vanquish another part. All parts of us need the same thing: compassion and love, and to be seen.
When we talk about controlling the mind, it’s not about using a whip, or holding it in a vice-like grip. The goal is to train it to be a great tool in our hands rather than the master of the show. For example, we may say that we don’t want our minds to be impacted by the outside world. Yet, taking cues from the world around us is what helps to keep us alive. For example, we step off the pavement to cross the street when suddenly, out of nowhere, a speeding car comes our way. If we’ve quietened our mind so completely that it’s not bothered by any external stimuli, we’ll just walk right on to the path of the speeding car.
What we’re looking to do is train, rather than subdue. Let it pick up cues from the external world, whether through smell, sight or sound. The world has glorious experiences to offer us—the fragrance of flowers, the ability to look into the eyes of someone we love, to behold a sunset, to listen to music and allow it to change the frequency of our bodies, and so on. We are surrounded by beautiful things. But we don’t want to be a slave to those stimuli, and that’s the issue.
Normally, we simply react. Our lives become a series of stimuli and responses, akin to Pavlov’s dogs. But that is not the highest calling of our lives or the highest use of our minds. That’s why the mind must be trained. Let’s say you’re walking down a street. You’ll see restaurants, cafes, other people, an ATM machine, maybe a music store. The streets are filled with innumerable stimuli—a barrage of visual and auditory stimuli. No one can actually absorb all of it. We’re seeing the world through a filter of our personal minds and attention. Imagine you’re walking down that street starving—you’ve just got off work, haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast and it’s seven o’clock in the evening. What are you going to notice? The music store? No, of course not. You’re going to notice the eateries! Pizza, or Chinese food, or maybe a sandwich vendor. So that’s what you’re going to notice. Restaurants. If you aren’t hungry, but are driven by sensual desires, you’ll notice attractive people on the street.
What we see is actually determined by the mind. If a hundred people walk down the same street, they will experience it in a hundred different ways. It’s not that they invent their experiences. They are all equally justified in their perceptions. One person will notice the pizza place; another who may have just got a cast of plaster off her leg will keep her eyes on the ground to make sure she doesn’t fall.
So training the mind is having control over what gets absorbed. That’s what meditation gives us. It is a practice, a tool to help us master the mind. When we focus on the breath, what does that do? It takes our awareness from a thousand places and brings it to one. It doesn’t have to be the breath; it could be a mantra. It could be a candle flame; it could be awareness in general. There are entire schools of meditation based purely on the practice of awareness. We teach that if you sense an itch, bring the mind back to the breath, but there are schools of meditation that say if it itches, allow the awareness to be with the itch and name the sensation ‘itching, itching, itching’. They’re all just different ways, different mechanisms, to take the mind from jumping aimlessly in a thousand places and make it sit in one place. The various techniques available help us get a little bit more familiar with it, befriend it and train it. ‘Ah, you were in a thousand places, now you’re in one, whether it’s my breath, whether it’s my mantra, whether it’s my itching foot, you’re in one place.’
From that one place we’re able to take it deeper and eventually come to an awareness of who we are that isn’t the mind. If I believed I was my thoughts, and now there’s a space between the thoughts, then who am I? Who am I in that space between my thoughts? If I am my mind and I am my thoughts, then the moment this thought ends, who’s thinking the next thought? In the space between thoughts, do I disappear?
Ultimately, meditation brings us into that awareness. But first, we have to bring the mind to one place. Slowly, over time, it’ll happen. It’s hard for everybody in the beginning. The very nature of the mind is to be all over the place. Bring it in, and slowly, what you find is that the space between the thoughts grows. Then when you move about in the world, and things begin to happen around you, you’re no longer just reacting, because you’ve cultivated a habit of non-judging, non-analysing, non-reacting awareness. In meditation, we learn to witness without reacting. Maybe my ankle itches. I am aware of it but I do not scratch. I cultivate the ability and habit to simply be, without reacting. My mind may be aware of the itching foot, but I’m practising an awareness-based form of meditation. That cultivates an entirely new habit that stays with us, not just in meditation but also in our interactions in the world. The person in front of me can, metaphorically, become my itching foot. She may be doing something that’s provoking me, I want to react, I want to say or do something, but I know I have a choice, because I’ve cultivated the habit of being still in meditation. It takes a little time, though.
Another extremely important aspect of meditation is that as my mind becomes still, as it withdraws from the habit of reaction, into that space in which I begin to experience the vastness, the infinite nature of my self and my connection with the entire divine universe, I become aware of the divinity of others as well. A lot of times, at the beginning of a spiritual path, if there is not enough humility, surrender and depth of sincere practice, people may touch upon an experience of divine connection but not gain the full experience or meaning. They then use that experience to further separate themselves from others rather than to connect. So you hear people say: ‘I’m living in God consciousness, therefore you should do the household chores and take care of the children, because otherwise, that would disrupt my God consciousness.’ Or, ‘I’m in God consciousness, so you should touch my feet, take care of me and do the cleaning up today.’ If we really are living in God consciousness, we realize that everyone and everything is God. God is not bounded by my body, so if my experience is genuine, then it’s the consciousness that you and I are One, One in God, One as God. That consciousness has to begin with the self, of course, because only then can we recognize it in others.
Sadly, the human mind and ego are so subtle and manipulative that if we give them an open field on which to play, that’s exactly what they’ll do. They’ll take a spiritual experience and run with it, but instead of running into surrender, truth and expansion, they’ll run straight into arrogance, ignorance and separation. This is why we have meditation techniques, this is why we go to satsang, pray, sit at the feet of the Gurus, and engage in spiritual practice. These practices help us stay grounded in that Truth, so that our consciousness doesn’t become an open field for the play of ego, mind, illusion and ignorance.
Why is it that different people seem to experience the Soul differently? Meditation connects us with our True Self. Our Self is One with all; there aren’t really plural souls, but rather One Soul, of which we are all varying forms and manifestations. However, despite the oneness of the Self, the way in which we each experience that Self is different. Because we’re in different bodies, with different histories, sanskaras or patterns, we’re going to experience that Self differently. Certain meditation techniques will work for me; different ones will work for you.
What runs a microphone? Electricity. What runs a lamp? Electricity. What runs a camera? Electricity. The same thing is running them all. The electricity flowing into the microphone is the same as the electricity powering the light or the camera. However, because the vehicles are different, the manifestation of that electricity is going to be different. Fans give air, lamps give light, microphones give sound. Similarly, when we meditate, we’re meditating on the Self, but I’m going into it with my specific, personal medium of consciousness, which is my brain, my mind.
Ironically, that brain/mind which, when it’s not in our control, prevents us from experiencing the True Self, is the very brain/mind which is now needed in meditation to experience it. The answer to knowledge of the Self is not to get rid of the brain or mind, although they are frequently an obstacle to our deepest experience. The physical brain is the medium through which I experience consciousness. It is not my consciousness, but it is the way I experience it, the same way that my eyes are not sight but they are the medium through which I experience sight. If I didn’t have eyes, the world would still have sights to see but I would not be able to experience them. Similarly, if I had brain damage and no brain activity at all, the Self or soul would still exist, but my ability to consciously experience it would diminish.
How can we analyse our thoughts and emotions, and at the same time be in the present moment? I find myself sometimes observing my thoughts, words and instincts, which leads me to understand myself better, but it removes me from the present.
We balance it by doing both at different times. For example, when you take a shower, it wakes you up entirely. How can you stay asleep and bathe at the same time? Well, you can’t. It’s very important to sleep, and it’s also very important to bathe, but you can’t do them at the same time. In the same way, both of these aspects of understanding and witnessing are very important to our spiritual practice, but most often, they don’t happen together.
One aspect is the witnessing. This is the non-judgemental, non-analytical, non-contemplative, non-introspective act of simple witnessing. Just being present in the moment without judgement. You meditate and watch your breath, and when thoughts flood your mind, you don’t allow your awareness to latch on to them. You don’t analyse them or judge them. A physical sensation, such as your stomach growling, may distract, but the witnessing mind simply notices and brings the awareness back to the breath. The thinking mind would get hooked to the sensation, leading to thoughts such as, ‘I’m so hungry, I haven’t eaten since last night. I wonder what’s for breakfast . . .’ The analytical mind would come in and say, ‘I read this article that says it’s not good for the adrenal glands to go hungry for so long, so maybe I should change my meditation time . . .’ Or, the even deeper analytical mind says, ‘Why am I thinking about food?’
Each of those is a very valid issue to ponder upon. We have a body, and if something in our schedule is not working in tandem with the physical health and stability of our body, that’s an important point to address. But not during meditation. It’s also important, if the same thoughts keep coming back into our meditation, to investigate why that is happening. Why are certain thoughts or certain types of thoughts besieging me? That’s important to analyse. But not while we’re witnessing.
Human beings are the only species that have the ability, to our knowledge, to be aware of their own consciousness. We’re the only beings that actually have the ability to watch ourselves consciously. If I start to get angry, but my meditation practice is strong, then I witness the anger approach. I see it but it doesn’t drown me because I am rooted in the consciousness, watching the wave of anger draw closer and closer but not actually getting impacted by it. If, on the other hand, I haven’t cultivated the ability to witness, then as soon as anger hits, I find myself screaming, shouting, hitting, throwing things, drinking, using drugs, bottling up the emotion or developing ulcers. I have become the anger. This is why we say, ‘I am angry.’ We identify so completely with the anger, if we have not cultivated the habit of witnessing, that we truly feel we have become anger in that moment. The witness enables us to see it, recognize it, but not identify with it and, therefore, not drown in it. It is much like a wave crashing on the beach down below while we sit on a cliff high above the waters. We are aware but haven’t drowned.
The act of witnessing gives us, first in our meditation and then in our life, a different place to sit. Most of us sit right in the centre of the drama of our lives: ‘I’m happy, I’m sad, I’m hungry, I’m sleepy, I’m excited, I’m nervous.’ If I ask you, ‘How are you right now?’ most of us are going to say something along the lines of, ‘I’m excited about the party’, or, ‘I’m nervous about my exam tomorrow’. Whatever the answer may be, it’s going to come right from the place of drama.
Witnessing teaches us to sit, instead of smack in the middle of the drama, in the consciousness of the one who only witnesses.
We need to be able to witness, and while we’re doing this, we cannot analyse, because absolutely any analytic activity of the thinking mind takes us out of the spacious awareness of witnessing. In witnessing, we are just there . We’re not judging, analysing or following our thoughts. We’re just aware of them, in the way we watch the waves go up and down at the seashore.
However, analysis and understanding are also very important; they require a different time and place, though. So if you notice that the same thoughts keep arising all the time during meditation, such as thoughts of food, it is helpful to analyse that. There are two possible reasons for this experience. One, of course, is that you may be going too long without food and your stomach is growling. However, if you find yourself always hungry in meditation, even when you’ve just eaten, then that is something worth thinking about. What’s the inner emptiness? What are you hungry for? What are you longing for? Or, why are you looking to run into the next meal or snack instead of sitting in meditation? What is it that’s coming up for you in meditation that you would like to numb with food?
If certain fears, desires or experiences, such as hunger, keep coming up, they are worth examining because that’s the stuff that’s preventing us from fully connecting with the Divine within ourselves.
Lastly, the analysis and the understanding take place in the mind, and the ‘being present’ takes place in the heart, the spirit, the soul, and in consciousness. The mind separates, the mind thinks about things. In meditation, the ultimate goal is union with the Divine, the Universe, the Creator and Creation, so if you relegate your meditation to your thinking mind, you lose the opportunity to connect with your heart, to sit in consciousness and awareness. We must devote exclusive time for both.