Who Am I?
At a certain point this question raises fear in the meditator, this is simply because at a certain point one crosses the boundary of ego and enters the world of egolessness. That point is the point of great fear — because it looks like death. In fact, it is a kind of death as the ego disappears.
That has been our identity up to now. Up to now, that’s what we have been thinking we are. And suddenly it starts evaporating. A great fear grips the heart: “I am dying!” because one’s identity is dying. We are not really dying; in fact, we are being born. It is a rebirth; it is a true birth. It is like the seed dying into the soil. The seed must be feeling afraid, nervous, trembling. How can the seed trust that once it is gone there will be a great tree and great flowering? The seed will not be there to witness it; no seed has ever witnessed it, so how can this seed believe and trust?
And the same happens with the ego — the ego cannot trust that there is anything more than itself. And the ego is dying, and the ego starts breathing its last, and we become afraid. Many people turn back from that point, rush back out.
This is going to happen to every meditator. Every meditator has to encounter this situation, this challenge. Many times, people come to the point from where they would have entered into God, but they could not risk, they could not gather courage. They became afraid, scared; they rushed out.
We have to take the risk. And understand that this not death. Yes, it is a death to the ego, but the death of the ego is the birth of the soul. We will die as a drop, but we will be born as the ocean. It is worth it. One will be dying only as a limited being, as a defined being, and one will be born as undefined, undefinable.
Yes, one will disappear, with all one’s neurosis, psychosis. with all one’s tensions, anxieties, anguishes — we will disappear with all our problems, worries; we will disappear as we have known ourselves up to now. But our disappearance is only a change of garments, and we will be getting closer to our reality, deeper into our reality. We will get more rooted into being. That’s the whole search!
One may be standing exactly on the boundary; that’s why whenever the question, ‘who am I?’ arises, immediately one becomes afraid. Feel blessed that we are so close to the boundary from where a totally new world and a totally new life can have a start. Just one single step… and we will be a new person. Just a single step, and all the garbage that the society has dumped on us will have dropped, and we will be just pure consciousness. We will have wings! Now we are just crawling on the earth… and then we will be able to soar high towards the sun.
Every day the outer will go on losing its significance more and more. One day it will be utterly useless to be there. And as the outer loses significance, the inner will become more and more magnetic — simultaneously the process happens. And one day it becomes irresistible — one has to cross the line. And that day is the greatest day in a human being’s life, when we drop our old identity and enter into the unknown — we have encountered God, we have come home.
