I’m the first and the last. Who is like me? Let him proclaim it. How do you introduce yourself? Do you know who you are? When someone asks, “Who are you?”
Do you often end up saying what you do and what you are in relation to someone else? “I’m so and so’s son”, or “I’m a doctor”, or “I work in such and such a place, I do this”.
You could be doing anything, but who are you? Are you what you are doing? Is that all? You could be a tailor today. Tomorrow you could be a cook. The next day you could be a teacher. You are a parent. You have been a child. You are a student. You are a patient in bed. You have many roles to play in life. But the sum total of all the roles cannot equal you. You are more than all the roles that you play in your life. When a person identifies himself with a role he is playing, all parts of his personality are not united.
He is in so many fragments, It is like living in compartments, not being aware of the total potential that he is. Essentially this question - Who are we? What is our nature? Is the beginning of the spiritual journey.
The human nervous system has the capacity to inquire about itself, about the nature of living and the nature of being. This very quest is the beginning of humanness. The process of identification, I’m somebody, I’m an American or I am Mexican, I’m Canadian, I’m English, I’m German serves some purpose. But it is not the final truth, it is not the absolute. The spiritual journey is the search for the source. From where have I come? What is the source of this life?
All the major religions of the world move toward this, the search for the source. But in the process people have gotten stuck in their positions. Today the wars and the fights all over the world are in the name of religion. One takes his position, I’m a Muslim or I’m Christian, I’m Hindu or I’m Sikh, I am Buddhist stand those who are not that, they are not mine. They don’t belong to me. So in the process of identifying with this position, that I am a Christian or a Muslim or a Hindu, I don’t even mind losing my life. Even if I die it doesn’t matter, but I’m a Muslim or I’m a Hindu or I’m a Christian.
This must be me. That is what is happening, isn’t it? Is it not sheer madness? We call it patriotism when it comes to the question of nationality, I’m a Canadian or I’m an American. There is no difference between Canada and the United States, just a line on the map. There is no border, nothing has been drawn on the earth. The land does not speak. It doesn’t say, ‘I’m Canada. I am America’.
