You Are Not Who You Think You Are. Here's What You Actually Are

Listen carefully. For your entire life, you have been living a lie. Even me, initially, we walked the earth wearing a mask, so utterly convinced of its reality that we have forgotten the face beneath it. You have come here today, believing you are a person. You believe you are a specific name, a specific age, carrying a specific history, burdened by specific problems, and marching toward a specific future and things like that. But I am here to tell you that this person you think you are does not exist, and I'm not saying anything new. It's just a ghost, a shadow, a phantom created by memory and imagination. You are not what you think you are.

You see, let us examine this identity you guard so fiercely, or any of us guard. You say, "I am this body." Look at it. What is this body? It is a temporary gathering of elements: earth, water, fire, air, and space, and things like that. It is made of the food you have eaten. It is constantly changing. The body you had as a child is entirely gone. Not even a single cell remains. It is born. It grows. It decays, and it will inevitably turn into ash. How can you, the eternal experiencer, be something that appears and disappears? You are not the body. To identify with a bag of flesh and bone is the root cause of all our suffering.

Now you might say, "Okay, if I'm not the body, then I am the mind. I am my thoughts, my feelings, my intellect." Look closely at the mind. What is it? A chaotic stream of fleeting thoughts. A thought rises, stays for a moment, and vanishes. An emotion happens. It peaks and then dissolves. If you were your thoughts, you would cease to exist the moment thought ends. But when the mind goes completely silent, you are still there. You are the one who sees the mind. You are the one who says, "My mind is restless," or "My mind is calm." The seer cannot be the scene. You are not the mind.

And also, we all say, "I am the doer. I am the one who watches, who fails, who loves, and who suffers." This is the ego doing its tantrums. The greatest illusion of all. You believe you are the author of your actions. Yet the universe operates through the integrate, infinite play of nature. Breath happens, digestion happens, the heart beats, the cosmos turns, and you, a tiny fragment of this vast happening, stands up and claims, "I did that," or "I did this." Are you seeing how narrow-minded we are? You are not the doer. You are not the enjoyer. You are not even the sufferer. You have never done anything in the first place. You are the self-aware reality, which is the substratum of all, on which the sufferer, the suffering, and the person and the character exists. Whether you are God or devil, the character will go through whatever it has to go through. But you are not the character. That's all I'm trying to say.

If you are not the body, not the mind, and not the doer, then what are you? You are the self-aware reality. You are pure, unstained, utterly infinite self-aware reality. And I'm not joking, and I'm not saying anything poetic. This is the truth. You are the silent, luminous screen upon which the movie of this universe is playing. You know, Krishna in Bhagavad Gita said, "The fire cannot burn that, water cannot wet it, wind cannot dry you, weapons cannot pierce you, you have no birth," and things like that. And Krishna was not trying to be poetic. He was actually telling the truth, and therefore, you cannot have no death or no birth too. You have no form, no chaos, no limits. You are the eternal self-aware reality, whether you like it or not, or believe it or not.

We have been fooled for generations together, saying that we need to attain liberation. That's the most idiotic thing that anyone can say, because we are already liberated. The one who is seeking liberation is a creation of mind. See false as false. You need not see the truth, because truth does not need to be seen. You are the self-aware reality actually. Look right now. There's a presence looking through your eyes. There is an awareness hearing these words or reading these words. That awareness does not have a name. It does not have an age. It does not have a past. It is entirely untouched by the tantrums of your history or the anxieties of your future. When the body is sick, that awareness is not sick. It merely witnesses the sickness.

Now, I'm not saying when you find the truth, your suffering will end. That's not going to work. The wave that realizes that it is the ocean will continue to be the wave as long as the momentum exists. But the relationship to the drama of your life will be cut. It's like cutting the Wi-Fi, switching it off. No more tantrums from the world. But you are not the character. When the mind is depressed, that awareness is not depressed. It merely witnesses the depression. You are the silent, untouchable awareness. Whether you like it or not.

Why then do we suffer? Why then do we all suffer? Because you suffer for one and only main reason, which is identification. You, the infinite, have shrunk yourself down and squeezed yourself into the shape of a mortal body. Because we have been told that we are the body and mind, and we need to follow the feet of guru. We need to sing bhajans. We need to do that. We need to do this in order to be liberated. That's all absolute narrow-minded stuff. Does a woman need to follow a method to become a woman? Does a wave need to follow a method to become ocean? Does fire need a meditation technique to produce heat? Are you seeing what I'm seeing? When many people ask me, "Aswin, give me a method," I only tell them this: you don't need a method. You're fooling yourselves if you think you need a method. And a noise following a method to reach silence will only make more noise. You are absolute silence. You are the self-aware reality on which the noise and the character is existing. See the false; truth is there, just like that. A noise does not need to see silence; a noise has to stop making noise, and what remains is only silence. When everything unwanted is removed within you, what remains is the self-aware reality. You are like the lion which has forgotten that it is a lion, and it is wandering in the forest, bleeding like a sheep. Bondage is nothing but this thought: "I am the body,

I'm bound by the world." Liberation is nothing but seeing that you are the self-aware reality on which the entire drama of the world is happening.

And let me tell you something very important: that seeing of the truth is not done by you or the mind. It is done by the act of seeing. Do not seek liberation through endless practices, rituals, or lifetimes of meditation. The very idea that you must attain freedom implies that you are currently bound. It implies that freedom is in the future. That or this is a trap. You are not bound, and I'm telling you the truth. You are free right now, and you were ever free. If I have to tell it deeply, particularly, there is nothing called as freedom for you, because you were never bound in the first place. Only a person who is imprisoned can have anything called as freedom. You never were; you never had bondage. So therefore, there's nothing called as freedom to you. If you think you are bound, you remain bound. If you think you are free, you are free. As you think, so you become.

We all are waiting for an experience, a flash of light, a mystical state, to confirm our enlightenment. Drop this foolishness. Experience comes and goes. States of mind come and go. What you are is the permanent reality that allows experience to exist. I might sound poetic, but that's the truth. You are that from which ocean gets its water. You are the space in which the universe appears. Just as the sky is never stained by the dark clouds that pass through it, you are never stained by the thoughts, actions, or the events of your life. This does not mean your life will be perfect. Nobody's life is perfect. Let's all get that. Even God faced backlashes from the world. To think that my life should be perfect in this world is absolute narrow-mindedness, because even a bird goes through a bad day. Even an animal goes through a bad day. A father bird which goes to bring food is not guaranteed that he will return, because there are a lot of predators. To think that I want to be happy always is utter foolishness. Maybe that's why we all suffer.

So what must you do? Absolutely nothing. To do is to reinforce the illusion that you are a doer. Simply be; your body and mind knows what to do. You need not involve separately, telling, "I need to do this." It's like, you know, when the movie director is directing, he or she knows what they are doing. You need not go ahead and tell the story of what to do and what not to do. Simply be. Detach yourself from the physical form. Rest your attention in the pure absolute self-aware reality and finish the game. The moment you see the false knot between the witness and the body, in that very fraction of second, you'll be happy, peaceful, and free from all bonds. Why? Because the one who was suffering and going through life does not exist. What exists is only the body and the mind. What exists is only the character. Stop carrying the burden of the universe on your shoulders. Let it go. The universe does not need your anxiety to run it. We are all fooling ourselves if we think the world needs us to purify it. What nonsense is that? That's like saying the sun needs a candle so that it can see light. You are the all-pervading reality, whether you like it or not. You are the self-aware reality, and you have been desperately seeking in the garbage of the world. You are the peace you have been begging for. And see this for yourself. I'm not joking. You are not who you think you are. You are the one eternal, formless, unshakable, absolute, utterly, purely the self-aware reality. Oh God, I'm just loving to speak. Rest in that and be free.

Ultimately, I will conclude my speech by saying: follow the message, not the messenger. I'm doing all this social media just to make a living and for the joy of speaking alone. You are the self-aware reality, which is the substratum of all, whether you like it or not, or believe it or not. Thank you.