I Am Not ONE
by Ashok Sharda
I am not ONE. The I who was I a moment ago, is not the I that I am at the moment. That I might have said yes then, but now I am saying no.
Am I a responsible being? Can I answer for my WHOLE being when the I who answers as me is not here and one of my other Is is here? While justifying his doings the present I now does the opposite of the I who was here a moment ago. Can I ever act as a responsible being when there is more than one self taking turns at the helm?
An acquaintance approached me not long ago and asked me if it was possible for him to become a good religious man. A bit ruthlessly, I answered with an abrupt NO. I knew that all his life he believed himself to be a religious man, and now he felt hurt by my abrupt ruthlessness. To ease his hurt I added in haste, But you can strive to.
How? He asked. Though his face distinctly gave him away, he tried not to let his hurt show through.
Because you are not ONE I quipped. In the wake of his hurt and disbelief I decided it was necessary to elaborate a bit more.
Look, a self of yours, lets call him A, tends to believe that you are a devotedly religious man. This self, or I, acts religiously whenever he is the I in charge. He performs religious rituals as necessary, praying and worshipping accordingly. The question, however, is how long will this A self remain present? Also, if one observes, one will see that this A self approaches religion in a mechanical way. That is, A is hardly present while performing those rituals and doing his prayers.
He seemed a bit nonplussed.
I continued, The very next hour you are B. This B self wakes up energized by his own associations and is not even aware of the existence of the religious A self. The B self is capable of hurting his neighbors. He can easily act in contradiction to your religions principles and laws. Laughing at my acquaintances cost I added, A will preach love thy neighbor in the morning and B shall hurt them every evening (Ha! Ha! Ha!). Both A and B are just two different little selves of one WHOLE, one being.
He kept quiet.
I asked him suddenly, Can you control your emotions? Before he could answer I answered for him, No, you cannot. Why? Because all you can do is suppress your emotions externally or replace them with yet other emotions such as self-pity or anger etc. If one of your intellectual selves happens to be around due to some association, he might do some logical blah blah, but as soon as an emotional situation arises the logical self is no longer here and the emotional self takes control and does just the opposite. (A Bad Girl will emerge and strangle the Good Girl. Ha! Ha! Sorry, this is something very personal that cropped up owing to some association of mine). To cut short our talk I concluded, But if and when you become ONE, you will no longer need to become anything. You will have crossed all dividing lines. You will have become the religion. I dont know if he understood. But I was sure I couldnt have put it more comprehensively.
Once, in the flow of the moment, I decided to pray to God for the sake of writing. I have a record of this dialoging in my journal entry dated September 26th 2001. I quote a part from this journal entry:
Unfortunately I know that this cannot become my prayer just by my
repeating it and reciting it ten thousands times. I shall have to
experience my prayers, not mechanically but with my body, my mind,
my feelings and my soul (if I have any). When I say- I want to
I
must think and realize every thing about my I, rather Is, the
fact that this I resolving to prayer is just a weak thought and
in order to strengthen it what I must do. I must know and realize
that this weak praying I will be replaced by some other I,
some other thought and so on. HOW IS ONE TO PRAY IF ONE IS NOT
ONE? HOW IS ONE TO PRAY IF ONE DOESNT HAVE A REAL I BUT
MULTITUDE OF IS, PETTY, CLAMOROUS AND CONTRADICTORY? But I want
to pray. One of my selves has decided to pray.
My dilemma right now is what am I to do, when I will be not me,
not the I who has resolved to pray but some body else not
wanting to pray? Wanting something else? What will I do when,
while I am praying, some other petty I, thinking of what I am to
get in dinner, will replace me? What am I to do when, while
praying, some of my hurt Is will rake up some hurt feelings and
start abusing my persecutors? I know I will be lost. I will be
not. I will not be praying. It goes without saying that if I want
to pray I shall have to BE. Be a man and not automata, not a
multitude of Is. I want to BE who can DO, who can perform a
prayer. In order to BE, I shall have to remember. I shall have to
remember the resolve that I HAVE TO BE IN ORDER TO PRAY.
Man is really a plural term and man is helpless because he is a machine. The so called Is of each man are controlled by accidental external stimuli. Fine weather will energize one self while cold shall energize another. The presence of a particular person will energize one self while a place will energize yet another. A shape will evoke one self while a color will bring forth yet another. A sound might provide charges to one self while a hurt provides charges to yet another and so on. This process continues as one self continues to replace another depending on the associations with the external stimuli. No one self is permanent. Not one of these selves is a responsible being on their own. None of them is capable of speaking for the WHOLE.
An I will make a promise on behalf of the whole being. Yet, I know people whose little Is have made the WHOLE man pay for their idiotic promises. An I will resolve to wake up early in the morning while another I keeps on sleeping and justifies this act every morning. This I is in the business of being lazy, and getting up is the business of another self. This person will go on resolving every evening to wake up early while continuing to sleep every morning. In the normal course of life (cultural conditionings, habits, imitations, religions, positive suggestions, and traditions) strong Is are created with deep roots that dominate mans personality and his life. For this reason, some of the ancient sacred esoteric schools called MAN a plural being rather than an individual. Mans every thought and every desire lives quite independently of the whole. The WHOLE remains just a name, a body we give a name to, an abstract concept of a self.
We are born BLANK, I suppose, with a being duly programmed termed by the esoteric schools as essence, but with a capacity to grow. In the process of growing, these many selves emerge and become an integral part of our essence and personalities. Every impression from without creates a self within, and every similar impression reinforces this self. In the process, these selves register their own associations that act as their energy sources for their future survival. Now these energy sources or associations will energize these selves. This is why I am A when an association accidentally energizes A, and the very next moment I am B if by accident the association associated with B appears. I can be C or D the very next moment and so on.
I assume that the very first self that might appear on the scene is the self who believes that the mother is good. This must be the first impression the child registers in the wake of satisfying the basic urge of mans essence, the WILL TO SURVIVAL. The mother feeds her child, takes care of him, and consequently the child feels safe in her lap.
If the aunt behaves like a mother then the aunt also seems good to the child. If the aunt behaves differently than the mother, however, then the child will not feel good and another self is created with an impression (sensation, as a matter of fact, since the child senses rather than feels or thinks) that the aunt is not good and all the persons who shall behave similarly to her are, likewise, not good.
In the absence of a permanent I (an INTENDING SELF) one cannot even know that he is made up of a multitude of selves. How is one going to battle with this army of selves and win their associations? One always thinks he is the last I, the one who is here at the moment.
At any given point in time some of the Is are strong while others remain weak. This strength or weakness of a self depends on the quality, frequency, and availability of the external stimuli. The quality and frequency of an association that the self is exposed to determines the extent of reinforcement of that particular I. Normally, emotional Is are stronger than the intellectual and mechanical Is. The associations that drive the emotional Is generate emotional energies that are very difficult to control.
It is the INTENDING I who will have to play the role of an OBSERVING I to begin the process of recognizing the plurality of ones being. The INTENDING I alone has the ability to study these Is and to decide which one should be battled first and understand how to win each Is energy source. To win the battle against each of these unwanted selves the INTENDING I must remember to remember his own presence, and then to counteract their justifications with a predetermined decision to BE and to WIN the battle, whatever the situation may be (even if its Friday ha! ha! - sorry, this is personal, again.). And this INTENDING I must go to the battlefield with a predetermined decision that he is the WINNER.
Why cant we control our actions? It is a question one tends to ask when one begins to battle. The simple reason is that we are MAN- MACHINES and external stimuli control the machine. This, however, is another issue that needs further examination. I shall attempt to explain the mechanism of this man-machine and its defective workings some other day.
For now just know that we are hopeless beings, and only conscious effort can give us some hope. Consciousness can only be attained by conscious efforts and not by sleeping or sleepwalking.
One of the eastern esoteric schools compares man with a house that has many servants but no master. The servants have forgotten their duties and roles and they battle to become masters them selves, if only for a moment. This house is in great danger. The only chance of salvation is to INTEND a self and provide him associations. The INTENDING SELF must struggle to win the associations providing energies to the other selves. The INTENDING SELF alone can BECOME THE MASTER.
Can it BE? Yes it can. The answer lies in BEING. One can strive to achieve ONENESS if one has a special kind of a desire to BECOME.
07/07/2004
