Channel and Not self

 Namaskaram.

“Your thoughts are not your thoughts.

Your body is not your body.
Your mind is not your mind.
The Self is only a concept.”

People say, “Mountains cannot stop me. The wind cannot blow me away. Fire cannot burn me. Weapons cannot wound me.”

Then the question arises: Who is this “me”?

The answer: It is the Mind.

This is the Capital Mind—the Capital Self.

There is one Capital Self, one Capital Mind, one Capital Body and one Capital Thought. All individual minds and all individual selves are part of this Capital Self.

This is the essence of a Gita shloka, which Sri Bhagavan has specifically referred to.

When the word “I” is used there, it refers to the Capital Self.

That is Paramatma.
That is Paramjyothi.
That is the Supreme Self.

It is the Ancient Self, the Ancient Body and the Ancient Thoughts.

The Small Self is only a concept.

Every living being carries what we call an individual or limited self. Bhagavan often refers to this as the Limited Self.

But the Small Self is only a concept. Everything ultimately arises from the Capital Self.

When someone criticises us, we usually feel hurt. When someone praises us, we feel happy.

These are all feelings.

The feelings of “mine” and “yours” cannot really be separated.

Bhagavan says that there is actually only one Mind—the Ancient Mind, the Capital Mind.

The content of every mind is essentially the same. The difference is only in the concept.

The content is one.

All emotions together constitute what we call the mind.

Take the example of a mango.

It is the combination of its colour, shape, beauty, taste and other characteristics that makes it a mango. Colour alone cannot make something a mango. Shape alone cannot make it a mango. Beauty alone cannot make it a mango.

It is the combination of all these characteristics that gives us the experience of “mango.”

Similarly, the different aspects of experience come together to create what we call the mind and the self.

In ancient times, human beings were afraid of wild animals and therefore lived in trees to protect themselves.

Today, people may be so afraid of the stock market that they may even hesitate to go to work and instead prefer to remain at home.

The underlying emotion is fear.

All fears are essentially the same.

Only the concept and the situation have changed.

The feeling that “this is my mind” is one of the main causes of suffering.

If there were no identities such as “mine” and “yours,” there would be no suffering.

But then comes the question:

How can we change a mind that is not even ours?

This is all part of the play of the Self.

Dasaji gave us another beautiful example.

Imagine a building with a water tank on the roof. Suppose there are twenty-five flats in that building. Can each resident say:

“This is my water tank. This is my water.”

No one can really claim that.

Even if the residents leave and new residents come into the building, they cannot claim ownership of the tank and its water merely because they now live there.

The residents change.

But the water tank on the roof remains the same, and the water in it remains the same.

In the same way, body, mind and thoughts together constitute what we call the Self.

This is what is referred to as the Limited Self.

Bhagavan now tells us that thinking, speaking and acting are all happening automatically.

There is no separate thinker.

There is no separate speaker.

There is no separate seer.

There is no separate doer.

These processes have been happening automatically for a very long time.

The feeling that there is someone behind our thoughts, speech, seeing and actions is merely an illusion.

This is what is referred to as Anatma—the mistaken identification with something that is not the true Self.

None of these things truly belong to us.

The belief that all of this belongs to us is Prajnaparadha—the failure of intelligence or mistaken understanding.

The Self is only a concept, an identity created for the purpose of functioning and survival.

Bhagavan often says:

“There are personalities, but there is no individual.”

The individual identity is something that we create.

It is only a concept.

For giving us such profound and beautiful knowledge, and for continuously inspiring and guiding us towards Paramjyothi, Amma Bhagavan, I offer countless prostrations.

Namaskaram.