Asmi

A Guru once asked his pupil,"Who are you?" and the pupil replied,"Aham Bramhasmi!" A literal translation of "Aham Bramhasmi," would be,"I am a Brahman." But then there is deeper a meaning to it than that. There are several versions. I googled them all and tried to understand the true meaning. Some of them explained it well and some did not. There are so many  things that mesmerize me and I wonder will I be ever able to understand them all? I do not know. But I keep trying. My interest in Hindu Philosophy was not always this deep. Like all other people I had a normal life till one day my sister played a prank on me.

Every night my sisters took turns to tell me story in bed. My elder sister aka my other mother told me lovely stories where as the middle one made it a point to make them all scary. That particular night it was my middle sister's turn and she told me a story in which a lot of people died. As soon as she finished narrating the story I asked her whether someday I would die too? My middle sister got excited when I asked this question. She said,"Yes, you, I, mom, dad all of us would die soon, very soon." I found her answer to be unfathomable and extremely disturbing.

That night I just could not sleep. I kept thinking of death. It scared me so much that the next day  I clung on to my parents like gum and they would  not understand why? I stopped sleeping at night and started going to the bathroom several times. I stopped studying and shivered for no good a reason. My parents at that point were so concerned about me that they decided to take me to the doctor. They asked me the reason and I never mentioned my sisters name. Why? Because I am a fiercely loyal person. I do talk a lot but there are some secrets that I will carry to my grave no matter what. And this was one of them. I loved my sisters. I worshipped the ground they walked. They were a decade older to me and I always tried to fit in among them. Which the middle one hated me the most for.

For seven years she had been the younger one and then I had come along. A doll that would not be returned. She was prettier than the both of us and hence commanded more love and respect from my parents. To be honest I have no fond memories of her. All I remember is the prank she played on me and the fights we had that too the loud ones. And every time my parents sided with her. Why? I do not know. Maybe because she was prettier than the rest of us, or maybe because they had an intuition that she would not live long. I never asked them because it would hurt them too much.

Nevertheless our family doctor, Dr.Shenoy checked me and wrote a few medications that dealt with my loose bladder. But the shivering he said he had no clue about and pointed out that it could be due to some psychological fear. He said give her confidence, read her some books that instill courage in the young. As soon as we reached home my mother read a stotra/hymn  from a religious book for me. She explained its meaning which after I grew up I realized was wrong. But at the time those hymns gave me the much needed satisfaction. I started learning them and began my journey on the spiritual and religious path.

In fact later in college I would take sanskrit as my second language to thoroughly understand Hindu scriptures. Apparently the teachers who taught sanskrit  admitted that Sanskrit was a dying language and  there was not much they could do to help me. They said go to Banares. There you will find help. For an eighteen year old the advice  to go to Banaras was insanely stupid. I knew and they knew that it would not happen not at least at that age. Somehow life went on till the tragic death of my middle sister. The drama that followed her death changed my life forever. I indulged more and more into understanding life, death and life after death.  I looked for the meaning of death. I met some people who could talk to the dead. That never happened, of course. I would sometimes dream of my sister generally on my birthdays and wake up only to find that it was just a dream and things would never change. The feeling left me bitter and miserable.

To find peace I started following Swami Vivekananda and Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. I read all their teachings on possibly everything. Vivekananda impressed me so much that I was determined to give up college and become a nun in some Ashram near Saligrama in Mangalore, India. My mother panicked and begged my father to talk to me. My father attained his sainthood the moment he married my mother and his silence grew with the demise of his favorite child, my middle sister. His heart was broken and he chose not to be the bad guy. He had lost interest in us. For him we died along with his dearest daughter. So my mother ended up doing the dirty job.

She tried stick, verbal abuse, but nothing worked. She said she was sure that I would have the same fate as that of my sister. A statement that hurt and disgusted me but I bore it all in silence. I used silence to rebel against her, my mother. I sought love which she did not bestow me with. I tried all I could to keep her happy. I earned money when I was fifteen to support the family, I scored good grades, I cooked, I cleaned, I washed clothes, but nothing pleased her. She downright hated me. She blamed me for her misery and pain, for her fathers decision to marry her off when she was nineteen to a man twelve years older than her. Oh! The blame was endless.

At times when the pain and abuse became unbearable I visited my eldest and only surviving sister and shared my pain with her. She was lucky to have a kid and a job. It deviated her attention. For me I was stuck with a father who refused to leave his silos and a mother who removed her hate and anger on me, her youngest burden.

What helped me survive was my never ending rendevouz with spirituality. I managed to keep balance in life by reading Ramaraksha stotra book which the father of a friend of mine had gifted to me after pitying on my condition. He had said that I would find inner strength by reading it.

I started reading the book and went round and round Gods in temples. I believed in all and did everything I could. But I never found solace in any of it. The moment I found peace something or the other would turn up and I would again enter the state of imbalance.

Then one day when I was feeling down I met two people from Ramakrishna Ashrama who were selling a few magazines. Initially I turned them away but then they said something about my life that made me let them inside the house. With them I discussed about life and death. The man;from the man and woman duo sales team mentioned,"What is death but a long sleep from where there is no return." I said,"Its easy to say that but the questions that haunt you, after the death of a loved one and the "why me" thought is just unbearable!" The woman replied,"Madam, we all feel like we are the center of the cosmos. Hence why me?" She continued," We all have Karmas. From this birth and the past. Some actions can be related to what happened in this birth some cannot. If we try to find answer for every single question then who know's may be we will end up opening can of worms that will only worsen our situation."

My mother who had been sitting quiet throughout the conversation broke her silence and said," It is my ill luck. My daughter was so beautiful. I must have done something wrong. Its me! Its me!" She started crying silently with a few sighs in between. To that the man replied,"Never blame yourself madam. Things happen. These experiences have to make us strong and not weaken us. If we become weak then how will other people live.? Look at this twenty year old daughter of yours aspiring for higher studies, your other daughter who has a child. Life is not over your job is not done. The day your job is done you will not be around. We are all born for a reason."

He continued by saying,"Has not Krishna in Gita said Karmanye Vadhikaraste Ma faleshu Kadachana? Do your duty and leave rest to God. Do good karma in this birth so that your next birth takes you one step closer to salvation."He said,"Look at people less fortunate than you and you will appreciate life." The conversation went on for sometime after that. I subscribed for the magazine and my mother criticized me for that,"Waste money. You earn, you waste. Who am I to say anything in this house?" Followed by silence that sometime went on for a few days.

For me the conversation was new learning, a wake up call.

"How true I wondered?" As an adult and an individual I had a choice to make. I could either dig a hole and sulk in it for the rest of my life or get up, let go of past and live a life which will help me help myself and others who are less fortunate than I.

Some questions I understood were better left alone. I realized that as the sales woman had mentioned, the answers to the questions only made things worse. I was keen to walk the path of recovery. A journey I knew would not be easy.

And it was not. It was painful and agonizing but the will to change was too strong. I climbed the mountains and crossed the sea. I drowned and I gasped for breath. But when I did reach the destination I realized that I was a new person with new goals and aspirations. I did not win life, I dicovered no one can, so I negotiated with it.

I understood that I could not control life but I could experience things in life. I realized that the universe responded to me. So I sent a positive vibration to the universe in order to get a positive vibration back. I decided to forgive and forget. I started with forgiving my sister.

I forgave her for what she did to me and my family. I respected her choice and I stopped probing. This released a big burden off of my shoulders. Then I forgave my mother. I forgave her for her actions towards me. It's not easy to forgive or forget. In fact its easy to forgive and very hard to forget. But I tried and am still trying. I am not yet done but I will be there just where I ought to be because now I know when the Guru asked, "Who are you?" the student replied,"..........................Aham Brahmasmi!"Meaning,"I am the manifestation of God."

Which also means that I and only I have the will and power to change, to do good, bad or ugly, to live or to die, to fight or to compromise, to sulk or, to be happy.

For what is happiness but a state of mind? For what is desire but root cause of sorrow? For what do I own that I fear to loose? For what did I bring with me that I will take back with me? For my doings/karma of this birth is explained in this birth and the ones that cannot be justified are from the doings of some other birth. For my body is a tool and my human birth a blessing. For I will use this body as tool to help my soul attain salvation, to be one with the Almighty.

For who am I? Aham Brahmasmi. The manifestation of God.