A saying of Descartes: “Cogito, ergo sum.” Because I think I can understand from that that I exist. But that is sat, existence, and cit, cognizance or awareness that I exist. This is what separates us from inert matter. Sat, cit, then, a third aspect comes into awareness: I exist for some purpose. So, ānanda. Sat-cit-ānanda: pleasure, happiness, joy, ecstasy. Consciousness allows me to feel those things. But it also allows me to feel sad, unhappy, pain, su ering.

Here we are—13 years into the 21th century: social networking, Twitter, Instagram… In the future people will go, “What’s was that?” It will all change—and become more of the same. And still the world, this I guarantee to all the future viewers, “Tell me if there are still janma, mrityu, jara, vyadhi—birth, death, old age and disease? I’m willing to bet that they are still there.” They are inescapable. Mortality is inescapable. Science hasn’t made people immortal. We are searching after amrita which means “nectar”, and by extension—“immortality”.

“Just do it!” Why? “Because I am worth it.” “Total indulgence. Zero guilt.” Modern advertising and conscience.

Self-analysis: to do an honest assessment of yourself and say, “Yes, I am, in a sense, hopeless, helpless.”

Humanistic sloganeering: monarch conception in mortal existence.

To see yourself in terms of gender, nationality, age is not having a proper glimpse of yourself, and who you are.

We are told, the body is karmic dress. Shall that be the means to de ne an individual? Well, no. It should be, we can’t deny— someone is a human being, someone is a dog, someone is a tree. And we are responsible for the karmic dress we are situated in at present. But if we limit de ning ourselves to that, that would be as if to limit de ning ourselves to the clothes that we are wearing.

The body is the biological expression of the soul’s delusion. So no two are identical, actually, and in that sense not equal. They’re all unique. We have unique spiritual forms and features called swarūp, but at present it is covered by layers of ego—acquired prejudice, acquired tendencies. It’s being pervertedly expressed into this plane, and we’ve taken on these varieties of forms that are all unique, but they’re perverted re ections of the original.

What is real freedom, what is liberation, what is spiritual inquiry beyond the base necessities of existence? That’s actually the hallmark of spiritual culture. Vedanta says, “Athāto brahma jijñāsā”. Now that you’ve achieved human life, inquire about Brahman. That’s where it begins, that’s why it starts with word “athāto”—“now”. Some commentators explained, “It means, now, that you’ve achieved human life, this is what it’s meant for.” What did Socrates say? “The unexamined life is not a life worth living”. Meaning, “ātma-samīkṣa”, self-analysis—to try and understand: who I am? Where have I come from? What is my purpose?

People think that they’re all about “self-expression”, and “I’ve just got to be me”. Sure, you should be you, but nd out, who you are rst. Don’t assume that what you are at present, under layers of acquired prejudice, acquired tendency and false ego, that false self, cocooning and enveloping the actual self, is the self that is worth all of this self-expression.