True Identity by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

If a person identifies himself with a particular race, religion, culture or nationality, he remains in that position and he will fight for that… and die for that… and others will die with him also. Instead, give him a broader perspective – that first and foremost, we are part of the Divine. Our second identity is that we are human beings. The third identity we have is that we are male or female. The fourth identity is that we belong to a particular nation. The fifth identity is that we belong to a particular religion. If the right order of identity is understood, then human values are honored, but if I identify myself with a religion or nationality, forgetting that I am part of the Divine and that I am a human being, then I bring misery unto myself and unto others as well. We have to have proper priorities.

Everything is changing around you – your body, mind, priorities, friends, and foes… Everything is constantly changing. For this change to be recognized we need a reference point – and that is your Being!

Wake up and see that you have a bigger identity than your gender! You identify yourself with the spirit. You are not just a piece of flesh and bone! You are spirit. You are life. You are much more than your gender. The trauma of gender is in middle age. It does not affect children between ten and twelve years and it does not touch people who are over seventy years of age. So it is in between these that the complex arises. That is where you really need to know the knowledge… that you are now spirit. You are the sparkling, scintillating consciousness! When you identify yourself with that, all complexes dissolve and fade away.

The ancient Rishis said that you are ‘Satchitanand’. The sentence given to a child was, ‘tuttvamasi’ – Thou Art That’. Don’t think you are just amino acids, carbohydrates and proteins moulded into either of two different forms – male or female. It is the same substance in two different moulds…something beyond that – the spirit, the consciousness, the bliss that you are…the joy that you are…look to the love that you are! Love is God; God is love, because both are the same ethereal phenomenon. When you come and sit near the Master, you cannot but catch this etherealness in you. When it happens, then the Master says, ‘What do you think you are? Do you think you are a solid body? Do you think that you are a set of thoughts, a set of concepts, ideas or different emotions? No, no, no! Don’t mistake it! This Love that you are feeling – that is what you are – Thou Art That!

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