REAL IDENTITY – To begin this article, let us ask ourselves, a question:
Who are we?
There are two possible answers: we are human bodies or we are something else within the human bodies. While looking at the words, there is not much difference between the two statements. However, our vision for our life completely depends on the statement we choose.
Which answer will be said as more appropriate?
The answer which is favoured by the Divine Ones will be said to be right because the Divine Ones are the personified form of the Almighty God. Our intelligence is limited to our present lives only whereas the Divine Ones know about our past, present and the future births as well. Therefore, they alone can reveal the reality to us.
How can one sing the glories of the infinite Divine Master by one‟s own limited intelligence?
However, he can obtain the eternal bliss if he comes in the sanctuary of the Divine Master and devotes his mind and intelligence to Him.
The Third Spiritual Master, His Holiness Shri Shri 108 Shri Paramhans Avtaar Ji, enlightens us by His holy words:
“You are not a body. You are an integral part of the almighty God. This human body is like a house for you to dwell.
For example, if we ask anyone about his identity, he would say his name and hometown. When we point out to different parts of his body, one by one, the reply would be, “this is my hand, my face, my nose, my ear, my shoulders, my stomach, my legs, and so on.” When each and every limb has a separate entity, how can the owner of them be one entity? If you are the body, all the parts of the body have different names, then who does your name belong to? It is clear that the name given to a human is imaginary and assumed one.
Secondly, if you call someone with a different name, it makes no difference to him. From this, it is obvious that all the names are assumed ones. The entire world is lost in this myth of name and form, but it is all imaginary. Human thinks that he is the body, but as a matter of fact, he is something else.”
As it is clear from the above text that our identity is not a human body,
so who are we?
The Divine One Shri Guru Amardas Ji Maharaj enlightens us on our real identity:
O my mind, you are the embodiment of the Divine Light – recognize your own origin. O my mind, the Dear Lord is with you; through the teachings of the Divine Master, enjoy His love.
The form of the divine light is known as soul. The human body is the servant of the soul. It essentially has to be well looked after and preserved in a good manner in order to extract the work of spiritual progress, but not to entangle entirely for the pleasures of the body.
When an employer extracts work from his servant, he also looks after him with food and other requirements and provides adequate rest whenever needed so that the servant becomes fresh after recreation and immediately goes on with the work so that the work is not impeded.
If the employer were to constantly pay attention to feeding the servant and looking after his comforts without extracting any work out of him, would the servant be of any use? No, he will become useless.
What a paradox it is that the Master becomes the servant of his servant! Of course, it is the duty of the master to extract work from the servant.
Similarly, the body is the servant of the self and to look after it and protect it is the duty of self, but its main aim should be to extract the required work of spiritual advancement from the body.
It is within the powers of the self to exercise full authority over the body and extract its work. It is obvious that any work extracted from the servant is to benefit the Master and it increases his assets. Similarly, whatever spiritual progress is achieved through this body is to advantage of the soul. It is its earnings and spiritual wealth.
Our real identity is that we are souls.
So, from the above teachings of the Divine Ones, it is clear that we are not human bodies; instead our real identity is that we are souls.
The human bodies have been given to us for the purpose of the spiritual advancement, that is, for the welfare of the soul.
We all are fortunate that we have gained the precious knowledge about our real identity from our Divine Master. Now, we pray at the Lotus Feet of our Holy Master to bless us with such power that we may always remember our real identity and move forward for our spiritual advancement.