Mistaken Identity

Three articles in this issue have referred to an idea that Baba Ji often repeats: we are spiritual beings going through a human experience, not human beings seeking a spiritual experience. As the author of from self to Shabd writes:

As spiritual beings, we have the same wholesome, blissful nature that the master has. But by perceiving reality in a delusional way, we have constructed a delusional identity within which we live. This false identity is what gives us the feeling of being apart from the oneness that is in everything and it is the main reason we feel lonely and fearful. If we realized that we truly are the conscious, formless energy – that is, the Shabd – we would be at peace, with no desires, fears, or anxieties….

The root cause of all our problems is the identification with body and personality that we have adopted so unthinkingly…. In reality, what is this individuality that we boast so much about? It is nothing but karmas and desires. Born of the false identification of the Shabd with its human experience over many lifetimes, it is just the illusory product of a huge case of mistaken identity.

If our human experience “is nothing but karmas and desires,” then it is our meditation that will give us the strength to go through those karmas and eventually raise us above the pull of our desires. Hazur Maharaj Charan Singh told us that our meditation consists not just of our effort but the Lord’s grace. As he once recounted in Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. II: “We have to beg. We have to ask, but he always gives…. Of course, we will only get when and what he wants us to get, but we must make the effort by doing the spiritual practice.”

There is no good meditation or bad meditation – we attend to it because our Master has asked us to; it is his hukam. We can just relax and have faith that we are slowly, steadily growing beyond the drama and turmoil of our limited personalities into our true identity – the Shabd. We will discover what we truly have been all along.