Part 4
Rich Man Parable
In the New Testament there’s parable about a rich man who meets Christ. He’s asking how to be perfect and what is he lacking in his spiritual life. Excerpt from ‘The Original Aramaic New Testament in Plain English’
And one came near and said to him, "Good teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?"
But he said to him, "Why do you call me good? There is none good except God alone.
But if you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”
He said to him, "Which ones?" But Yeshua said to him, "You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not testify falsely.” "Honor your father and your mother", and "You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” That young man said to him, "I have kept all these from my childhood; what am I lacking?”
Yeshua said to him, "If you want to be perfect, go sell your possessions and give to the poor and you will have treasure in Heaven, and come after me.” But that young man heard this saying and he went away, as it was grievous to him, for he had many possessions.
But Yeshua said to his disciples, "Amen, I say to you, that it is difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven."
"And again, I say to you that it is easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God."
But the disciples when they heard, they were greatly amazed and they were saying, "Who then can have life?” Yeshua gazed at them, and he said to them, "This is impossible with the children of men, but everything is possible with God."
What is being ‘rich’? Normally, it’s the idea that ‘I’ own something, that there is an ‘I’ in the first place that has some existence. And this ‘I’ is real, and I take myself to be that ‘I’. What is being poor then? Is it the absence or the ‘I’?
In this story the young man had kept all the basic commandments from his childhood which is exceptional and quite amazing in itself. How many of us can claim such a high ethical state or standard of living? What strikes me is the end of this excerpt. When Christ says, "This is impossible with the children of men, but everything is possible with God.”
Christ challenged us before by saying, Matt. 5:48, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect”. How can ‘I’, who am just a human being, be perfect? Could it be, that as long as we take ourselves to be an individual person with an idea of a separate ‘I’ that we are incapable of being perfect? That must be the case for as we understand, perfection is far away from who we are at the moment.
Maybe, if we knew our true self, the pure ‘I am’, without any extra add-ons to define who we are, that anything truly could be possible? Our present state as human beings, or as an ego, it is impossible to reach the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’, that is, to realize the Reality of who we really are, but when we turn our focus and attention to this ‘I’, we can find out the truth about its nature, that there actually isn’t any reality of such a separate ‘I’.
We gain access to LIFE, away from the circle of birth and death. As for now we are all dead in this sense, that we believe that we are born and some day we will die. The only one living is the guru, the realized Master, which we are identical with but are unaware of the fact. The guru has come to wake us up from our dream with a way.
Self-investigation as a practice is the way recommended by Sri Ramana Maharshi and by Christ when he said, “Love thy God (self) with all your heart all your mind and all your soul”.
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And as a consequence of investigating who we are, which is powered by love alone, surrender will follow. Free from our self as an ego, being as we are.
Who am I?
Since all living beings desire to be always happy and without misery, and since all [them] have the greatest love for their own self, and since only happiness is the cause of love, in order to achieve this happiness, which is their own [true] nature, which they experience daily in deep sleep, where the mind (thoughts) are absent, knowing [one's true] self is essential.
For that jñana-vichara (self-investigation) [examine consciousness to know] 'who am I?' alone is the main means.
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- Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi
‘Me character’
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What we usually call “soul” or an individual always requires a form, a ‘me character’.
No one has ever seen or proven the existence of a "soul" without form, however fine the form.
Actually, the soul is the 'me character' that is always together with the body, i.e. the form.
In the waking state, we imagine that we are the 'me character’ that is in the body. Likewise, when we dream, we are again the ‘me character' with a body.
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On the other hand, in deep sleep there is no body, no form, and no 'me character' either.
Thus the 'me character' is not real and doesn’t exist without a form.
But the awareness of these different bodies and the 'me character’ that seems to be influencing them is always there.
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Even when there is no forms or even thoughts.
I and Father are One
‘Tat tvam asi’- That thou art – ‘I and Father are one’
These statements claim that our real nature is God.
If this is true then the next question should arise; ‘If I am that or I and Father are One, then ‘Who am I?’
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To verify these claims, we need to find a way how to know our self. Whatever spiritual practice we are doing we cannot find the answer anywhere else but from our own self from within us.
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It cannot be found in books or by asking someone. If there is truth in these statements, then we need to know it from as our own experience. Nothing else can satisfy or convince us.
So, how to know who we are? The logical answer is to direct our attention to our self. I can only know myself by asking or investigating who I am.
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Sri Ramana Maharshi showed us the practice of self-investigation and Christ said: ‘'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’
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Both lead to the destruction of the false identification of a separate individual person.