Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom

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tent, by reference to one's role or primary function in society-! am a
priest, a warrior, a merchant, a servant, a carpenter, a wife and
mother-but the deeper implications of the question have always been
present. In any case, no one is a mother or businessman or school­
teacher all the time, all their lives. These are temporary states. Even if
you say, "I am a man, or a woman," it is incomplete. Formerly you
were a child, and besides, does sexual identity have any importance
when you are asleep?
What we are really saying is "I am 1," which is not very helpful.
By "I" we are referring to that bit of us that seems to be at the center
of our perceptions, our actions, our feelings, our thoughts, and our
memories. It is often called the ego-based self, or egoic self. But if all
we can say is "I am 1," and everyone else is saying the same thing, then
logically we must all be the same, which visibly and palpably, we are
not. So in order to explain our differences and define this "I" self fur­
ther, we tack on attributes and characteristics that qualify and exem­
plify the "I" in some way. A rich man might feel that "I and my
possessions" gives a fair indication; a politician, "I and my power;" a
chronic invalid, "I and my sickness;" an athlete, "I and my body;" a
film star, "I and my beauty;" a professor, "I and my brain;" or a bad­
tempered, dissatisfied person, "I and my anger." Adding a ragbag of
attributes to our "I" self is not only how we generally see ourselves but
how we see and describe others. The important point is that all these
qualities we list are external to the "I." In other words, the "I" identi­
fies itself by conjoining with its surroundings.
Clearly I leap-frogged one answer to the "Who am I" question. It
is "I am a human being." For this to be of value, one has to ask the
follow-up question, "What, then, is a human being?" This is exactly
what yoga does. The starting point of yogic inquiry, the basic question
underpinning all yogic practice, is simply, "What are we?" Even the
asana itself is an inquiry, asking in each asana, "Who am I?" Through
the asana, the practitioner throws out all the extraneous parts until


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