Acharya Prashant: The ‘Who am I’ inquiry is a simple method. In fact, the simplest of methods. So simple that it cannot even be called a method. And it is often misunderstood. *‘*Who am I’ is not a question. It cannot be a question because we are already full of answers. We already have a lot of answers for ‘Who am I’. That day we circulated a sheet and asked people to write down statements beginning with ‘I am…” Somebody was able to write twenty, somebody wrote forty, one gentleman even wrote fifty plus.
So that’s the kind of inner clutter of ‘I am’ that we have. “I am an Indian, I am a Hindu, I am a male, I am knowledgeable, I am rich…” So what is the point in asking ‘Who am I’? You ask something only when you do not know the answer. Here you already have multiple answers. So what is the point in asking? ‘Who am I’ then is more honestly, just an acknowledgement, and not a question. An acknowledgement that all these identities do exist in my life. But if it is not taken as an acknowledgement, then you will ask the question. And things will go bad when along with the unnecessary question, an unnecessary answer is also predetermined and supplied to you.
The way many teachers talk of ‘Who am I’ these days is, “Ask, ‘Who am I?’ and become quiet.” Now this is quite fake. Because when you will really see how many identities you have, then there will be an upsurge of noise, not quietness. You ask, “Who am I?” and you will receive thirty-five replies. You remember all the replies that were there on the paper? “I am this, this, this…”
So you asked, “Who am I?” and how many replies did you get? 48,. But instead of honestly acknowledging that one is already full of “I am X, I am A, I am Y, I am B,” it is often suggested to ask ‘Who am I’ and then witness the silence. There can be no silence. And if there is silence, then it is a fake and manufactured silence.
