Who Am I ?
Bamboo is regarded as a very revered symbol in Japan. What makes it so? Bamboo has an outer casing (like our bodies) but it is totally hollow from within. The hollowness of the bamboo thus makes it a flute played by divine and hence s is considered such a sacred symbol. In symbolic sense, the hollowness of bamboo is the state of no ego or no identification with body and mental concepts . The answer to the question who am I cannot be found, till we have solid identifications with all our emotions, desires, fears and our bodies. The only way to get closer to the answer is to become hollow from within like a bamboo.
Who am I? It is probably the single most important question and it is also the greatest Koan ever possible? Those who are unfamiliar with Koan – Koan is a paradoxical puzzle used by some Zen lineages to make the seeker experientially grasp the truth. A student is required to work on the koan till the reality of the Koan explodes on to him.
We can make thousands of choices while we are alive, but we cannot fathom as to why we were born? And further we each one of us are born in different places and circumstances? Understanding the question Who am I is going back to the source and it someway the most important question for the seeker. By time you understand who am I, the paradox is that there is no I left to recognize it. Jiddu Krishnamurti once remarked in a lecture that “All the experiences whether mundane or magical requires an experiencer”. And in the utmost stillness, one gets the answer to this question but in that moment, for the first time the experiencer is absent. The ego and identification that we have about this I dissolves into the wholeness of existence.
Saint Kabir has a famous couplet that says
When I was there, then the lord was not there and now when lord is there, I am not there
The pathways of love are very narrow, it cannot accommodate two persons”
When one becomes hollow like a bamboo, then “I” that Kabir is talking about melts and merges to the eternal.
Meditation is an aid that can help in solving this koan. Meditation of course does not give an answer, it just helps you to drop the question.
There is a small parable by Rumi that points in the same direction
One went to the door of the Beloved and knocked.
A voice asked: “Who is there?” He answered: “It is me”
The voice said: “There is no room here for me and you”
The door was shut.
After a year of solitude and reflection
this man returned to the door of the Beloved.
He knocked.
A voice from within asked: “Who is there?”
The man said: “It is you”
Yes, the door was then opened. The story of Rumi and the couplet of Kabir are making the same point.
