And we back with another reflection on the daily Vedankadank. Today's reflection is on perhaps the most misunderstood word in this entire philosophy. The word I. Are the other pronouns you?
The words me? What does this philosophy say when it says that thou art? Or in clogua language, you are that. What does it say when a sage says take refuge in me?
The capital M. Well, when this philosophy says you are that, you are what is? It's similar to the tetragrammatin and the Old Testament of Yahweh, or at least that's the oral pronunciation of the tetragrammatin. But the tetragrammatin, instead of it being a name for the divine, the tetragrammatin, those four letters stands for that which is, was, and will always be.
That which is, was, and will always be. It's a similar misunderstanding when this philosophy says you are that to thinking, oh, Yahweh is this being up in the sky. When what it's pointing to, linguistically, even though culturally, we think of, well, Yahweh, that's a name for God. It is really just a placeholder, and even the placeholder is saying that which is, was, and will always be.
Not an anthropomorphic human-like figure up in the sky. Not a singular force that exists outside of anything else that is, was, and will always be, but the essence of existence itself. This philosophy, when it says that thou art, when it says you are what is, you are existence, consciousness, bliss, satchet, ananda. And this philosophy says that thou art, it's not you the personality.
When the sages say, like Christ saying, I am that I am, obviously one interpretation is, oh, it's this five foot four Nazarene. That is God. That is the divine. The philosophical viewpoint is that it has nothing to do with this body.
That person is a mouthpiece for the divine, for the essence that is, was, and will always be. And when this philosophy says, you are that, it is not the personality that is that. It's the Greek word for personality, by the way, the root of the word, personality is mask. It's not the mask.
The mask is not that which is behind the mask. This philosophy points to your essence behind the mask. That thou art. This great phrase, the Mahavaka taught to am Aasi.
Each of the four Vedas has a Mahavaka. It's own great phrase of the entirety of the philosophy in just a few words. I am a Brahma, a habrahmasmi, a hambrahma, brahman, brahman. And then the most famous taught to am Aasi, that thou art.
It's not pointing to you, John Smith, Sarah Jones. It has nothing to do with that personality or these sounds coming out of our mouths when we reference this personality. To think that your personality, this egoistic eye is the real you, that is the illusion. And it's the illusion that this philosophy talks about nearly in the same breath that it says you are that, is it talks about Maya, which is good for not that.
This personality that we take ourselves for, that we build our lives around, introduce ourselves as that is, according to this philosophy, take it or leave it. It's Maya, not that. Not what we are. In the same way, my clothes are not what I am.
It's just what I put on for the day. But it can be tempting for the egoistic eye to say, wow, I am all there is. But that would be megalomania. That would be the antithesis of identification with all there is, with the essence of being itself.
That is the exact opposite end of the spectrum. That says your personality has nothing to do with the essence, who you are, you, this idea you have of yourself, or not, all that is. But if you get rid of that entire egoistic personality, those egoistic concepts, what is left is, isness. Take away the egoistic eye and what you have is the witness eye, the witness, the awareness, not of anything, not a witness of any object, of any sensation or perception or thought.
But if you go all the way back to awareness itself, conditionless awareness, not awareness of anything but conditionless awareness, that conditionless awareness, that is the who that this philosophy speaks about, points to when it says that, that, or the confusion around this can be nearly infinite. You have world traditions built around personalities that were speaking from the divine. You have Christ saying all those that believe in me with a capital M, me, and we take it as, oh, it's this five foot four personality upon which these words are coming through. That's what we should worship.
Instead of the identification, the kingdom within, the oneness that he had with the father that he so famously prayed for us to recognize and the prayer, the last supper. It's almost the exact same words as Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, who says, take refuge and need alone. The dualistic sectarian, the dualistic view, finding a personality, putting it up on a pedestal, works so well if we take the me as that personality talking, Christ, Krishna, or any other enlightened soul which accidentally had an entire following built around that individual instead of what they were pointing at. In the east, this confusion doesn't happen as much because there's a galaxy of sages and saints all saying the same thing.
Talking about going within, finding that witness eye, dropping the egoistic eye, and finding that identification with all that is, and when that gets found out, that enlightenment, moksho realization, nirvana, when that happens, everyone around is like, oh, wow, this person figured it out. I want that. I want to get to that state. Oh, I've heard about this state.
And this is the one or two individuals of this generation that has reached it if you accept them at their word, but not. Wow, every generation we got to build in brand new tradition and religion around each individual that figures this out. The egoistic eye, the witness eye, the egoistic knee, the witness me, the egoistic you, the witness you, this philosophy is consistently talking about the latter, an emptying of oneself, and not just confusion, but a massive mistake is to think it's talking about the former, the egoistic version, the version that ends in megalomania, inflation of the ego instead of the elimination of it and ends in suffering, rather than peace, harmony, identification, and ultimately realization. That is today's reflection on the daily Vedantic.
This philosophy is so precise with its words. It can take hundreds of times of hearing something before it clicks, why it's worded that exact specific way or what it's pointing to in the midst of a phrase like that that are, you're it. That's why daily reflection on these principles within this philosophy is so powerful, so necessary to go beyond what we might first hear and discover what is actually being said. We'll see you next time on the daily Vedantic.