I am eternal and infinite. The meaning of the word ‘atma’ is I. However out of habit, ‘I’ is considered limited to the body or the mind and sometimes intellect. On the infinite self, we constantly see a limited individual bound in time and space. The difference between the limited I and the infinite I is just a thought away. Yet it is very much there like the common Vedantic example of a sudden appearance of a snake on a docile rope lying on the pathway in semi-darkness. While there is actually no reason to fear, it is inbuilt in a wrong thought of snake when there should only be the thought of rope.
Adi Sankaracharya’s verse in the Atma Bodha pointing out that the difference between the self and the ego is just like this rope and snake, gives a direct picture that can go deep into our understanding. We need to understand this because that is the only way we can remember. Only by the right remembrance can we abide always in this experience of self. Else it is a constant drop to the wrong thought of limitation.
Try as we might, there is no other means than the Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita and the explanatory texts that circumambulate one theme or the other of the Upanishads such as the Atma Bodha that can show a candle to who we really are. If I need to clearly know how I look, it is not enough if I see my face on a shining steel plate or still water. I need to look at myself constantly lest I imagine I am someone else. It is alright to imagine, but when I begin behaving and acting like someone I am not, then the problem is not just in my head, but spills to the world on the outside too.
Constantly, day in and day out, the Upanishads call for a practice of this thought called the ‘Akhanda Akara Vritti’. It simply means, the thought wave I have is always one and the same, that I am the self. It is not ‘a now this and a now that’ thought form. How to do this?
On waking up in the morning, ask yourself, “Who is getting up?” “I” will be the answer. “Who is I,” “Body? No. Mind? No. Intellect? No.” They all keep changing all the time. “I am the changeless ‘self’.” Such an inquiry conducted through the day has a side effect of staying with you through all your day’s work and interactions as the mind is ever completely absorbed in this one thought of “Who am I?” The result is a constant experience of joy.
If you want to do something else more interesting to experience happiness, the other option is to just take a walk! When the truth of who I am—the self and not the ego—is known, the result is fearlessness. It is the same as when we recognise the screen in the theatre as the original thing on which many images are thrown. The screen alone is real and not the images. Then we will stop crying for emotional scenes and stop getting tense when there is a fight scene!