Who exactly I am as a soul? - A crash course in Advaita Vedanta

“Who am I?” is perhaps the most sought after question by humankind since time immemorial.

Do you even think that you have a soul or consciousness as separate entity than the physical body and biological brain? If not, you may be an absolute materialist. On the other hand, do you think you live in a transient world of Matrix or a long-term dream and the reality will be faced only when you go out of it and meet the creator? In this case, you’re an absolute spiritualist. In Indian philosophy or Darshan Shastras, these are the two polar opposites (material and spiritual), the former represented by Charvaka and latter by Advaita Vedanta schools of thoughts. Even Buddhism and Jainism generally lean towards spiritual than material.

The ideal approach to life is to balance out these philosophies and not put all the money in any one stock! However, the spiritual and material tendencies of humans also depend a lot on circumstances. An ambitious and materialistically wealthy person in the youth phase of their life will put more stock in materialism as that is paying off right now. On the other hand, someone who has aged beyond 40-50s or someone who is in a declining phase and facing difficulties might incline more towards spirituality.

Even if you can’t answer that question or ever thought about it, everyone does have a “working theory” of sorts about who they are in their minds. And that working theory determines literally everything in their life - their choice of food, clothes, lifestyle, attitude towards wealth, expected salary and even political inclination!

As per Advaita theory, deep within the subconscious mind, there is an inner urge in every soul to know itself, it’s literally crying out “Who am I?”. The first cry of an infant when it lands on the Earth is reflective of that. Having failed to get an answer, the soul then attaches to whichever identity it finds around, the identities of relationships, career, caste, creed, religion, ideology, etc. Latching to these identities then becomes a substitute for seeking that timeless answer, in fact it becomes an objective in itself, driven by desires and emotions through life.

The moment you answer that question, and actually realize what that answer is, realization or nirvana is achieved and you become free from the Matrix. But the answer itself isn’t the important part of the quest, the real deal is to be aware of these sheaths and layers of identities and destroy them. As long as the soul is trapped in the sheaths, it will be driven by its own emotions and face its karma or consequences thrown by the material world, as if on an autopilot. Even after death, the same story repeats in another part of the Matrix (maybe another planet on another galaxy, or even centuries apart on this same planet).

The Gita describes three kinds of tapas or depressions - Adi bhautik (material/wealth related depressions), Adi daivik (depressions arising out of fate or acts of God like pandemic, disease, accidents, etc.) and finally Adhyatmic (spiritual depression). If a soul has achieved everything they could in terms of material wealth and they’re still unhappy or depressed, it only means they’re now ready to deal with that final or ultimate question in spirituality.

Sri Adi Shankaracharya, the author of Advaita Vedanta, has composed a beautiful Sanskrit poem called Nirvana Shatakam which beautifully reflects on each one of these material sheaths or layers one by one. The soul declares and distances itself from each one of these sheaths like mind, intellect, ego, relationships, etc.

In an attempt to answer the ultimate question, Adi Shankaracharya declares every now and then “Shivoham Shivoham” (I am Shiva or God) in that poem. This has been one of the most controversial aspects of advaita vedanta, along with his other famous phrase “Aham brahmasmi” which also means “I am God”, and gets criticized a lot. Being born in a Dvaita tradition family, I’ve often heard this criticism by many - “How can one declare themselves as God?”. The Dvaita school asserts on the separation of Jiva (soul), Brahma (God) and Jada (material), and advocates bhakti instead as the path towards liberation.

Indeed, declaring oneself as God seems foolhardy or even lunatic in a fully materialistic world, where “you” and “me” are considered two different souls. In fact, this is the world which we daily observe. But what if this was essentially a “Matrix” or transient world or one of a long-term dream as shown in the movie “Inception”? In that case, every single soul is just a part of the “greater dream” along with all the matter and energy that is. And thus, every soul can be referenced as a God or creator since they’re inside the creator’s dream? This dream or matrix is called Maya. This idea isn’t new, that our world could be a Matrix like thing is also a basic tenet of Gnosticism which was a collection of religious and philosophical ideas among early Christian and Jewish sects.

Even Buddhism is pretty much based on the idea that the material world is transient and not substantial, the Mahayana branch goes even further and talks of a Pure Land, the better version of this Matrix where folks wanting to achieve liberation can go after this life ends.

Other factors that support a “fluxed” Matrix like reality:

• The Economic theory of diminishing marginal utility. Nothing in this world brings yatharth or lasting happiness. Even the best of SUVs, the best brand of alcohol, the best gated community will give you dopamine only till a certain point. Post that, the dopamine resistance sets in and so does the Adhyatmic tapa or Spiritual depression.
• The Double Slit Experiment. This experiment in Quantum Physics shows that particles suddenly become waves depending on whether they’re being observed or not. This isn’t a sign of a yatharth or stable world, it’s a sign of a transient or matrix world.
• Human life itself is unpredictable. The built-in emotions like hope and greed keep driving the samsara or life but if you think about it, data shows that all of that zeal may not stand the test of time. We barely managed to escape a pandemic few years ago, India is just one political turmoil away or one pandemic away from massive destruction of civilization. This doesn’t mean we should stop doing our work, but the over zealousness of negative emotions like greed, jealousy, crony capitalism, etc. can be certainly contained.
• Experiential or subjective truth counts. Each time I listen to the Nirvana Shatakam poem and the responses being given to the soul’s yearning, I feel the veil of Matrix being lifted just a little bit. But this is just my own subjective experience. In either case, it’s a beautiful poem and I recommend listening to it at least once.