Even when you fall asleep at night, you do so as Chandulal. All night long, this wrong belief reinforces itself, becoming stronger and stronger. Only when you realize the answer to “Who am I ? does your wrong belief stop. It is because of this wrong belief that you have been wandering from one life to another. You do not know your true identity and furthermore you impress upon yourself the belief of that which you are not. You have imposed this wrong belief on your Real Self. Not only this but you have accepted that ‘I am Chandulal’ and have behaved accordingly. This false accusation is a blunder. This blunder is the root cause of all suffering. This suffering is in the form of inner restlessness, misery and discontent. Now you have so many worries because of your belief that ‘I am Chandulal’. This false imposition on the Self is ignorance and brings forth suffering.

Gnani: The belief ,‘I am Chandulal’, does not leave even in your sleep. And when you get married, people tell you “You are this woman’s husband”. So, you accept the role of a husband and act like one. After that, through repetition, you keep reinforcing the belief of being a husband. Is anyone a husband forever? If you get a divorce, will you still be her husband? All these wrong beliefs are deeply ingrained within you.

The first wrong belief is that ‘I am Chandulal’. ‘I am this woman’s husband’ is the second wrong belief. ‘I am a Hindu’ is the third wrong belief. ‘I am a lawyer’ is the fourth wrong belief. ‘I am this boy’s father’ is the fifth wrong belief. ‘I am an uncle’ is the sixth wrong belief. ‘I am fair-skinned’ is the seventh wrong belief. ‘I am forty-five years old’ is the eighth wrong belief. ‘I am a businessman’ is also a wrong belief. If you say that “I am a taxpayer” then that is yet another wrong belief. How many such wrong beliefs do you have?

Questioner: Too many wrong beliefs.

Gnani: Wherever you super-impose ‘I’, where ‘I’ does not belong, that is a wrong belief. You have to get rid of all these wrong beliefs. How can you be happy with so many wrong beliefs? Now tell me. What kinds of beliefs make a man happy?

Questioner: The person without belief is happy.

Gnani: No, one cannot live without beliefs. What you need is the right belief.

…to be continued in next part…

–from the book shivoham

–Shikha Punjani