Who am I ?

[M Suresh]

Gummuluru Murthy wrote:

> We are striving here to reach paramatma and break away from the cycle of
> births and re-births. To achieve this, we should do good deeds, dictated
> by pure conscience.

  Ramana Maharishi differs here. According to him we should not even
  strive to reach the parmaatma.  One sould either find out the "I" which is
  the source of all thoughts by enquiry or we should surrender everything to
  the lord including the desire for salvation and redemption from the
  birth-death cycle.

  Even Good deeds done with expectation of salvation will put one in the cycle
  of birth-death after spending many years in heaven. I think it is there
  somewhere in the Bhagavad Gita.

  Action without attachment alone can grant salvation. I suppose if one becomes
  detached one will automatically tend to do good deeds because good deeds tend
  to unify, and god is the ultimate unification, and as one becomes more
 detached
  one gets more anchored in god.

> If I were "born" a tree [I admit that we do not have any say in this and
> it is all Her lila], the chances of my doing a bad deed are so rare that
> there is a better probability of reaching salvation. I sometimes wonder
> that may be Her lila is such that of the four kingdoms, plants, rock,
> animal and human kingdoms are in that order to reach salvation. Her lila
> also includes that humans delude themselves that they are closer to
> Self-realization than the other life-forms.

  I think salvation can be got from the human birth alone. What about from other
  worlds? I think it can be got after taking birth in this world only.

> The life-span of the enlightened persons is not in question here. Enlightened
> people [jivanmuktas] do not really care in which form they are. Once Self
> is realized, they have reached moksha in the human form itself. They can
> discard the human body at will. Or like Sri Ramana Maharshi, Sai Baba or
> others, they may decide to stay in human form for the good of mankind.

  Quite true.

> My
> question is the life-span of an ordinary human or of any other life-form.
> I am afraid, by introducing life-expectancy, we are taking the question
> out of the philosophical framework.
>
> In the context of lifespan and its association with sin or virtue, the
> character of Bhishma in Mahabharatha need to be considered. The vasu (one
> of the nine that stole the cow)that was cursed by sage Vasista was born
> as Bhishma, led a long life and "suffered" through the misery of (i)
> participating in the war on the adharma side, and (ii) seeing his kith
> and kin on both sides being destroyed in the war. Bhishma, through whose
> mouth sage Vyasa presents Vishnu sahasranaama, is a great person. But
> still, the curse of Vasista has to take its course. There are other
> examples in the literature where long life can be associated with past
> sins.

  Your argument holds good if salvation is to take place in this birth itself.
  But usually virtues/sins remain after death requiring more births+deaths. So
 even
  if one dies early he will be born again anyway to work out his praarabdha
 karma
  ( karma held in reserve ). Also early death ( Akaala mrithyu ) itself can be
  a result of past sin which would make it not good.

Namaskar,
Suresh.