Final Teaching

Our identity as this body and mind complex makes us want pleasure and avoid pain. We wake up every day and repeat what we did the day before, and will repeat it all the following days. What is it all for? Why are we here, and why do things happen to us? But most importantly, who are we? This... is the question that reveals it All.

But to get to this point, like Ram Dass always said, for one to become a Nobody, one has to first be a somebody. This somebody means having full identification with body and mind and going about your life with a strong sense of doership, or the ego. One believes he is who he thinks he is and chases after his dream to be happy. He strives to do well in school, get a beautiful woman to marry and have children with, buy a house to live in, fulfill all the needs and wants of himself and his family. All of this to be happy.

Sure, he may achieve all that. But does he get happiness with it? A permanent one? No. 

It takes him countless lives and iterations to arrive at the "No." He does this all day, every day, and all the suffering he encounters along the way is what matures his mind. The greater the sense of ego of an individual, the greater the suffering he is to face that will break down the constructs of reality he has made over all those years. Therefore, suffering is grace. It is what makes you question life and mature you to arrive at the point of the Final Teaching. 

The Self is localized and manifested in a baby that is born. He has no name and knows nothing. His family, friends, and relatives teach him to be somebody. This is what Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi referred to when he said that our duty is not to be this or that. "This" and "that" are what we learn, and those patterns turn into behaviors and habits, which eventually make up individual stories. From there, "I," the ego, rises. Doership arises. "I need to plan my life, plan what to say, plan what to do." 

As one matures, though, one arrives at the same understanding that is the core teaching of all the religions, scriptures, and sutras.

What is it? 

I Am That.

You are not the body, the mind, or any other thing you can think of. You are That which is the silent background of it all. In You, the body, the mind, life, stories, relationships, family, and work arise. 

Body, mind, and speech take their course according to prārabdha karma, which is the fruits of your previous doings allotted for this life. 

Your body will do actions when it is to, your mind will think things when it is to, speech will happen accordingly, all while you remain still. You are untouched by it all. So why not be That? Let life happen. When hungry, eat; when tired, sleep; when things happen, let them happen. You are neither responsible nor is it your burden. Hence, as Bhagavan put it, "All that is required to realize the Self is to be still. What can be easier than that?"

Dive into any religion, any sutras, any texts, you will be pointed to the same Truth. 

So all you have to "do" is just be.