WHAT’S YOUR REAL NAME AND ADDRESS ?
WHAT’S YOUR REAL NAME AND ADDRESS ?
One’s name and address are so often asked for, just taken for granted, that they don’t geta second thought. But let’s give this identity a second thought now, together. My name is a symbol for ‘me’ as contrasted to ‘another’. My address is my location, usually on afairly permanent basis. Some would say, it’s ‘where I can be reached’, or ‘my house’.
My name and address are symbols of the present time and present space. The name and address indicate bounded (limited), particular identity and place. They indicate here vs.there; now vs. then; for us humans -- I vs. the other; for inanimate they mean ‘this’ vs.‘that’.
The genetic center is a characterized bio-magnetic domain, it is the ‘soul’ according to Swamiji’s terminology: it is my address in the fullest sense. In ordinary terms, my address indicates where I am located on earth. In science they speak of the address of a particle: it includes the time factor in addition to location in three dimensions. We say, I have a name and address; my address that is my genetic center not only pinpoints my location in space and time but also includes all my other parameters and qualities.
I can think of my body as the house of my soul – i.e. the characterized wave domain that is my personality. I’m the only and original tenant of this house; after death it will be useless and fall apart in sorrow and despair that I’ve gone. I built my house brick by brick from my inheritance and then added on to it over the years – for better and for worse -- and it is fit for none other than me.
Meanwhile, I’ve furnished the interior of this ‘house’ with all I have: my heirlooms and acquisitions; I’ve made it my home. Just like our concrete and brick homes, it is ‘permanent’ i.e. up to my lifetime. There are many rooms and I walk about in them all day. Sentimental objects, symbols, notes to myself, things of beauty, dirt and dust as well, junk that I’ve been trying to throw away since forever but just can’t seem to get rid of -- the whole mishmash of acquisitions from the past and vague dreams of the future. When my attention goes outside I watch the neighbors, chat with them, gossip, work and play.
But, just like a house in real life, I am not my house and the things I’ve put in it: I’m the owner, enlivener and enjoyer of the house: I’m the one for whom it all is there; I am the consciousness. If I just stop looking at the things I ‘have’, stop fidgeting with them and thinking about them, stop wondering about what the neighbors are up to, chatting with them, quarreling with them, stop exerting myself to ‘have’ or ‘get’ more things and experiences, and rather sit down quietly, I can then find myself in the Present Space.
The present of Now and Here is infinite in extension: it is VAST, so much bigger and greater than my house and full of all the beauty there is; all the things I have plus all that I don’t, all imaginable qualities and all places….sitting here I see all that lies outside my house and it’s staggering, almost too much, to behold.
I thanks to share, Original Article by, Shri. Uma Vethathiri and Shri. Dr.Alagar Ramanujam
