Who am I?

This happened in the Cincinnati Airport. A very important looking man came, rushed into the airport. There was a long line at the check-in counter. This man jumped the line, went straight to the counter and thrust his passport and his ticket. The lady at the counter said, “Sir there is a line; please stand in line.” He said, “No, No. I am in a hurry I need to go.” She said, “No please go stand in the line.” Then he said, “Do you know who I am?” She promptly picked up the microphone and said, “There is a man here who doesn’t know who he is, can somebody help him?”

Can somebody help him? Now nobody can help him because everybody is in the same state. Everybody is existing here without knowing the essential nature of who he is. Without knowing the very fundamentals of what this is, we are trying to make a life. That is the whole confusion. So if this question comes up “Who am I?” This is the most profound question in your life. Because if you don’t know who you are, do you know anything else for sure? If you do not even know who you are, can you be capable of knowing who somebody else is, or what something else is? It is all one big joke. Once you don’t know who you are, it is one big joke and the only consolation is that the majority of the population is with you.

This is the first and foremost thing you should do with your life. First to know who this is, what is the nature of my existence? If you do not know what is the nature of your existence, you live by accident. Everything is by accident, by assumption and by opinion; there is no reality.

“Who am I?” This question exists, screaming in your body, screaming in your mind. If you just remove the surface nonsense, it is screaming within you to know the answer. When you don’t clear the surface chatter of the mind, “Who am I?” is a mere question. If you clear up your surface nonsense, you will see “Who am I” is just the whole thing. Nothing else is there. That is the biggest thing.

This question “Who am I” is not really an experiment or a mere question of curiosity. This is something that tears you. So, till it tears you apart, you will not know what is inside it.