Cease to be Caesar and let all problems dissolve

Instead of solving all problems in life, one by one – if you know your true Self, all problems dissolve all at once. Let us understand this with an analogy:

 

The End of Julius Caesar from: The Comic History of Rome, 1850

Let us suppose your name is Julie and you are playing the role of Julius Caesar in a drama all dressed up as a man. Being Caesar, you are weeping at the treachery of Brutus. The play ends where Caesar is stabbed and he is lamenting in anguish, ‘Et tu Brutus’. The curtains come down and the audience is left wondering whether Caesar died or not.  The problem now is that Caesar continues to weep even after coming off the stage. He is inconsolable. If at that time someone tells Caesar that you are the cause of your own misery, he does not understand. He retorts, ‘Why are you blaming me for my lamenting. It is Brutus who has deceived me’. Caesar needs to be told, ‘All that is fine. Now get off it. Become who you actually are—return to your true identity. All this was only while you were on stage, enacting a role. Now come out of the drama, get off the role you are playing and re-assume your true identity. You are Julie, not Julius. Cease to be Caesar’. If he still persists with the question, ‘Am I to blame?’, you are likely to say, ‘Yes, you are to blame. You are the one who has forgotten your true identity. If you remember it, everything will be fine.

 

Similarly, if someone were to be lamenting on his problems, he is probably not clear about his true identity. The Self – your true nature – is limitless, timeless, spaceless, ageless and egoless.  From the point of view of a separate individual (Caesar) – whatever your problems are – may indeed be troubling. But just by experiencing your true nature, all problems cease all at once. The key word here is ‘experiencing’. In fact, Julius can never experience Julie. Julius has to cease to be. The mind that assumes itself as a separate individual can never experience the Self. The mind drops and the Self experiences itself. Just intellectually telling yourself that I am the Self  or I am That or Aham Bramhasmi is of no use. This is all the mind still saying the dialogues while being a part of the play.  Instead through the exercises taught to you in the MA retreat, an understanding arises in the mind and it drops. When it drops the Self which is always ever present – manifests. And then the Self can experience itself – the crowning glory for which the body mind has been created is attained.

 

-Extract from a discourse by Sirshree in the follow up sessions of the MA retreat