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2akux57hrp

Ogres are Like Onions...

Who am I? What am I?

You all are probably familiar with the phenomenon.
People in their mid-life, done with growing kids,
done with paying the mortgage, financially based.
Now, they have enough time and energy to ask
themselves: "Who am I actually?"

From Buddha to Shrek

Around 2500 years before the movie "Shrek" (remember? "Ogres are like onions")
Buddha said that a person (the self) is like an onion.
Peel a layer and another layer. You end up finding nothing. An emptiness.

This emptiness, or nothingness, is one of the basic paradigms of Tantra,
mainly the Buddhist Tantra.
Tilopa, in his song of Mahamudra, said that the emptiness,
the void, needs no reliance.
The Mahamudra (the great gesture, the great freedom),
needs no support, no substance to rely on.

The huge idea is lack of identification.
We are not our bodies. We are not our thinking mind.
We are actually nothing and with that, we are also all.
It is a hard-to-grasp paradox.
Many found difficulty in explaining it throughout history.

The might of Tantric way of life comes through blending
lack of identification, with the ability to be in super awareness.
Watching your thoughts and all that happens around you, as an observer.
The more we peel layers (of identification) off that onion,
we get closer to its core, to the nothingness.
When nothing is left there,
who is there to suffer???

OK, So who am I really>

As human beings, our conduct is of identification with many things.
Ask any person "Who are you?"
The automatic response will immediately arrive:
"I'm John","I'm Jane"
Ask - "What are you?"
"I'm Tall/Short/Fat/Thin/Pretty/Ugly",
"I'm a Chicago Bulls fan/Computer Expert...",
"I'm Christian/Jew/Muslim/Lesbian/Gay",
"I'm American/French/Astronaut/Plumber..."
"I'm hungry" (NO!!! Your body is hungry),
"I'm sick" (NO! Your body's sick),
and more, and more...

But we are not all of those!

Alright - So what ARE we?

Tantra (and not only Tantra) teaches that we are an infinite entity.
We are a direct extension of the source, the creator, the divine.
We are not really created when we are born,
we do not cease to exists when we perish and leave this world.
Actually, if we simplify Mahamudra,
we'll say it is the condition a person attains while being alive,
experiencing precisely he will, while not being realized physically.

The Greek who gave up Ouzo :-)

There's a (historically true) story about the king Menander.
A Greek born in India, who was a great conqueror,
no less than Alexander the great (135-155 B.C.).
His Indian name was milinda.
Milinda invited an enlightened Buddhist monk named Nagasen to teach him.
There were many rumors about his wisdom and rare manners.
The king sent a messenger with an invitation.
The messenger came back, surprised and puzzled.
The answer was "Yes, if the king invites, Nagasen will come,
but do tell him, there is no more Nagasen, no more "I am".
I am no more.

Menander was Greek, with a logic way of thinking.
He was not accustomed to the eastern way of thinking,
which is based on contradictions and vagueness.
He could not understand the riddle.
"If he doesn't exist, how can he come?".
He invited Nagasen to come, as by coming he will prove his being.




When Nagasen arrived, the king accepted him at the gate
and immediately asked:
"You arrived and your'e here, yet you say you are not?"
Nagasen answered: "Indeed. Let us settle this now. Ask a question".
Milinda, surrounded by his court members asked:
"First, if something does not exist, how can it come?
You have arrived, so it is logical that you are"

Nagasen laughed and said:
"Look at this Ratha" (Bullock Cart with which he came)
"You call it Ratha, a cart"
"Indeed" said Milinda.

Nagasen asked his followers to remove the bullocks off the cart.
"Are these bullocks the cart"? he asked.
"Naturally not" came the reply.
Then, Nagasen asked for the wheels to be removed.
"Are those wheels the cart?" -- "Of course not"...
All the parts were removed and on each part,
the same question was asked and the same answer was given.

When nothing was left from the cart, Nagasen asked:
"Where is the cart with which I came?
You yourself approved that all we have removed is not the cart,
Where is the cart?"
...and continued:
"Exactly so is Nagasen. Remove his parts and he's gone"

This long dialog was fully recorded in the writings know as:
Milinda Panha
(Milinda's questions).
In its end, Milinda became a Buddhist.

C'mmon, get out'ta here... Let me identify...

These days, with the developing science and medicine,
we can understand this attitude in a more lively manner.
The science of medicine can maintain a person
(at least for a short period of time),
without arms, legs, kidneys, heart, pancreas and more.
Clearly, the person is not his body and its organs.
He's also not his thoughts, since while in deep meditation,
thoughts cease, but the entity, the being does not cease to exist.


People like to identify. It is convenient.
it provides some satisfaction.
It provides an illusion of clear self definition,
but merely an illusion.
Without notice, many are unaware that identification is a prison.
Identification creates boundaries, limitations, borders.
It creates opponency and separateness.
Identification limits our Love to a narrow group,
instead of allowing it to expand and be all embracing.
To be in the way of Tantra - to be Love as a state of being,
boundaries and limitations should be diminished and canceled.
s
When all shells of identification are being peeled off,
when nothing remains - arises the beauty.
All boundaries separating the commune of man and Universe disappear.
This commune is then enabled at all possible levels, with the one,
the source, the creator, the divine.
When the drop merges with the Ocean, it is no more,
it becomes the Ocean.
When nothing is left, the person turns into all.

Well now,
Before you completely disappear and merge,
give us a hug!
:-)