1. Who Am I?

Something comes to mind from my own experience, when we talk about family. I grew up happily in a particular family, but around time I turned thirteen, I became ... And maybe, this is common—the onset of puberty, etcetera ... To start questioning and examining everything. 

But one day, in the kitchen ... My mother is there, talking to me, like, washing and talking ... I am sitting at the table, eating something. And suddenly it occurred to me, and I said, “This lady is speaking like she totally knows me. Like I am very known to her. And I am assuming that I know her very well. And she is intimately known to me.” But then I thought, “I don’t think I have ... clearly focused on my mother’s face for a very long time” because your mother is just always part of the environment.

So since these strange feelings came to me, I waited, when she came ... She was just going on, talking about this, that, the other things ... But then when she came and looked at me ... I looked at, I started scrutinizing her face, and for a few moments I couldn’t recognize, who she was. And I thought, “This is totally bizarre circumstance.” Then I started looking at myself in the mirror, and I couldn’t recognize, who I was. And I thought, “This is extra-bizarre. Trés bizarre ...” A psychoanalyst will say, “Yes, with the onset of puberty, if the adolescent youth becomes very ...”, you know ... whatever.

Like, when my brother, the urologist, was in med school, he had this girlfriend ... And, who I was, sort of, if you want to say, preaching to, but talking to about philosophical things, you know. And she was confiding in me that she was asking herself, “Who am I? Where have I come from?”, this type of identity questions. What comes under the heading of self-determination in Hegelian language.

So I thought she was really cool person. Because I thought, “Oh, this is somebody I can relate to. She has self-doubts.” And when I brought it up to my brother, he said, “Oh, she is just going through a phase ... She’ll get over that.” And I thought, “Means she’s gonna get over inquiring who she is, trying to understand, who she is, where she has come from, what her purpose is ...” I was shocked. I thought, “No, she shouldn’t get over that.”

Human form of life is very rarely achieved. Like other life forms, it is temporary. All the different life forms are temporary. But in this one there is a ... fortunate souls may get that chance of association with a sadguru—guru and Vaishnav, and engage in Kṛṣṇa culture.