Questioner: Sir, what is the exact definition of Self and Value-clarity?
Speaker: You want me to talk on Self, value and clarity?
Questioner: Yes sir.
Speaker: Self means who you really are , as simple as that. Self means me, I. So, why is it necessary to talk of the Self? It is because we are often confused about the Self. We wear so many fake selves, fake identities, not necessarily to deceive somebody. Sometimes because we are simply ignorant, that the Self gets hidden. And that is no fun.
To keep living without even knowing, who is living? So, who am I if all these influences are not there? Influences do not do me any good. They are like a load, I have to carry them, I have to maintain them and I have to invest in them. All these masks that I am wearing are all right till a point. And after that they just start suffocating me. So, one needs to put down the masks. One needs to come to his real face. That is why one needs to talk of the Self? The Self is your real face. Does your real face have some value or you are afraid that it is so ugly that it must be hidden?
It’s not ugly at all. All of us are pretty beautiful beings. In fact the masks are ugly, though we paint them, decorate them, maintain them. Now, why would one hide his nice, beautiful face beneath the masks? Because the mind is stuffed with knowledge. Knowledge about what is right and what is wrong; what is important and what is not important; what is precious and what is not.
So, one starts giving more importance to the masks than the real face. This is called valuation. What do I value? What do I give importance to? What becomes my priority? What do I value? Obviously the Real has to be infinitely more valuable than anything artificial, fake, built up by the mind. But the value system gets all messed up. And we start valuing, what is of no worth and what is really worthy, we start ignoring it. In fact we start insulting it.
It is like a man getting so deluded that he is stashing up and securing fake jewelry and ignoring the real diamond that is already with him. Do you see how the question of values is directly related to the discovery of the Self? Because the Self never goes away; Self means me. You are there, how can you go away? It is just that the values have gone bonkers. It is just that you have stopped valuing yourself. It is just that you have been repeatedly told that there is something wrong. As they say, “What is the matter with you?”, “Hey, what is wrong?” So, you say, “Well, there is something wrong with me. So, there has to be something right in something else”.
And what is clarity? Clear means stainless; clear means empty; clear means not full. What is the mind full of? The mind is full of all the man made values. Clarity means no more man-made impositions. “Remove all this. Vacate”. And when there is that nice, peaceful emptiness. Then very miraculously you know what is really valuable and that is you.
Remember clarity is not knowledge. Clarity is to see the limitation of knowledge. And it is to see that often knowledge is damaging.
So, Self and Value-clarity is about you, who are; you, who are lost, and you, who can be so easily regained.
Self is who you are.
Values are how you lost yourself.
And clarity means how you can regain yourself.
