I am the Self (atman). I am Being-Consciousness. Being is my nature. I am the Self-aware Witness- Consciousness. I have no identity with the three states — waking, dream and sleep; they pass and re-pass in my presence. I am the Knower of Reality; I have my identity with the Divine.
Being unattached to any fluctuations of the life-force and the mind, I have neither joys nor sorrows. These pertain to the states of waking and dream, which are the mental modes of the individual soul. In the waking state he is known as the [viswa]; in the dreaming state he is known as the radiant [taijasa]; in the sleeping state he is known as the wise [prajna]. I am the Knower of Reality. These three states are really non-existent, they function only as the result of the latent tendencies [vasana] of the mind; and even while they function and screen my real identity, I am the Self.
I am the Present ever-present, so I am not newly discovered or obtained, only I have no delusion about myself. I am unborn (aja), so death cannot affect me. For me death does not mean the loss of a body, whether gross, subtle or causal. To me death means only identifying the self with the non-self. This is intoxication (pramada) and this intoxication is Death. So has Sri Maharshi taught.
The discrimination which removes this intoxication (pramada) is Immortality. This Immortality is not obtained after prolonged penance and at some distant point of time. It is obtained here and now. As a result of this discrimination I steady myself to enquire who I am. After this enquiry, as instructed by the Benign Guru, I find the ‘I’ to be the real substratum, the Self ever aware. All this enquiry is only on the path, for the Final Goal is the supreme Wholeness, into which there is nothing to enquire.
I am the Final Goal of the path. The Reality that I AM appears to be hidden by confusion and a veil. But by the Grace of the Guru, I being fixed firmly in my own reality, the veils have fallen away, both inside and out; so I am the One Indivisible, the Turiya (Fourth State). Yet though it be termed the “fourth” with reference to the changing three states, yet this “fourth” is the substratum and the primal state of Being. When this “fourth” is in contact with the Guru’s real nature, then is established Being, and then is the One Whole.
I am the Heart (hrdaya), the one eternal ‘I-I’.