Yogananda's I Am He
The Soul’s Reality
Paramahansa Yogananda’s poem, “I Am He,” from Songs of the Soul reveals the wonderful description of the human soul, which is ever free, ever unfettered from the illusions, tribulations, and changes of the physical body and mind, according to the great guru’s teachings.
The poem is, in fact, based on a chant of Swami Shankara, who reorganized the swami order in India and whom Paramahansaji in Autobiography of a Yogi describes as “a rare combination of saint, scholar, and man of action.”
“No birth, no death”
According to yogic teachings, the soul of each human being is ever living, and therefore does not experience the events of birth and death. And while unselfrealized individuals do experience these events, they do so because of the delusion that they are separated from the Divine.
When the individual realizes fully that s/he is the soul and not the mind and body, that individual can say, “I am He.” And then the individual also realizes that in addition to lacking the experiences of birth and death, s/he also has “no caste,” and no father and no mother. The ever-free soul has no need for any of the limiting features of the physical plane of being.
“Mind, nor intellect, nor ego, feeling”
Many beginners in the study of yoga easily grasp the idea that they are not the physical body, but it is more difficult to grasp that they are also not the mind. The body is readily available to sense awareness, but the mind seems to be as invisible (unsensedetectable) as the soul is. One cannot see, hear, taste, touch, or smell the mind.
But the mind is as delusion-invoking as the body. And in yoga meditation, the beginner learns quickly that the mind is even harder to control than the body. After one seizes control of the physical body, the mind is still free to dart off in all directions as one sits to meditate.
Therefore, it is necessary to impress upon the consciousness that one is not the mind, not the intellect, not the ego, and not the feeling. The physical body seems to be a concrete reality, but the mind seems equally to be a non-concrete reality. Thinking will not erase the line between reality and unreality. Only intuitive transcendence will lead the body and mind to the realization of the Ultimate Reality, and that process is greatly enhance through chanting the truths about the real nature of the soul.
“I am He, I am He — blessed Spirit, I am He
The poem contains the very scientific lines, “No prana, or its vital currents five, / Nor the quintuple sheaths of wisdom traits and body-stuff,” and in a footnote, these lines are explained: “Prana is the intelligent life energy that pervades and sustains the human body through the specialized function of five currents. The ‘quintuple sheathes’ are the five koshas or subtle coverings that separate the soul in delusion from Spirit.”
The chant drives home the truth that the soul, as a spark of the Divine, is not even the finest substances such as fire, air, or ether. Because the soul is “ever free,” it fears no bondage, and cares not even about the concept of freedom: that which is freedom itself has no need to concern itself with the concept.
Paramahansa Yogananda
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