Retired? Now find yourself!

The post retirement years can be a time to introspect and find yourself, says Dr Anil Chawla through this poem that encourages you to look within.

Retired? Now find yourself!

Now you are retired, all jobs mostly done and over,

You must be tired of acting as a role over and over.

You acted as a doctor, engineer, clerk or supervisor,

You acted as a husband, father, brother and driver.

Now you are retired, it is time to have a good look,

Are you all the roles you played from the cook book?

It is time you deeply enquire who you truly are,

Behind all the roles you played, who you truly are?

‘Who am I’ this question will often arise in your bosom,

Don’t ignore it, it’s the most profound question, its awesome!

If you find answer to this question, you can be liberated,

Liberated from worry, tension and sorrow, yes, you’ll be liberated.

Now look, when you are in deep sleep, of body you aren’t aware,

You are there; for you to be there, of body you need not be aware.

Even in the dream state, of body you aren’t aware,

It is only in the third or wakeful state that of the body you are aware.

Now look, look at a dead body or a corpse,

It doesn’t move or function or says ‘I’, this corpse.

If body alone were ‘I’ why won’t it utter ‘I’, this corpse?

It is now evident, without ‘I’ this body is just a corpse.

Even if you once believed you were the visible body:

Ask yourself: the infant, adolescent, adult or old, which body?

The head, the heart, the limbs, some part or all of that,

The body made of food from earth, is earth, no more than that.

Am I the mind, the thoughts or the concepts, notions that I acquired?

All thoughts and notions have been changing just as they desired.

I have watched all these changes from childhood till I retired,

Aren’t you the observer and knower; the unchanged ‘I’, of all that transpired.

‘I am’ you’ll thus find is pure consciousness, awareness, unattached,

“I am’ is always pure, peaceful yet alert intelligence unabashed.

Worry, tension, sorrow are passing mental phenomena, ‘I am’ is aware of that,

‘I am’ is the Lotus like canvas; body, mind are drops of color, don’t stick on that.