The Root of the Human Problem: Wanting to Become
Every seeker on the
spiritual path eventually runs into the same trap. They read scriptures, sit
for meditation, chant, fast, and practice austerities, all with one silent goal
in mind: to become That. To become enlightened. To become one with the divine.
To become free.
But this very wanting to become is the ego reasserting
itself in a spiritual costume. The moment we say "I want to become
That," we have already accepted a false premise: that we are currently
separate from That, and need to travel somewhere to reach it. This is the
central paradox that Hindu philosophy, particularly Advaita Vedanta, has
pointed to for thousands of years. You do not become the Self. You simply stop
believing you are anything else.
What the Animals Already Know
Look at the natural world for a moment. A dog never
struggles to become a horse. A cow does not envy the agility of a monkey or
wish to be a donkey. A fly does not spend its short life trying to transform
into a butterfly. Each creature simply rests in what it already is, without
conflict, without comparison, without ambition to be otherwise.
Human beings are the only creatures burdened with this
restlessness, because we alone possess the layered, thinking mind, what the
scriptures call manas and buddhi. This mind constantly compares, labels, and
projects a future self that is supposedly better than the present one. In doing
so, it obscures the one thing that was never missing in the first place, our
own true nature.
The Scriptural Foundation
The Chandogya Upanishad gives us the great declaration Tat
Tvam Asi, meaning "That Thou Art." This is not a goal to be achieved
after years of discipline; it is a statement of present fact. The Isha
Upanishad similarly reminds us that the Self is already whole, already
complete, and that nothing needs to be added to it.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna that the wise do
not grieve for the living or the dead, because the eternal Self, the Atman, is
never born and never dies. It is not manufactured through effort. Krishna also
teaches that it is the identification with the body, the mind, and the ego,
ahamkara, that creates the illusion of lack. The entire practice of yoga
described in the Gita is not a method of acquiring something new, but a method
of removing the coverings, avidya or ignorance, that hide what already exists.
Adi Shankaracharya, the great teacher of non-dualism,
explained this using the analogy of a rope mistaken for a snake in dim light.
The snake was never real. No effort is needed to "become" rope; the
rope was always there. The only requirement is light, that is, awareness, to
see clearly what was always the case. In the same way, the ignorant sense of
being a separate, limited person is the mistaken snake. Brahman, the one
non-dual reality, is the rope that was never actually missing.
An Everyday Example for the Novice
Imagine a man searching his entire house for his spectacles
while they are resting on his own forehead. He looks under the bed, in his bag,
on every shelf, growing more anxious with every failed search. Someone finally
points out that they are on his face. He was never without them. He did not
need to "become" a person with spectacles; he only needed someone to
point out what was already true.
This is exactly what a Guru or a scripture does. It does not
hand you a new possession called enlightenment. It simply turns your attention
to what you already are, but had stopped noticing because you were busy
searching everywhere else.
Another simple example is the ocean and the wave. A wave
rises, rushes toward the shore, and worries about becoming the ocean, not
realizing that it never stopped being the ocean even for a moment. The rising
and falling is just a temporary form. The water was never separate from itself.
Quieting the Mind: The Real Practice
If becoming is not the goal, then what is the practice? The
instruction given is simple, quieten the mind. In Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, this
is defined directly as yogash chitta vritti nirodhah, yoga is the stilling of
the fluctuations of the mind. When the mental chatter of desire, comparison,
memory, and anticipation settles, what remains is not a new state but the
original state, pure awareness, unclouded and untouched.
Meditation, japa, pranayama, and satsang are not tools for
construction. They are tools for subtraction. They remove the noise so that the
already existing signal can be heard.
Comparison With Modern Psychology
Modern psychology, especially humanistic and transpersonal
schools of thought, echoes this idea in its own language. Carl Rogers spoke of
the "real self" versus the "ideal self," and much of
psychological suffering arises exactly from the gap a person creates between
who they actually are and who they believe they should become. The constant
chase toward an idealized future self generates anxiety, low self-worth, and a
persistent sense of inadequacy.
Abraham Maslow's concept of self-actualization is often
misunderstood as becoming something greater. In its deeper sense,
self-actualized individuals are described as those who have stopped performing
a role and have become comfortable simply being themselves, spontaneous,
authentic, and free of pretense. This lines up closely with the Vedantic idea
that freedom is not an achievement but a recognition.
Modern mindfulness-based therapy, drawing heavily from
contemplative traditions, is built on the same premise, that acceptance of the
present moment, rather than a struggle to become different, reduces
psychological distress.
What Science Observes
Neuroscience research on long-term meditators has repeatedly
observed reduced activity in what is called the default mode network, the part
of the brain associated with self-referential thinking, mind wandering, and the
constant narrative of "me" and "my story." When this
network quiets down, practitioners commonly report a sense of expanded
awareness, reduced anxiety, and a feeling of connection rather than separation.
This is a striking scientific parallel to the ancient
instruction to quieten the mind. The chatter that science measures as default
mode network activity is, in everyday language, the same restless mind that the
Upanishads ask us to still. Reduced self-referential noise appears to reveal a
calmer, steadier baseline awareness, which many contemplatives describe as
simply being present to what already is.
Symbolism Worth Remembering
In temple worship and Hindu iconography, the deity is often
shown seated in stillness, whether it is Bhagavan Vishnu resting on Shesha in
yoga nidra, or Shiva seated in unmoving meditation. This posture of stillness
is symbolic. The divine is not depicted rushing to accomplish or transform. It
rests in its own nature. Devotees are meant to internalize this same quality,
resting in the Self rather than restlessly chasing an external identity.
The lotus, another common symbol, grows in muddy water yet
remains untouched by the mud. It does not try to become something other than a
lotus to escape the mud; it simply blossoms as what it already is, above the
surface, in its own nature.
Life Lessons and Everyday Relevance
The practical takeaway for daily life is significant. Much
of modern anxiety, comparison on social media, career pressure, the endless
self-improvement industry, stems from the same ancient error, the belief that
we are incomplete and must become something else to be worthy or happy. This
creates a treadmill with no finish line, since every "becoming"
simply creates a new lack to chase.
The alternative offered by this teaching is not passivity or complacency in worldly duties. One can still work, strive, and excel in the world, the Gita itself calls this nishkama karma, or action without attachment to becoming a different, more validated self through the result. The difference lies in the inner orientation, acting from fullness rather than acting to fill a perceived emptiness.
The deepest spiritual teaching is refreshingly simple: stop searching for what was never lost. The dog, the cow, and the fly already demonstrate this ease of being. Human suffering begins the day we start believing we are separate from our own true nature, and it ends the day the mind grows quiet enough to notice what was there all along. You do not need to become That. You need only to stop forgetting that you already are.