MISSING YOURSELF

A man wrote on Facebook, "I miss myself," to which he got a response from a friend, "I miss me, too." 

As it happens, these were members of a 1960s rock band, and who they were missing was who and what they were back then.  Those were the good ole days, and those were their good ole selves.

If you say to a Vedantist "I miss myself," he knows at once what you are referring to.  A better way you might put it, he will say, is, "I miss my true self."  Our true self is the Atman.

We miss the Atman because of everything else going on around us, family, career, friends, thinking, talking.  We are blinded by all this.

It's called "ignorance" in Vedanta, that is ignore-ance.  We ignore the Atman because we believe that all the other stuff we've got going is more important. 

But, alas, all those other things are relative, transient, impermanent, whereas the Atman is ultimate, eternal, abiding.  The former is like trying to hold water in your hand.  It just runs out.  The later is unchanging and the source of our liberation.  It's a matter of priorities.