Question: If we all come from Consciousness, why don’t we experience it all the time? Why do we get trapped into thinking we are the body and the mind? Why is my true identity “hidden”?

Consciousness is like Jim Carrey. Suppose that he’s astonishingly interested in knowing what it would be like to “see through the eyes” of Andy Kaufman. This fascination soon leads him to get so engrossed in playing the role of Andy Kaufman (see the documentary Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond) that he–apparently–forgets that he is Jim Carrey.

At some point, however, a doubt arises as to who he really is. Then–often slowly–Jim Carrey slowly extricates himself from Andy Kaufman and remembers that he is, indeed, Jim Carrey and that he’s never been anyone but Jim Carrey.

Similarly, let’s suppose that the I Alone–the Self–wishes to know what it’s like to be Shree. This appears to entail the I Alone’s forgetting that it is the I Alone and, at the same time, the apparent identification of the I Alone with Shree such that the I thinks and feels: “I am Shree.”

At some point, a doubt arises. This doubt slowly grows until the I begins to separate Itself from the bodymind called Shree. That “process of separation” we call sadhana. When the I Alone is truly Alone, then the journey (which is not really a journey because the Self has never actually, only apparently, forgotten Itself) has come to an end. That is, the I knows Itself as I Am, as I Am That I Am.

I mean: Who doesn’t like a good game of hide and seek? And who doesn’t relish a great game of peekaboo?