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in isolation. This breath which I consider mine had already been the breath of millions and millions. This air that I exhale now will constitute the breath of millions and millions yet to be born. The millions and millions of cells that form and rear my physical body had once been part and parcel of millions and millions of other .physical bodies. How can they be called mine? When I cast off this body these cells may constitute the physical bodies of millions and millions. Even when I have not sloughed off this body, every minute it is undergoing change and old cells are being discarded and new cells are being formed. The new cells that enter your body are verily the old ones that have come away from others. This body which I call mine has already belonged to thousands of men, millions of animals and billions of other living organisms and will henceforth constitute countless similar bodies. How can it be mine?
Nor is the mind alone. For the constituent parts of the mind too come and go like those of the physical body. There is nothing that is mine. This attitude is the primary stage in the love of God. When we actually realize that there is nothing that is ours, when this attitude further deepens, we feel that we ourselves do not exist since there is nothing that is ours. As long as the idea " I have something" persists in us, we have the delusion that we are and we begin to desire acquisition measure my greatness in accordance with the largeness of my house. I measure my greatness in accordance with the height of the position I occupy. I measure my greatness in accordance with the extent of my property. I measure my greatness in accordance with the influence of the position I hold. Why? Because my "I-ness" increases in proportion to the increase of my possessions. "I-ness" develops with acquisition. "I-ness" grows in the company of "my-ness". The frontiers of "I-ness ' and "my-ness" are coterminous. Hence, if the delusion of "my-ness" is exterminated, the basis for "I-ness ' disappears. If there is nothing that is mine where can I be? If "my-ness" sinks, "I-ness" becomes feeble, void.
A question often asked of me is this, "Are we to leave off everything
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