Who am I

0:00 Who am I? is one of the most fundamental questions, if not the question. I noticed there are many people here who are asking this question and looking for answers. So I decided to open this room. There are a few other books which you may already have read or may ring some bells. And that's a confirmation that probably this is room for you then. Maybe there's something of interest here. In the early 2000s I was looking for some explanations for things which were occurring to me. And I discovered that yes, there are actually some of these people who have gone before and explained them pretty nicely. And I resonated with who am I?

0:58 Method from Ramana Maharshi. He was also doing Vipassana meditation at the time. And Mahara, which I mentioned I am that, is also pretty close to my home at the time. And the list of the books in the first sheet are probably in the order of the easiest first. And everybody has their different paths. So no worries if they don't resonate with you. But nevertheless, I decided to write down a little bit of the exploration path I was having at the time. And that book is a result of it. I was intending to write an introduction book, the basics, 101. But I never did that.

1:47 So that's not a 101 easy to read book. Well, it's pretty easy language in there. It's not complicated. You can just pick randomly any page. And hopefully it will tell you something. And readers are saying that it actually reveals different things at different times when you're reading it. And I would say that there's more between the lines than in the lines. The book itself has been published. There was an Australian version. That's the original self-published version I did on purpose. The English one, you can still have it in Amazon paperback. And Kindle version is out as well. And then there was a Finnish version as well. Those two were not self-published. They were actually publishers.

2:38 It was never a big hit. I wasn't probably marketing it too well. Or it was not just the time for the book. But I managed to get some good feedback from the readers. But it was not any intention to push it out and make it the best version. push it out and make it top ten bestseller. It was just to record it and put it out. And now it's almost 20 years, so maybe it's worthwhile to just remind that it exists if it's of any help for somebody. I don't have data, but my understanding is that probably the biggest readership came from Pakistan. I have no idea why. But there was a two-page interview done on Eastern Sunday issue.

3:31 I was told that that's the biggest circulating, the largest circulating English-speaking newspaper in Pakistan at the time. I don't know whether that's true. Anyways, that was the interview, which I think has a little bit of the preview and intro to the book. If you want to check it out and get a feel before diving in or checking whether it will speak to you. The language and the way I have written it is not technical. It's pretty philosophical and common sense. It's just everyday observations, what happened during that time. I think every day I wrote one piece, and it didn't usually take long.

4:25 I just started to write something, and that's the result of it. And they were more or less first takes, all of them. And later on, I put it into the book format. So it's a workbook. If you're taking seriously and pushing your progress, it's an example book. You should be able to do similar stuff. So it's an inspirational book in the sense that it's just something you should be able to do. You should be able to do as well. Every day. It's not harder or easier, but it's a workbook because it doesn't exactly tell you what to do or what to think. Its purpose is to make you do the hard work, the heavy lifting. And that's what the article writer Ramla Akhtar was also saying. It's an unassuming book.

5:20 It didn't try to direct me, yet it reinforced my life. This is. It's a book that I'm reading. now opening up this room for discussions.