9. Idan na mama

इदं न मम्। This is a Sanskrit mantra that is often pronounced in many Yadnya (a ritual where offerings are made to typically fire with various prayers). The literal meaning of that mantra is this does not belong to me. Why is such statement essential for offering? Importance is given to offer to the fire what belongs to you. However this mantra tries to remove the fallacy that there is something that belongs to me. It allows you to humbly accept that this offering although offered by me does not belong to me. I am merely the current possessor of the item and nothing more. It develops an attitude of trustee for everything that you come across in life. Offloading possessions and belongings from mind and life is an important aspect of yogi’s life. Yogi works towards believing that everything in the world that he makes use of is simply a resource that he has no ownership of. He is simply using the resource as a trustee only to pass on to next possessor in the best possible way. A reduced belongings brings you to a mentality of a monk who has little to no ego. Let’s start applying this to food and you will find a change in attitude where you treat food as resource that everyone has right on . Suddenly you become more aware of the fact that resources are not mine. Then you ensure your use of food is to the minimal and least wasteful. Apply this to your car, cloths, property and suddenly your ego goes southwards. The amount of pain we go through after realising the loss of some materialistic possessions can suddenly become minimal as we impregnated our mind with Idan Na Mama! However we use everything with almost care as we become trustee only to handover to someone else. 

When such Idan na mama is applied to the job at hand, we dedicate the work to the supreme soul, god, whatever you would like to call apart from yourself. This is typically part of bhakti yoga where devotee performs every action for god and dedicated it to god including its consequences. When such view is acquired for our job or purpose, the work becomes Devine and so does your dedication to it. The job suddenly achieves supreme purpose in your life because you are doing it for that supreme soul. However, the purpose behind such job and results of that can not be detrimental to the larger society. Otherwise there is conflict in dedicating to the god. 

The attitude of “Idan-na-mama” goes further where we realise the body which we identify ourselves with is also not ours. It belongs to our parents and our karma. What belongs to us is our karma. Such view of life allows faster progress to next most important milestone of Yogi’s journey. For that matter any spiritual journey. That is to inquest to find “who am I ?” As said in Sanskrit “कोऽहम्?”. Once the baggage of emotions, sensual pleasures & ego is dropped from ourselves by applying “Idan-na-mama” philosophy, seeking answer to “who am I?” Becomes relatively less confusing. Lets practice applying it to as many as possessions and interactions in our life.