We are born not knowing how we are made, what we are made of, what is this world into which we are born, why is there so much suffering, why do we have to be born, only to die? We begin asking these questions very early in life and many of us live through life without ever knowing even a preliminary answer. 

We are seeking to KNOW. The KNOWER is apparantly the MIND.  But the mind ceases to exist when we die, so how can something that exists only for a short period of time know or begin to know the answers?  The answers would die anyway when the mind dies. 

So we realize that the mind is only an instrument that leads to realization of our true self.

The process of knowing is based on a world of objects.  But  the self is beyond the perceptive capability of any of the five senses. 

There is no description of the appearance of the Identity because it has no shape, appearance or form.  

There is no channel of communication that can be established with the Identity because the Identity is the very self that is performing the search and one cannot possibly communicate with the self. 

To know the self the knower must be different from the object that is to be known. 

This problem is inbuilt into the very core of the attribute of Perception and Consciousness. How can the very source of perception and consciousness know itself?  

One solution - We can look to each other and describe what we see. However the problem is that even if we take a human being physically apart, we see countless number of different parts of the body.  We can, by the power of reasoning, eliminate many of the components on the basis that we can stil live without them.  On the same basis, even when a person is in a state of coma, the person may continue to live. This means that the mind i only an organism and is not the sustainer of life and consciousness. 

This leads us to conclude that that the source of perception and consciouseness or the identity is not a physical object and infact may not be located within our bodies at all. 

The Process of knowing is associated with the Mind. So in the process of identification of the self, the mind is assumed to play the key role in sifting through the information and elimination and coming to conclusions on who, what and where the identity is located. 

So the mind begins the process of looking for the self.  

In order to begin the journey, we need to know at least one characteristic of the object of the search, in order that we will be able to identify it and the search becomes fruitful.

Because there is no physical attribute of the Self, the mind needs to seek the self based on a quality or attribute that is not physical. 

Since the characteristic is not physical the mind uses one attribute that is identified and referred to repeatedly  in the scriptures, most specifically in Srimad Bagavatham and Bhagavath Gita.  

The attribute is - PERMANENCE. 

It does not take much persuasion for us to be convinced that permenance is an essential attribute or quality that we seek to attain in order to escape the continuing cycle of births and deaths. 

Lets begin the search for Permanence in earnest. 

We can begin observation of people, objects and events. 

There is change in everything that is perceived. Everything that is born, dies after its Karma is done. Nothing that is perceived remains still. 

There is nothing in the physical world that remains still. Everything is changing all the time. 

So we conclude that what we are seeking is not in the physical world.

Even if it is in the physical world, there is no way that we can become a part of it. We will examine this later in greater detail in the following pages.