We are in this condition now, in māyā. We can practically experience. I have several times explained. Just like while we are asleep we forget everything of our day's life, and during daytime, we forget everything what we saw in dream. So these two stages . . . so this is also dream, this is also dream, and I am the observer of the dream. Therefore I am the fact, and this is illusion. Both the conditions. So therefore the question arises: "Then what I am?" That is called brahma-jijñāsā.
Sanātana Gosvāmī went to Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu to ask this question, "What I am?" And in . . . any intelligent man can understand that "I am simply dreaming. At night, I am dreaming something, forgetting night's dream, uh, day's dream. And in day, daytime, I am dreaming something; I am forget the night's dream. So actually both of them are dreams, and I am the observer. Then what I am?" This is the question. Athāto brahma jijñāsā This is the beginning of Vedānta-sūtra. One should be inquisitive. Unless one comes to this point of inquiring about himself, then what I am? Why I am dreaming this daytime and nighttime? What is my actual position? This is human life.
When one comes to this point of inquiring, "What I am?" that is the beginning of human life. Otherwise animal life. The animals, they do not know what I am, neither this question comes to them, "What I am?" He's thinking, "I am dog," "I am cat," "I am ass," "I am tiger," "I am this and that." Similarly, if we simply think like that, that "I am American," "I am Indian," "I am brāhmin," "I am this," "I am that," that is animal life. That is animal life. When you come to this point, understanding, inquiring, jīvasya tattva-jijñāsā . . . jīvasya tattva-jijñāsā naś ceha yat karmabhiḥ (SB 1.2.10). Kāmasya na . . . na indriya-prītiḥ, jīveta yāvatā.