“I Am the Riddle and Its Answer”
“I Am the Riddle and Its Answer”
(A Vamadeva Koan)
Rishi Vamadeva’s declarations in the Rigveda were not gentle hymns of praise alone; they were thunderbolts of paradox. When he said, “I am the riddle and its answer,” he shattered linear thinking. He was not speaking in metaphor, but in revelation — that the essence of self is both the question and the resolution, both seeker and sought.
The Nature of the Riddle
A riddle confuses the intellect. It forces us into a state of wonder, where reason falters. Vamadeva understood this deeply: the Self cannot be grasped by neat definitions. To know the Self, one must first be puzzled by it. Life itself is a riddle — Why am I here? Who am I? Where do I go?
Yet, in realizing himself as both riddle and answer, Vamadeva pointed to a profound truth: the puzzle of existence is not outside us but within us. The very being asking the question is already the response.
The Koan of Being
In Zen tradition, a koan is a paradoxical statement designed to jolt the mind out of logic. Vamadeva’s insight predates and mirrors this method. By saying, “I am the riddle and its answer,” he offered a Vedic koan.
It tells us: stop searching for answers outside. The riddle you face is your own existence, and its answer is also your own presence. The seeker and the sought collapse into one.
The Disruptive Beauty of Paradox
Why frame spirituality as a riddle? Because the human mind thrives on clarity and control, yet the Self resists capture. Vamadeva forces us into paradox not to confuse us, but to liberate us. The paradox cracks the rigidity of thought. In that crack, light enters.
This is not intellectual play; it is transformative shock therapy. It leaves you standing bare before the mystery, until the mystery and you are revealed as one.
A Modern Reading of Vamadeva’s Insight
Today, we live in an age obsessed with answers. Google has replaced silence, and certainty is worshipped more than mystery. But the price is high: we have lost the art of living with the unanswerable. Vamadeva’s insight restores balance. He shows that the riddle is not something to solve once and for all but something to become.
This means we must embrace not-knowing as part of knowing, contradiction as part of truth. To embody the riddle and the answer is to live in wholeness — no longer torn between seeker and destination.
Living as the Riddle-Answer
When you see yourself as both question and response, you release the need for external validation. You no longer anxiously chase meaning. Instead, you rest in wonder: “I am mystery, I am revelation. I am incomplete and complete.” That very posture is liberation.
🌿 Practical Toolkit for Daily Routine
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The Riddle Pause
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Before reacting to challenges, pause and ask: “What is the riddle here?”
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Don’t rush to fix. Let the question itself breathe in you.
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Answer in Silence
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After posing a riddle (Who am I? Why now?), sit in silence.
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Do not seek mental solutions. The answer will be felt, not spoken.
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Mirror Practice
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Stand before a mirror. Whisper: “I am both question and answer.”
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Gaze at yourself not as a problem to fix, but as a paradox to honor.
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Daily Koan Journal
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Each night, write one life paradox you noticed (e.g., “I am tired yet alive with energy”).
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Celebrate it as a doorway, not a dilemma.
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Breath of Paradox
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Inhale with the word “mystery.”
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Exhale with the word “clarity.”
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Let both coexist without conflict.
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Closing Thought
Rishi Vamadeva teaches us to embrace paradox not as confusion but as revelation. To say “I am the riddle and its answer” is to stop fleeing from the contradictions within and to see them as the very face of truth.
You are not incomplete, waiting for answers to make you whole. You are both the question and the resolution — a living koan, a walking hymn of the eternal.
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