Few months back I came across a zen koan that gave me hard time understanding the underlying principle. All of the zen koans are like this but this one bugged me for months. I recently, in fact today itself found the answer to it. So I am going to talk about it and how I came across the underlying principle in this post. The koan is by Zhuangzi (Chuang-tzu) and goes like this,
Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself. Soon I awakened, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.
Even after a single reading one can understand the question. The question is simple yet the depth is infinite. I would recommend at this point to stop and think about it for at least a day or two but if you are eager then at least re-read it and give it 5 minutes to sink in.
        According to Wikipedia a zen koan, "is a story, dialogue, question, or statement, which is used in Zen practice to provoke the "great doubt" and test a student's progress in Zen practice". Its like an answer wrapped around inside a question. You have to think about it and let it sink.
        I spent almost a month thinking about it then gave up but it kept coming back to me in one or the other forms. Today I saw a TED talk about non-dualism (link at bottom) that lead to another video that to my utmost amazement gave the answer to the question. So now lets think about this disturbing yet irresistible question. It can also be thought in many other ways for example,
  1. Am I dreaming right now and this universe, you , this post and everything else is just a figment of my imagination?
  2. And my death is just the actual me waking up from the dream?
  3. Or am I just a variable in some simulation code that holds different values at different times based on what the programmer wrote?
  4. Or may be everyday I wake up as a different person with all the past memories filled in my head as if I have lived that life? and many more...
        Right now I am highly desperate to write the answer but it would be a complete injustice to the question and the answer if I write it. My ego is telling me to write it by myself, you know to prove that IT IS ME WHO GAVE YOU THE ANSWER but I am in no position capable of explaining it. So I will provide the videos below, please watch as it is in the same order as I am posting.

The first talks about the basic underlying principle without keeping the question in focus.

 

Following videos take up the question and tell it in the form of conversation between king Janaka and Ashtavakra. i don't know why Blogger is not allowing to add the video itself so I am posting the links only:

PART 1:
Swami Sarvapriyananda at IITK - "Who Am I?" according to Mandukya Upanishad-Part 1

PART 2:
Swami Sarvapriyananda at IITK - "Who Am I?" according to Mandukya Upanishad-Part 2

So to sum it up, lets rephrase everything:
Question:
Given a white paper with a circle filled with black color drawn on it. Now is it a black circle on white background or a black background with white painted on it?

Answer:
According to Advaita (non-dualism) none of these is true. They are all different ways to visualize the white and black on the sheet. The only truth here is the EXISTENCE of the system. The whole system here is a witness of its different forms. The system in itself is the sole truth here. The only statement that is true here is that "It exists". Existence is the ultimate truth. And that is why in Hinduism (a very subjective and mostly wrong word to use here) it is said that, "You are eternal".  You just take on different forms even after death.

Source: Goodreads: Zhuangzi, Butterfly as Companion: Meditations on the First Three Chapters of the Chuang-Tzu