Who am I

[popee]

Who am I, seems a pertinent question to ask. To continue discarding all that you are not, until arriving at the root.

Man, husband, father, grandfather, brother, cousin, friend, employee, taxpayer, forum member ... I have many different labels. And there is 50 years of photographic evidence of me participating in each roll. And anyone who knows me could pick me out of a lineup .. saying "yep that's Dan".

But am I that guy in the picture? Most people would say yes, but I am not so sure. How can you not be sure about something as basic as who you are?

Am I my body? Surely not. Surely the atoms which make up my mass are only on loan, and when I am gone they will move on to some other form.

Am I my ego? Surely not. Surely this personality did not exist prior to my birth, nor will continue after my death.

Am I my mind? I have no answer. I don't know what my mind is, where it is located, or if it is even "mine". There are thoughts and feelings and perceptions, but I don't pretend to claim "ownership" of them, they are just there.


Some people say things like 'you are awareness', which sounds simple enough, but I find that to be an abstract concept which is not easily understood.


=====

this particular prose sucks ass
but I am tired of fiddling with it
and it is, after all
a challenging question

[gurthbruins]

Nov 17, 2011 21:09:41 GMT popee said:

Who am I, seems a pertinent question to ask. To continue discarding all that you are not, until arriving at the root.

Man, husband, father, grandfather, brother, cousin, friend, employee, taxpayer, forum member ... I have many different labels. And there is 50 years of photographic evidence of me participating in each roll. And anyone who knows me could pick me out of a lineup .. saying "yep that's Dan".

But am I that guy in the picture? Most people would say yes, but I am not so sure. How can you not be sure about something as basic as who you are?

Am I my body? Surely not. Surely the atoms which make up my mass are only on loan, and when I am gone they will move on to some other form.

Am I my ego? Surely not. Surely this personality did not exist prior to my birth, nor will continue after my death.

Am I my mind? I have no answer. I don't know what my mind is, where it is located, or if it is even "mine". There are thoughts and feelings and perceptions, but I don't pretend to claim "ownership" of them, they are just there.


Some people say things like 'you are awareness', which sounds simple enough, but I find that to be an abstract concept which is not easily understood.


=====

this particular prose sucks ass
but I am tired of fiddling with it
and it is, after all
a challenging question

A question I am eager to tackle. And to avoid an obscure reply, 'cos I need to be clear to myself. In everyday language, not a language couched in dubious concepts. If you have to explain your truth in concepts that a child could not grasp, then it's not for me. For me, who you are means what you are.

Everything that is outside your body, is not you or part of you. Everything inside, is. I can't do without the concepts of space and time; I believe any effort to discard those is futile and useless while we are using words.

And everything that ever happened to you, your whole history, is part of you till you die. You can reshape your future, but your past is still there, in the past. Even God himself cannot change the past, for he will not deign to break his own law. No past moment has ever been observed to change. Luckily the past need not have weight: lightenment means reducing its weight to zero: becoming free of the past. You do not discard the past, but you can discard its effects.

The mysterious substance or thing called God is not only outside your body, as Judaism insists. No, it is also inside you: you are not separate from God. So, you are part of God, and part of God lies within you (the kingdom of the heavens). This substance makes you, as well as the entire universe, divine.

You did not exist before your birth, nor will you exist after it. Physically and genetically you did exist to some extent by virtue of your part existence in your parent's gonads and in other ancestors, and part of your body will, if you have children, continue in them. But by definition, and this is nothing but a matter of definition, we do not say you Are your father, or you Are your child. We Define "your" existence as beginning and ending with birth and death (although it is obvious that you were Very much alive moments Before your birth).

The divine part of you, when you die, does not leave your body and fly off somewhere else. It doesn't budge an inch. How could it, it is everywhere, it has no place to go. You and your body change to dust, the non-divine part of you eventually leaves little residue of interest to a human, but it remains divine nevertheless. It continues to function as an equally important part of the universe, even if you were vain enough to consider yourself more important than a speck of dust.

You may be said to exist exactly as a tree. Burn the tree to ash, it no longer exists. Kill your body, and you no longer exist.

You have a mind, it contains all your sensations, feelings and thoughts, and you may claim to own them. They are a part of your very being, part of the universe, and divine. Why should you seek to discard them? When you die, they will all end. They will never be resurrected or reincarnated.

I don't claim to know anything. Those are just my current opinions - tomorrow I might decide otherwise.