Who am I?

This post is part of the my blog series non-duality.  I recommend you to read my previous posts -- Does God exist? and How we search for God before you read this post. 

From the time we were born, and as we go through the biological growth of our bodies, get educated at schools, have relationships, go through joyful & sad moments and come to ask deeper questions about life, one thing stays common during all these changes  - our "Self" that we usually refer to as "I". During everything that is experienced in our life, our "I" is always present. But what exactly is this "I"? 

One thing we are sure about through experience is that our "Self" or the "I" seems to be present at every moment of our life - when we were babies, young, old, good & bad times, traumas, exciting, joyful, happy moments and at all other times. This much everyone can agree. Our experience of the world during every moment of our life is through our body, thoughts, perceptions, sensations, emotions&feelings, and the image(s) of who we think we are. So, when we refer to "I" or our true "Self" are we referring to one of these things, all of these, or none of these? Let's inquire it a bit further. 

"Am I the body?"

Almost all humans think of their body, when they say "I".  Can our body be our true "Self"? 

When we were born, we had a very small body. Over time our bodies grew by the way of transformation of the food that we consumed into bodily tissues, bones, muscles, fat etc. It is the food that we eat each day that gets transformed into our bodies and all the remaining unused food is flushed out as urine, stool, sweat, and other bodily secretions. Our bodies go through constant changes and transformations throughout our life. Upon this simple inquiry, we can easily understand that our body is not constant throughout our life and it can't be our true "Self". Can our ever changing and phenomenal body be the constant "I" that we frequently refer to? NO. We are aware that our body grows. Our true "Self" can only be THAT, which is always present, and in which the body appears and apparently seems to grow.  

So the body can't be the true "Self/I". What else could it be? Let's look at the thoughts. 

"Am I the thoughts?"

The next thing that most people strongly associate with are their thoughts. Can our thoughts be our true "Self?" 

When we investigate thoughts, a common thing most people might have experienced is, we observe a thought arising and but we are sometimes able to refrain from taking action based on that thought. We can easily observe that we are separate from our thoughts. Also, a thought appears, lingers for a while, and then disappears.  Anything that is temporary can't be our true Self or the "I". Our true "Self" can only be THAT, which is always present, and in which the thoughts appear and disappear.  

So, the body or the thoughts can't be the true "Self/I". What else could it be? Let's look at our perceptions.

"Am I the perceptions?"

Are we our perceptions? Perceptions here are referred to our sense perceptions through the five sense organs - eyes, nose, ears, tongue, and the skin. The five sense perceptions are seeing, smelling, hearing, tasting, and tactile perception of skin. Can this be our true "Self/I"? 

Again, after a little investigation we can agree that no perception is constant. None of these perceptions stay forever - they arise, we experience them, and then after some time they disappear. Anything that is temporary can't be our true "Self" or the "I". Our true "Self" can only be THAT, which is always present, and in which the perceptions appear and disappear.  

So, the body, thoughts, or perceptions can't be the true "Self/I". What else could it be? Let's look at our sensations.

"Am I the sensations?"

Are we our sensations? Sensations here are referred to the sensations of pain, tightness, pleasure, discomfort, or anything else that we feel inside our body. The distinction made here between perceptions and sensations for the purpose of our investigation is, that sensations seem to be internal to the body and perceptions seem to coming from objects that are apparently external to the body. Can our sensations be our true "Self/I"? 

This also, after just a little investigation we can agree that no sensation is constant. Sensations however strong have a beginning and an end. Anything that is temporary can't be our true "Self" or the "I". Our true "Self" can only be THAT, which is always present, and in which the sensations appear and disappear.  

So, the body, thoughts, perceptions, or sensations can't be the true "Self/I". What else could it be? Let's look at our feelings and emotions.

"Am I the feelings/emotions?"

Are we our emotions or feelings? We can clearly experience our feelings and emotions and some of them cause intense sensations in our body. Some of the feelings and emotions are opening and freeing, and others are constraining and cause a lot of discomfort in our body. Can our feelings/emotions be our true "Self/I"?

After just a little investigation we can agree on this also, that no feeling/emotion is constant. However strong they are, they simply don't stay forever. Anything that is temporary can't be our true "Self" or the "I". Our true "Self" can only be THAT, which is always present, and in which the emotions/feelings appear and disappear.  

So, the body, thoughts, perceptions, sensations, or the feelings/emotions can't be the true "Self/I". What else could it be? Let's look at the images.

"Am I the Images?"

Are we the images that we hold of ourselves? We hold images of ourselves as a certain type of person with certain qualities and a certain behaviour. This image is not present when we were babies. We are told by our caretakers growing up who we are, and also from our own experiences we form an image of who we think we are. Most of us believe that this image we have of ourselves at any given point as a constant never changing thing. But upon little investigation, we can break this illusion. We had no image of who we were as babies. As we were young children, we had an image of ourselves, this image kept changing over years. And if you look back 5 - 10 years, you can clearly see that the image of who you think you are has changed a lot. And the only guarantee is that this will continue to change for the rest of our lives. Anything that is temporary can't be our true "Self" or the "I". Our true "Self" can only be THAT, which is always present, and in which the images appear and disappear.  

So, the body, thoughts, perceptions, sensations, feelings/emotions, or images can't be the true "Self/I". 

As we investigated about who we truly are, we seem to come to an understanding that we can't be something that is phenomenal, that which comes and goes or changes. We can only be THAT which is always present, and which is always the same, and that which is aware of everything that is coming and going. There seems to be an Awareness within which all the things we talked about, like our body, thoughts, perceptions, sensations, feelings/emotions,  and images arise from and sink back into. This Awareness apparently seems to be enabling us to be aware of body, aware of thoughts arising, aware of the perceptions from five senses, aware of the apparent sensations in the body, aware of feelings/emotions, and aware of the images we hold of ourselves.  

Could this Awareness we stumbled upon here be our true "Self"? This Awareness seems to be present during all stages of our life, and it seems to be the same Awareness that we experienced when we were a child compared to the Awareness with which we are experiencing our world today. 

But, what about the person we believe to be. We think, act and  do everything in life on behalf of this person who we believe to be us. This person doesn't seem to be found anywhere when we did the investigation above. Then why do we believe that this person really exist? 

We will look into these questions in our next blog posts. 

Peace! Aum(OM)! Amen! Inshallah!  

#trueself #whoami #awareness #I #self #perceptions #body #sensations #feelings #emotions #images #thoughts

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