The "I"

   

I've always thought that there was something bigger out there,, something that encompasses everything and everyone. I searched high and low for answers, maybe I could have a clue if I went the route of history, knowing what happened since the beginning of time seemed to be the logical way.

So off to history I went, devouring everything that I could find,,, learning about long lost civilizations that were said to be too advanced for their time.  Sadly this route was as limited as a village roundabout, no explanations were given, if anything, more questions arose. More whats? wheres? whens? hows? and whys?  It seemed like an aimless wandering, years spent learning facts that were good for trivia night and nothing more.

But then I found something, well,, more like someone.  I was blasted off to space, clear out of the atmosphere.  I learned that everything that I was seeing were just shapes and colors. And that it was culture/society that tells us the names of things that we see -- thus the work of the mind. Try it, look around you and focus on the first thing you see -- what is it? Describe it without using the word that it is called.  You would describe it's shape and color, right?!?  It was very profound, I was given this little tidbit of information that was exactly what I was looking for.  And the most valuable thing that I realized, was that I have to look within for answers and not beyond.  I had to know myself first and the rest shall follow. 

I started questioning who I was, what am I? Am I inside this body? Am I the body? It seemed like I was not.  But how do I know that I am not the body? I experience everything using it, using the senses that comes with it.  My whole life, I've thought that I was nothing else but it.  But what is the body? It's just a vessel used in this world, a loaner by mother nature, it can't even leave this world, it belongs here -- it was born here and hence shall end here.  When you think about it, you can't even control it can you? When it needs to relieve itself, you have to, otherwise it would be a mess,, that can hardly be called control can it?  If there was control, it would be easy to not make it hungry, or never get sick or never grow old.  And all those things, one cannot have control over.  

Maybe I'm the mind, it does all the thinking!  And I did have this thought that I was inside the body.  And memories and emotions are part of it, and am I not full of them everyday? No doesn't seem likely either.  The mind is yet another object that is used to make sense of things here, the carrier of memories, the feeler of emotions, the creator of thoughts. Memories pop up without prompting at times, the same is true of emotions and thoughts. But when you look at them closely, they come and go don't they?  In my experience, all thoughts and emotions don't last long. The mind is not me,, it does and thinks everything,, but it is not me.



Then who am I? I rediscovered that I am the Self.  The witness to everything, the watcher, the experiencer.  Ever present, always the silent witness.  The body and mind are my tools in this world.  But even without them I will continue experiencing everything.  How do I know this?  Because I am witnessing how the body acts and how the mind thinks.  The body and mind cannot perceive themselves as they are, but the Self does.  Take a minute and digest that -- you witness the body and the mind do things, and those actions are not done by you.


I say rediscover, because we all know what we are, we are aware of things that we do -- aware of what you ate this morning, aware of the sadness you felt when you watched a dog die in a film, aware of bringing an umbrella because it's cloudy outside -- the body is not aware of things it does and the mind does not have the capability to watch itself, only the Self can do that, only the Self can notice these things.  Everyday we are aware of what we do, but we forgot who we are, and started thinking that we are either the body or the mind.  But a little prodding will make us realize the truth of who we are.  We are all consciousness.