Who Am I: Ramblings of a Bored Mind

 

“Who am I?”, Ramana Maharshi, a great teacher in the yogic tradition, used to say that to attain inner freedom one must continually and sincerely ask the question “who am I” he taught that this was more important than reading books, learning mantras, or going to holy places. Just ask “who am I? who sees when I see, who hears what I hear/ who knows that I am aware? Who actually am I?”. let’s explore this question by playing a game you and I shall we? Make believe that you and I are having a conversation, typically in our culture we would introducing ourselves is the norm, when someone comes up and asks, “excuse me I am______ and you are?” you don’t admonish them for asking such as deep question. I would tell them my name, vinuri and then what if they wrote my name on a paper and showed it to me asking, “Is that who you are- a collection of letters? Is that who see you when you see? Obviously no, so I would say, “Okay, you are right. I’m not just vinuri. That is just a name people call me. It’s a label. I am a student, and I Study in the University of Peradeniya.”. what If the other person then asked, “how could you be just a student? Are you saying you didn’t exist until you became a student of the university of peradeniya? And would you cease to exist once you graduate? You can’t be a student of university of peradeniya, that’s just another label, the result of a series of situations you participated in. But then WHO ARE YOU? You still haven’t answered my question. This time this person has gotten my attention and I would respond spiritedly, “My ‘label’ is vinuri arambepola, and I was born in 1996 April in kalubowila and I now live in Colombo with my parents and my sister, and I attended Royal Institute and Ladies’ College and did my Advanced Levels well and got selected to the Food Science Degree in the University of Peradeniya and I Want to do Further studies and Go to a Good Job one day” but then the other person responds, “ wait a minute, that’s an interesting story, but I didn’t ask you what has happened to you since you were born. I asked you. “Who are You?” You have just described a bunch of experiences but who had these experiences, would you not still be there, aware of your existence, even if you had gone to a different school or university? Those things do not define you.” Now this has become a serious question you would realize if you were in my position. You would realize that never in your life have you asked you self this question or even if you have, probably without meaning. Now I ponder more seriously, and I would try again, “Okay, I am the body that is occupying this space. I am 5 feet 2 inches and I weigh 60 kilograms. And I am here in this moment talking to you.” Then the other person surprises me with yet another question, “when you were Vinuri in the grade 7 school Sinhala drama 13 years ago, you were only 4 feet 8 inches, so now are you the 4’8” person or are you the 5’2” person? Were you not in there when you were playing the character in the play? Are you not the same person who had the experience of being that character in the school drama and is not having this experience of trying to answer this question? Isn’t this the same You?” now I have to would take back a step and ponder on that, maybe what I looked at in the mirror as my physical appearance has changed, but really, what about me? The one who is looking. Isn’t there a continuity of being? I would contemplate and reflect. When I go to sleep and dream, who actually dreams, and who watches this motion picture in this head, well, I do. The same me who looks at the mirror, the same me who is typing these words, because there is a continuity of conscious awareness of being, I would realize. So the best answer to the question, “who is experiencing all this”, would be me. But who is this me? The question still remains, as you by now have realized, this has become quite a serious question. Because it’s easy to see that you are not the objects you look at and identify with because it’s a subject-object relationship. It’s easy to know that you are not the outside world, you are the one who is inside looking out at the world. You then realize that you would still experience emotions even if everything outside were to disappear, so who is feeling all these emotions, the same “me” that experiences both inside emotions and outside experiences, so if you observe this closely, you would see that the outside world and the inner emotions come and go, but you, the one who experiences these things, remain consciously aware of whatever passes before you. So where are you? Are you in your thoughts then, or who actually uses this mind to form thoughts and then manipulate them into ideas and judgements, does the experiencer of thoughts still exist even when there are no thoughts in this mind? But you know you are not your thoughts because for an example, if you can experience the peace that comes when your thoughts stop like when you meditate, then obviously your existence is not dependent on the act of thinking. So when it becomes noisy in your head, when you have many more thoughts than other times, when you feel like you mind just isn’t going to stop talking, who is noticing that, isn’t it the same you noticed the calmness when your thoughts stopped during meditation? who is it that is aware of the existence of all these noisy thoughts, so who is it that struggles to quieten the mind down, again this is a subject object relationship, but this time with your thoughts. You are the subject that is aware of your noisy thoughts that are just another object. You are simple aware of your thoughts that arise in your mind. I would give an answer like this now, in an attempt to answer the strangers question, “I’m not anything in the outside world, and I am not my emotions, they come and go and I experience them, like I experience my thoughts. What is left when I release all these experiences is who I am, by noticing who is experiencing these experiences. What is left has a quality that is awareness, which has a sense of existence. Because I exist, with thoughts or without thoughts.” The stranger is finally satisfied with my answer. But that got me thinking, when I look around me, my room, my bed, the window, the rains outside, the wet patio, I can take all this in at a glance without thinking about it, I just see it. But it would take me so much longer if I allowed my thoughts to label, isolate and describe and judge whatever I see around me, rather than when I take an instantaneous snapshot of consciousness just looking at the outside objects. When you look without thoughts, your consciousness is effortlessly aware of, and fully comprehend all that it sees. Because consciousness is pure awareness. But what is this awareness truly? I try another experiment then. If I am in a room with a piano, white walls, no windows, and ten or twelve people I don’t know I can observe all this and label them and identify as existing in this room with me. Now if I believe that the piano ceases to exist in the world, I wouldn’t have a major problem with that, because I’m not attached to the piano even if I am fond of playing them using the ear instead of notes. Now, I go on to believe that the people who were in the room ceases to exist, I would still be ok even if I feel a little alone because I don’t mind being alone. Now If I go on to believe that my awareness didn’t exist anymore, like it was simply turned off. What would it be like if my awareness was simply turned off like that. Then I Came to an epiphany. I would simply not be there. There would be no sense of me. There wouldn’t be anyone there in this body to say “wow, I used to be in here but now I’m not” there would no longer be an awareness of being, of existence. And without this awareness, or consciousness, there is nothing. Are there any objects near me or far from me in this room? Who knows? If no one is aware of the objects, there existence or nonexistence would simply become irrelevant. It wouldn’t matter how many things are in front of me or behind me, if there is no consciousness to be aware of them, there is simply nothing. If I are conscious, however, there can be nothing in front of me or behind me, and I would be fully aware that there is nothing in front of me and behind me. It’s really not that complicated, and it’s very enlightening. So now if anyone asks me “who I am”, in my head the answer would be “I am the one who sees. From back in here somewhere in this body, I look out, and I am aware of these events, thoughts, and emotions that pass by me and before me”. But I may never tell that answer to the laymen person because they probably wouldn’t find it useful. However, if you are interested, I invite you to go deeper and self-explore this, because when you realize that a spiritual being lives there, without effort and intent, you will come to the beautiful realization that you have always been there, and you will become aware that you are aware… and many great mysteries of life will unravel once you take that seat of consciousness.