Who am I?

A short essay on the meaning of ‘Who Am I?’

“Who am I?” Am I my memories, or my background and genetic heritage? Am I a product of ethnicity, environment, education, and experiences? Or something deeper?

Early on in life I had the feeling that there was more to life than what I experienced around me growing up. As I delved into spiritual philosophy, I encountered a concept that has stayed with me and has become more meaningful over the decades since. The concept is that “We are an individuality complete with at-one-ment with the totality of all that is.” Another way to think of this is that we both the one and the many.

Words, Thoughts and Concepts

Words fail us when we are trying to describe that which is beyond thought or the Absolute. However it remains a fruitful exercise to suspend thought and in the silence attempt to merge with that immensity. Another thing that helps me is to recall one of my teacher’s favourite sayings, “The greater always includes that which is smaller or lesser. The lesser never contains all that is there within the greater.”

“The greater always includes that which is smaller or lesser. The lesser never contains all that is there within the greater.”

What I am referring to is the thought or teaching that says, “As we reach deeply into the truth of who we are through meditation, we can encounter the Universal Absolute and discover the ground or foundation of our essential nature.” As an individual spark of that ground, you quickly become absorbed by the experience. As soon as the notion of “I” crosses your mind, the thought jolts you back to yourself as a separated ego.

The reality of the Universal Absolute is always present, but for us it is occluded by the ego, which needs to disappear or be transcended for this experience to appear. For this to occur we must leap past the limitations of the separated and ego clinging self. In meditation this always appears as a solitary experience and one that at the very least diminishes the primacy of the ego-self. It can be frightening to the point that we “veer away” from what seems like a precipice or an abyss.

Meditation is a Paradox

The paradox is that the experience that seemed like it would have to end in annihilation arises in our field of experience as radiant light, life and as the energy of all and everything. But what is the point of having an experience of this kind? It cannot really be “shared” in the conventional sense, it is not “common” and yet these spiritual breakthroughs are described in most, if not all, the spiritual traditions.

Personally, I believe that there is a purpose in this kind of realization. I think humanity is a singular consciousness, one that is lost in a manifold, collective delusion where the truth of our inner, spiritual nature is obscured from the Light of True Being. So, as one person wakes from the dream of separation, the Way is illuminated for us all.

The concept that there is no one who experiences enlightenment and no one who needs to become enlightened is only true from the prospective that it is a paradox that only makes sense if one has gone beyond all conceptualizations. One approach to having such an experience is to use the imagination. To illustrate, please read the following story:

The Ness of Water

I awoke in a cloud, not that I knew what a cloud was or even what the “I” was that awoke. There were no words, no thoughts, only a movement from nothing and then I was awake, as if from a dreamless eternity of a coma-like sleep. Then I felt a sensation where before I had none. This was all new. A sensation and I felt it, me, a point of reference in a vast expanse of vapor and wet. There was an inkling of comprehension, a kind of familiarity with what I was perceiving. But then I began to feel heavy, and I fell.

Many others fell too. Down we all came, falling through space, separate and alone but free in a way. There was no feeling, no thought only the sensation of endless falling. The experience was my only reference to what I now refer to as “me”. I was a rain drop. Then the falling stopped with a sploosh. I no longer felt heavy, but something had changed, and I felt oily, slick and shapeless. I wasn’t alone but felt the others again, rubbing our way down together in a tiny rivulet in a vast ocean of trees, until we came to a rest.

We joined together and formed a tiny pool. There were no words, only a recognition of our presence together. We were a puddle. Waiting. Not for anything at all but simply waiting. Eventually, a lulling pulled me back into a sleep.

I awoke as a bright light shone down on me, on us the puddle, and I remember the vague feeling of something stirring, quickening within me, to me. I was being stretched, I felt an intense burning as I lost my form in a terrible universe of pain and then, nothing.

Now, I am as I was before… a sail in the sky asleep within a cloud of vapor. No language, no thoughts, no longer me only the ness of a water droplet in the process of what is called life.

This brief story came to me at the conclusion of a deep meditation where suddenly all conventional thoughts and description simply disappeared, and my typical train of thoughts evaporated. Even though the experience was empty of self and other, there was still a presence and sense of being. Who am I? I am a living part of a greater process.

Suggested Mindfulness Meditations

Introduction to Mindfulness Meditation - This mindfulness meditation introduces us to mind in its natural state which is spacious, open and free.

Watching the Mind Meditation - This meditation introduces the fundamentals of mindfulness meditation. We begin by taming the mind by observing thoughts and trying not to let ourselves attach to them. After a while we can start training the mind to remain open, still and spacious.

Mindfulness Meditation on Spaciousness - this meditations focuses on slowing down the number of thoughts that enter the mind and increasing the space between one thought and the next.