Who Am I? Whence Am I?

EXISTENCE
There is a clear "sense" of existence.
A "sense" of being is there.
There are sensations.
There is sensory perception.
The sensations and the perceptions define or reveal a "world".
Some of these become available somehow even after the physical sensations or absent.
We can define them as memory or thought.
The world is a set of such sensory perceptions.
A short sequence can be termed an event.
There is a continuous "stream" of such sensory perceptions.
Various objects appear in the world.
The sensory perceptions are "interpreted" as objects, with such and such attributes.
An "apple" is defined "out" of a plethora of sensations.
This is very similar to identifying a pattern of digits 314159 out of a stream of random numbers.
Digits are generated at random, and are streaming past.certain patterns are identified and named and recognized.
Relationships between objects are defined/identified.
Some objects are inert.some seem to interact and have a sense of existence, and seem to know it.
Some objects/events appear/identified as good/nice.
Perception of such objects/events seems to bring about a very desirable state.
Various such patterns are defined.
A more complex sequence of such patterns are termed as "explanations"/"theory".
A sequence is identified from this infinite bundle of sensory perception.
A sense of now, a sense of before and after are created.Time gets defined.
A sense of here and there is created or identified.Space gets defined.


IDENTITY
Identity/definition is sense of limited experience.
(when there is no limitation then the identity is lost)
As an infant, first awareness of a limited sense of existence/identity comes from the name.
I am my Name. A sound.
People point at me and keep on calling me by that name.
I am now this name.
This name is identified with a body.
A body is a sensory perception.
A particular pattern is defined as "my" body.
I come to be associated with it.
In a world where all humans and aware-objects are destroyed the moment I am born, it would be interesting to know if I will ever identify myself with a limited part of the experience.
Anyway that's just a thought. we can move on.
So, by a sequence of events, an "I" gets defined, and I come to be associated with it.
All events/objects in the sensory perception, form relationships with the I.
Or rather, relationships/associations get defined.
The world is now viewed as a relationship and interaction between this I and all other objects/events.
The I begins to play a very important role in all experiences.
What is "desirable" is now very dependant on the I and its relationship to the world.
Blood is sensory perception. A mere experience.
Blood coming out of a bruise on my fingertip "becomes" an undesirable experience.
This false identification becomes central.
Initially there was no identity.
Now there is this wrong/false identity.
Is there a right/true identity?
We are defined/identified by a specific pattern of sensory perception. and this pattern is called the body.
The boundary is the body.I end at the body and beyond it the world begins.
Any clothing, accessories such as glasses, shoes etc are clearly outside the boundary.
False teeth, an implanted lens, a pace maker, any such thing also clearly is not me.
A tooth which falls off or a hair that is cut off is not me.
It was part of me, now no longer part of me.
So this boundary is little flexible. things come in, things go out.
It appears that this identification, is merely a definition, and not absolute.
We can define the I in this manner as whatever we want it to be.
We can also get rid of this identity completely and say the world/totality of sensory perception is Me.
Question is , is there an identity beyond such mere definitions?
Is this sense of "I" an absolute one, or a simply acquired/assumed one?

Initially there was no identity, then the false identity, hence the question.

Let us try shrinking this boundary inwards of the body.
The teeth, and hair, whether it is part or not, is not the I.
So are the hands,legs and so on.
Next we have the heart, stomach, kidneys, liver etc.
The life force is essential for the body. but it is only a perception.
(Life-physiology itself is merely part of the perception)
So these organs are not part of the identity.
The brain? It is also part of the sensory perception and no need to give special status.
So the whole body is not my identity.

So am I not part of the sensory perception, including thoughts etc.?
What we are actually doing in the pretext of going "inside", we are going "beyond". Inside/outside anything is still part of the world. Is part of the sensory perception.
What we are actually doing is we want to go "beyond" the world, seeking this identity.
But what all exists, what all is experienced is the world. And as long as we identify as part of this world, it is merely a definition.

So..Did we "find" it? ..... No
"Can" we find it? ..... Cannot. If we do find it, it would be part of the sensory perception/experiences, and only a mere definition. We can say it is the I. But wouldn't mean anything.

So Who and Whence am I?

There is no I, there is no Who or Whence :)

Freedom

Freedom is something all of us want. We all have our definitions of what freedom is.

Let us consider Freedom as being the opposite of imprisonment. For whatever reason someone commits a crime. Sometimes this could have been also wrong judgement. So one lands up in prison.

All the freedom one possessed is now lost.

The initial days of the prison life is very confusing, there is no focus, there is delusion, there is experience of surrealism. The initial days of fear are overcome eventually. Prison life becomes routine.

One has to simply go in cycles, day after day, without any purpose. The only purpose if any is to get out of the prison.

It takes a while to realize that there is really no purpose of the prison. And that there is no object inside the prison that can give real happiness. The only happiness can be freedom. Any event or object that makes us forget that we are in the prison seems to give us happiness. But once the reality is remembered, those objects no longer make us happy.

Life continues. Over a period we forget that we were once a free bird. We become "institutionalized". And you either "get busy living or get busy dying".

One among us somehow continues to remember his free life. He continues to hold on to hope. After realizing that a normal good behaviour will not get him freedom, he plans secretly on an escape.

He makes an attempt, if hes lucky he gets out and is free. If he is unlucky, he gets back to a much more rigorous imprisonment. Making his freedom almost impossible.

One fine day, based on his extremely good conduct, a prisoner gets released. He is back into the free world. He is extremely happy. This happiness is permanent , since he is no longer a prisoner. He need not get to the prison any more!

No matter what the means, he is now free. liberated. Once he is free, he has a natural tendency to help the prisoners inside to escape. Some do follow his tips and get out. But most others who are now completely institutionalized, do not listen to him, they are either convinced that he will get into trouble, or he has lost his mind.

The person who has tasted freedom, doesn't care about what all happened to him while in prison, He doesn't care about how he was wrongly convicted, or all the unpleasant, undesirable events that happened inside. All that matters to him now is he is no longer a prisoner. he has a full life of freedom to live.

Life without the true knowledge of Who I am, is like prison. Life itself is not a prison. The world and its worldly objects are not imprisonment, but the life that is experienced without the self-knowledge is like imprisonment.

People take all kinds of efforts to get out of the sometimes meaningless, repetitive life. But all such actions results in them becoming more and more entangled. and it takes more and more effort to get a glimpse of the happiness that used to be available abundantly in childhood.

There is not a single person who looks back at "good old times". For most of us those "glorious days are over". There are few among us, who appears always happy, like a child is even in adulthood, even when all kinds of trouble is surrounding the person seems unperturbed. He is a hopeful person. He knows there is a way out.

He follows the time tested methods to obtain the self-knowledge systematically. One fine day he realises who he is! Once the truth is known, once the reality is experienced, the life becomes a joy. The very same life and its objects and events that one experienced before, becomes a source of enjoyment. the intermittent and diluted happiness that became rarer by the day, now suddenly became abundantly available.

Once a person gets the true knowledge, all the events of an ignorant past become instantly irrelevant. All the so called unhappy and undesirable events are a now non existent past. there is now a whole new life to lead with full of freedom.

There is no proof that I can Die

We see birth, We see death of innumerable people as time passes.

We hear people talking about the birth of a baby/ We learn about the passing away of someone. We personally take part in some, witness some.

Some other day there was a Tsunami, another day there was an earth quake. Thousands perished. So we hear. We see it on TV. body bags being dragged around.

This is how we come to know and understand the birth and death of human beings. By hearing about them, by witnessing them. So we also conclude since I was also born similarly, I will someday pass away in one of the innumerable ways. Death is inevitable. So it seems.

Now, do we have the personal experience of birth? are we aware of our birth? No one can ever say that yes I remembered my birth. So my birth itself is a story that I come to believe. Even a documented story is still not proof enough. Because I am seeing that story only in the "Now". There can be absolutely no concrete proof for it happening in reality. What if this is all one big reality show?!

So, there is really no first hand proof for my birth! And since I do not and cannot have a first hand proof, but yet I have the first hand direct proof of my existence, this implies that I have to be birth less. Birth less or Beginning less is an interesting concept. It implies deathless , or endlessness.

So there is no proof for the possibility of my death. This is not the same as saying I have innumerable births and hence I am eternal. What this really implies is, for the very me as this human in flesh and blood itself, there is no proof that I will die.

I see people born, and dying all the time. but that is no proof that I was born and I will eventually die!

Of-course this argument appears absurd. That is purely because we have either not bothered to question how we learn and know things, or we have come to accept certain things as not knowable.

While in axiomatic theories such as mathematics this concept of fundamental premise that we assume to be true without attributing any real meaning is necessary, it is not possible to live with such premises in the real world.


We can of-course use such aids to begin the investigation, but eventually either those assumptions must be proven , or made irrelevant.

While this argument that there is no proof of my death, is extreme it is not illogical.

Having established that I cannot die, I ask myself, “So what?”, “what changes?” This argument simply means “I cannot die”, but the fact that I experience others dying and being born, implies there will be nothing different about the world, just because I cannot die.


However, this exercise of abstracting what I observe and who I am, and finding the absolute difference in them I realize I am not part of what I observe, and all the things that I observe simply happen to appear to me.

A deeper question of each such phenomena leads to the questioning and discovery of who I really am.


Knowing who I really am, and knowing what the world really is, liberates me from the duality of this world.

The Seasons of the Mind

If we introspect on what the mind is, we come to the conclusion that it is different from the body. We are tempted to believe that the mind is some sort of a function of the brain. But the brain is also completely a physiological organism, at the most it can do certain things that are "programmed".

Similar to the concept of Inverse Kinematics familiar to 3D animators, there are programs in the brain for all the functions of the body. It might also appear to create thoughts. or show certain activity associated with thoughts, emotions etc.

One can say, there are neurons, that keep firing all the time, and there is chemical, physical and physiological actions going on in the brain. One may even eventually "identify" through some sort of a scanning mechanism a single particular thought, or a unique configuration of the brain or part of it, while one has a certain thought. We may even be eventually map all thoughts by physical observation. So what does it mean? is the brain responsible for our thoughts?

The unique distinction between a programmable computer such as a Turing machine, and the human is that there is somebody "having", or "observing" the thoughts. In the case of the computer, there is none.

The true "I" does not belong to this place of physical reality at all. what we see in this world is a representation of the real I. Just like we observe our self as a character inside our dreams.

The most difficult part of handling our lives surround around how our mind functions. What it does, feels and how it emotes. If we realize that the mind belongs to the lower order of reality, and we are able to observe it, since we know what the mind thinks, we can ease a bit, saying I am not this suffering mind at all. I am simply an observer of it, just like I am the observer of my body.

However this is easier said than done. Just like the body has characteristics, the Mind has its character. the mind, just like the body and like every other thing in the Universe, is made of three kinds of nature, Aura, Energy and Matter.

The composition of the mind based on these three components keeps changing all the time. It depends on the food we eat, the company we keep, the books we read, the news that we consume and so on. It also depends on the time of the day, the weather, the climate, the colors and what not. and all of this varies from individual to individual. as they say one man's meat is another man's poison.

Having known this, we can try to control the composition as much as we can. But this is similar to protecting the physical body from illness, or having a high fitness level. There will always be sickness, points of break down etc.

So, the real solution is simply the knowledge that the mind will always keep changing. sometimes it is very enlightened, sometimes it is agitated, sometimes is is dull, based on which nature is dominant at the moment.

Just realize this fact and simply observe when the mind is in what nature. When is Aura, enjoy and make the most of it. when in Energy get your things done, when in Matter(dullness) just laugh it out.

This knowledge, similar to the knowledge of the changing seasons, liberates and ends suffering.

How many are there actually?

In the Quest for Myself, after a significant investigation and probing, I can find that I do not exist in the world that I perceive. Sounds Strange indeed.

Now , Who am I first of all? By definition "I" am the one that is the true Me. the changeless, Observer. Everything that I can observe, is not me. Observation is nothing but an awareness of existence. I observe a painting, I observe a book. I perceive the book, I am aware of its existence. so I am not this book, or that painting.

Because, anything that I can observe, and I can perceive, is independent of the true Me, since if we remove it, or make it non-existing, I still exist.

This if I continue to do to my Body, Life, Mind, Intellect, Experience, ad infinity, I conclude that I cannot be anything that I can perceive.

OK. fair enough. .. Then lets go figure out where this non-perceivable Me is? What is non perceivable? what is un-Observable? it goes back to the question of What is perceivable, what is Observable?

In order to be aware of the existence of anything, we need to perceive it. Primarily we depend on our sense organs for sensory perception. Only objects that have certain properties can be sensed by these organs.

We can classify all such objects as sense objects. So we can say all sense objects fall under the observable category. Then there are things beyond sensory perception . Thoughts, Ideas, Emotions... I do feel their existence at times. They do create a certain experience.. and they do have intellectual content. "Red is a color". Though this may not create any emotional experience, there is information. This thought is distinctly different from " The Sky is Blue" thought. the information distinguishes these two thoughts. So we can say information is the property which makes thoughts observable. As we continue this route we can conclude that any object is Observable only if it has some property.

The property can be anything, sensory such as color, smell, taste, shape, sound, texture, etc, or non-sensory such as location, time, information etc.

So for any object to be Non-Observable, then we can say, it should not have "any" property whatsoever.

But every single thing on this world that we exist, has some property of some sorts. All sensory objects have clearly their respective properties. all non-sensory objects such as thoughts also have properties of information, time or space. this simply means that there are no Non-observable objects at all in this Universe.

This leads us to the alarming conclusion that "I" am not in this Universe.

But I do exist. Don't I? Yes I do. Else who is doing this thought exercise?!!
This will lead me to the conclusion that the Universe that I experience is a different order of reality.

What is interesting further is that, This same experiment can be applied to each and every human being! It will be found very easily that the true Self, in each and every individual is not present in this Universe at all.

Ok .. all sounds fantastic. each real "I" is in their own separate order of reality, while this Universe is some sort of a virtual reality playground.

Here is the most interesting part. the "I" is property less, meaning it cannot have anything that will make it Observable, or distinguishable. non-temporal and non-spatial, non-anything! How many such "I" can actually be there?! if there are two of them , say I1 and I2, there is the suffix "1" and "2" this contradicts the property less-ness!

Well I can say I and I ! can't I? NO!! the two Is are separated in this document distinctly in space!! No matter how much I try it is impossible to have two non-property-less objects.

So there is only One and that is Me !

SIx Steps To Enlightenment

(1) RECOGNIZE THE SUFFERING

The world is a mixture of things that seems to defy explanation. There are so many questions without a convincing answer. The world is full of duality of Success/failure, Love/hate, Fame/Infamy, Good/Evil etc. The experiences that one has is not always what is desired.

why so? Why cannot everything be in plenty? Why is the world Unfair at times? Why is there war, crime? Why is there a partiality?, How big is the Universe, what exists outside the Universe, are there aliens? How come my honest, great efforts do not produce the desired result? questions of this nature are endless. All of us have them.

The set of questions will vary as many as there are individuals. Whether it is knowledge, or material possessions, or achievements, we are all in some specific level. some are in the negative and want to just get to that Zero mark. Some are in the Zero and want to get into positive territory. Some are very well into the positive, but are having difficulty in handling the infinite possibilities.

No matter how much we achieve there is still a desire. And the trouble is we all feel a lack of happiness due to such experiences and more so with the lack of an explanation. Most of us settle into the attitude "Life's Like that" and use some kind of temporary sedative such as entertainment, travel, other such experiences, more so to take the mind off the problem, so we can live to face another day.

First step is to recognize the existence of such a problem and ponder over it. The fact that you are reading this implies you are searching for Joy which means you sense a lack of it and hence you are already in Step 1:) You can list all the questions and issues that are bothering and preventing you from being Joyful.

(2) ASSUME AN EXPLANATION

Assume that there is in fact such an explanation. Let us assume there is a complete and convincing explanation that answers all our questions absolutely correctly. Please be very clear that we are "assuming" the existence of such an explanation. So we need not worry about validating it at this point.

Now.. it is hard to abstractly assume the existence of something without knowing some details. For this only purpose of ‘helping us assume’, let us take the theory called K-Theory.

What is K-theory? All human beings are engaged in action all the time. some actions are good, some are bad, some are neutral. Actions that result in desirable situations for others are good, that which results in undesirable situations for others are bad. rest of the actions are neutral. All good and bad actions are accumulated. so says the K-Theory.

This accumulated K has a role to play in the result of all our actions. apart from the effort we put in, the accumulated K is factored in, when the result is produced. This somewhat explains why there is no direct relationship between effort and effect. so somebody who simply did not touch the book gets a high score. we have an explanation to this...well.. somewhat.

We ask what about new born babies which have serious health problems? how come I am not born to a King? answer according to K-Theory is, there are multitude of births, and the good/bad K gets accumulated across the births. and K from past births play a role in the present. OK.. this is logical and sounds OK.

Also our actions and the results will create preferences or like/dislike which also gets accumulated and which drives us into action. preferences create desire, desire results in action, since the successful fulfillment of a desire seems to give us a very desirable experience called happiness. since this experience is not permanent, we are constantly engaged in action. so goes the K-theory.

Now we may ask what makes people different? why do different people act differently in exact same situation? Do we have an explanation for that? Yes we do. That is explained by the A-E-M Theory. Again, this is only an assumption.

So what’s the deal with AEM Theory? Everything in the world is made up of three ingredients, Aura, Energy and Matter. Each has its own characteristic. People including their body and mind are made up of varying combinations of A-E-M. Also this combination keeps changing all the time. It depends on food we eat, the time of day etc. And this results in varying behavior among various people. This is what we mean when we say "that is his nature". Application of this theory does seem to give us a very good explanation for all day to day events in life.

But we need to still remember this is only an assumption. so no question of what is the proof that K-theory/AEM is true.

(3) I AM NOT THE BODY AND HENCE I CANNOT SUFFER

Now that we have got an explanation, let us see how it can help me regain my happiness. I understand the K-theory, it seems to be a working explanation. But it does not make me any happy.

If I am beggar, I still suffer thinking why should I commit such bad actions and suffer like this today?. The answer to that lies in the part of the assumed K-theory which says every single person undergoes countless, if not endless number of births.

This implies that the person who gets born, grows, lives, becomes old and dies, is reborn again. Reborn again with a different brand new body and mind. because every time someone is born, it is always a very young baby with a fresh mind without any recollection of the past.

So what does this mean? the person is not the body nor the mind. and all our sufferings of duality, are related only to the body and mind. Success is associated either with the body as in a physical feat such as an Olympic medal, or the mind, as in getting a Nobel prize. A person with lots of friends and one without any suffers mentally. so there is the mind suffering not the person. applying this on all sufferings, and all situations that provided undesirable experiences will clarify that the person is not suffering. Also, a person will be born a king in another birth even though he is a beggar in this.

Now let us not forget that all of this nicety is still hanging on the assumption that the K-theory is indeed true.

(4) WHO AM I?

Having established (based on the assumption) that I am not the body/mind. the natural question now is to find out Who am I? So far we have been just creating a sequence of statements based on an assumption.

This is a practical step, which is similar to a science experiment. This has to be performed. Most of us assume we are the body. some do think they are their cars, they are their beautiful home, they are their Country etc. Let us begin at the body, since it is a reasonable starting point.

Am I the body? my body changes from childhood to old age, I can get some of the parts replaced, and so on. yet since I have a distinct feeling of myself in spite of these changes, and since I 'observe' such events happening to the body, I must be independent of the body. Hence we can conclude I am not the body

Am I life? Blood is circulating and I am aware of it, so I am not the flow of blood, heart is beating I can observe it, I am not the heart beat, I cam observe my breath and hence I cannot be my breath. and so on.. so I must be independent of all these. Hence we can conclude that I am not the life.
Am I the mind? Thoughts of indecision, and likes and dislikes etc keep rising all the time. Do I like this?, Do I hate this?, should I do this?, should I do that?, thoughts based on impulse etc.. All these thoughts constitute the mind. But since I am able to observe them I must be independent of them. Hence we can conclude that I am not the mind

Am I the intelligence? Thoughts that make decisions, conclusions, inferences and plans in a sequence etc. constitute our intelligence. Since I am able to observe such thoughts rising , I should be independent of them as well. Hence we can conclude that I am not the intelligence

Am I the Happiness experience? Certain situations, actions and events results in us experiencing happiness. But I am aware of me having such an experience at certain times and not having such experience at certain other times. Hence I am independent of this experience. Hence we can conclude that I am not the happiness experience.

We can continue this on and on, and we will conclude that Since I am independent of the observable/perceivable I am able to observe. and hence I cannot be anything that is observable/perceivable.
Only a thing that has no attributes such as shape, form, size, volume, weight, position, speed, temperature, color etc.. etc.. can be unperceivable/unobservable. But everything in this world, has some attribute or the other. So.. anything that is in this world cannot be me!

This is a real conclusion, based on the inquiry into who am I. and since it does not depend upon the assumptions we made earlier, this is an independent Fact. This leads to the immediate question, if I am not in this world... then where am I?

(5) WORLD IS AN ILLUSION

Anything that exists in this world cannot be me.. or in other words, I am nowhere to be found in this world But yet I am absolutely sure that I exist. If not who is indeed doing this exercise? So, How is this possible?

It is possible only if Me and the World belong to two different orders of reality, two different planes of existence. Very similar to the Dreamer and the dream. And similar to the dreamer, I am more real that the world, since I observe/aware of the world while the world is not aware of me!

This implies that the world that I experience, including the space and time and people and events and thoughts and what not, is a lower order of reality, which exists purely under the support of me.

I am the reality which gives existence to the world. The entire world is indeed an illusion! This is a dramatic Fact. Again this is totally independent of any assumptions.

(6) RECOGNIZE THE MISSING SUFFERING

This takes us back to the assumptions now. Since the whole world that we experience is nothing but an illusion, very distinct from the reality, which is me, any explanation about the functioning of the illusion is irrelevant.
At most academic. Hence if the K-theory is perfect then we can use it, if it is lacking someplace we can try to fix it and make it perfect. Also, we can choose to not worry about the K-theory, or an explanation to the illusion. We can take the stand that since the purpose of the illusion is entertainment, it is essential that everything is not completely explained.

This knowledge that we have obtained beyond a shred of doubt, that the world is an illusion, and that I am the only reality, instantly removes all the suffering caused by the innumerable experiences that appear to be undesirable and the innumerable questions that did not have answers.

Now is a good time to check the questions and issues that we listed in Step1.

Since there is no more suffering, what do you think you are left with? Pure Joy ! Let us Enjoy this wonderful experience.

This is Enlightenment!