Who am I? (10 min)

Another one of "Those questions", right?

Before we dive in, if you prefer listening over reading, you might as well head over to my podcast for this answer. You can check it out here on The Unlearning Playground - YouTube or The Unlearning Playground podcast website

You go deep into any fundamental query about reality, you're bound to encounter this question. There are simple answers - Well I'm so and so, I work as a so and so with a so and so, etc. But you do know somewhere deep down that that isn't really what you are. That might be what 'you' do, or what 'you' identify as, but that isn't really 'you'. Doesn't sound familiar? Allow me to try further.

So let's assume you're a 24 year old girl named Ria working as a lawyer in some company in some city in India. Let's ask Ria who she really is. She gives us the common answer - I'm Ria, I studied at so and so and now I ... <you get the picture>. But ohh we're smarter than that, so we ask her that that's just a bunch of things she's done in the past and plans on doing in the near future, but what is 'she' really, fundamentally? You see if she would've chosen a different career, or a different career would've been chosen for her, would 'she' be someone or something else? Or would that just have been another role the real 'she' would've taken up, like the numerous she already plays - daughter, friend, partner, lawyer, Indian, etc? Who is this constant 'she' really? If we could get to that, maybe we could get to the bottom of the seemingly bottomless pit after all. Let's try further. 

So, she is playing the role of a 24 year-old lawyer right now, maybe sufficient backtracking would help us uncover the constant ‘she’ who’s been behind it all this while. So what was she a few years ago? A student somewhere perhaps. And before that? A little girl playing in the school yard maybe. And before that? A new-born baby maybe. And before that? This is where it gets interesting doesn't it? Because before that, it's almost as if she was asleep and doesn't remember the dream she was dreaming. 

You may question that did she even exist before being born. And it's a valid question, because in our day-to-day life experience, we experience ourselves in our bodies. We identify with the body, and it'll be a very normal thing to say that 'I am nothing but my body, and my idea of my self is also a part of my body.' If you take that deeper, you'd hit upon the idea that you started in a maternity ward somewhere and will end up in a crematorium somewhere or be burned up, basis what suits those that survive you. And that your life is just something that happens between those two events. I don't deny this idea, but the right adjective I have for it is that it's incomplete. 

You see if you are nothing but your body, you are an accumulation. Because that's what your body is, isn't it? You were a little baby just a few years ago, and you've accumulated so much since. But you see if that was true, and you were nothing but an accumulation, you'd have to start out of something, right? An accumulation has to start somewhere. So where and when did 'your' accumulation start? At the time of your birth? No, you know you existed before that too, when you spent that time in your mother's comfortable womb, sleeping with not a worry in the world. So when did you start?

We're back where we left, aren't we? The question of what were you before you were born. I think the most reasonable answer to that is that you existed in some form in your parents. Call this form genes, call this form chromosomes, call it what you want, provided don't confuse the word for the thing. You existed in some form in your parents before you were born. Right, so where does that lead us?

If you existed in some form in your parents before you were born, the same applies to your parents too. They existed in some form in your grandparents, which essentially means that you existed in some form in your grandparents. So, you keep taking this recursion back, as far back as you can. When I say as far back as you can, I mean take it all the way back to the very origin of everything, call it the Big Bang if you will. And where that leads you is to a visualisation that every one or rather every "thing" came from and in fact is the same "thing". And this "thing" is God. And this thing is "you" too. You are God. 

Imagine you take an ink pot and smash it on the wall in front of you, and then you let it work its magic. The ink reaches all sort of nooks and corners of the wall. And in that one far-off edge of that one far-off corner, there's but one ink drop supposedly far from all the other ink, but still as much 'The' ink that did all the dance. If that ink drop were to develop consciousness, it'll feel the same as you. I'm just a poor little me, running from this place to that place with no purpose and no meaning. And what you'd want to tell it now is, "Come on, now. Come out of it. You're not just a poor little ink drop. You're all the ink there ever was. Your separation is nothing but an illusion."

Image source: Hermann Rorschach (died 1922) / Public domain

So there's your answer. You are God. Nothing less, and surely nothing more too! Ohh but wait, there's more - And so is everyone else, and so is everything else. Must not run away before realising that too.

You could argue that you're not it, rather just a tiny little part of it. But that's again the same dance of limited identification all over again. Consider the fact that you can create other members of your species, you grow your hair daily, you create your body from the food you eat, and so on and on; you don't know how you do it, but you do it nonetheless. In that sense, you are the creator. 

Trip on this for a while...

You see it's not enough to just know this or hear about this or read about this. It has to become a part of your experience. Until it does, you may form opinions on it, write or read blogs or books about it, but you won't be it. I plan on exploring this thread further. 

I could pause here, but I also want to add that this is actually the highest ideal in the metaphysics of a lot of eastern spiritual disciplines - Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Yoga, Zen etc. Remember that age old saying which we've always heard and joked about in India but never really inquired into - "Sab moh maya hai"? This is what it actually means - "This is all an illusion". Well, more literally it means - "This is all ignorance". All your separateness is nothing but an illusion, an ignorance. You're It, if only you'd wake up and see it for yourself. 

Tat twam asi. You are it.

Aham Brahmasmi. I am Brahma.

Someone asked a sage, "How do I treat others?" The sage replied, "There are no others."

To be continued...

<Another recommended reading - More a verb than a noun>

In all honesty, I prefer having personal chats rather than back and forth in the comments' section. If you feel like you want to have discussion with me regarding the content on my blog or anything else, please connect with me on my Instagram here: Chetan Narang - Instagram