The Question
"And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, THAT'S the great puzzle!' " , Alice, from Alice in Wonderland
That is the great puzzle indeed! Who am I? What am I? If not looked at, everyone assumes they know what they are: who are you? I am John, I am a farmer. Are you really?
John, farmer, father, brother, son - all those are just 'things' about you, they are not you. All notions about the 'me' come after the 'me'.. I am John - So what is the 'I' that calls itself John? That is the great puzzle!
This not only the great puzzle, but it is the most noble and ultimate of questions, and of discoveries. There is nothing more important and final in this life than the discovery of the answer to this question. As it is said in the Sufi tradition:
"the one who knows himself will know his Lord"
The Master Padmasambhava has said:
"Don’t investigate the root of things,
Investigate the root of Mind!
Once the mind’s root has been found,
You’ll know one thing, yet all is known.
But if you do not find the root of mind,
You will know many things,
but will not understand anything”
People think they are ideas. To say "I am a doctor", is nonsense. 'Doctor' is an idea, a concept that does not point to anything concrete and permanent. What doctor means varies by historical period, context, place. Across place and time the exact meaning of the word and the concept itself changes, because it does not point to anything concrete, it is just an idea, a subjective, unsubstantiated idea. What you really are, is not, cannot be, an idea. When people identify themselves with an idea, they are inviting so many problems, so many tensions, so many confusions. They are trying to be, to feel, to act, to show the world they are this idea they placed upon themselves.
It does not matter what the idea is, the 'label' and idea can even change, it does not matter. Every time you are identifying yourself with an idea that you think yourself to be, you are just inviting problems.
With the idea that you are a farmer, a doctor, a teacher, a student, a father or mother, a husband or wife; with any of these ideas come other ideas, judgement and notions about what it means to be that. Judgments and notions of how you should be and feel, how everything should be for you as 'that entity'. Your sense of who you are becomes increasingly divided, disconnected from the way things are in the actuality of the moment. It becomes disconnected from your deepest being as it tries to live life as multiple personalities.
Even ideas of being a 'human', a 'person', a 'body', a man or a woman; all these are concepts about the 'I'. You are none of these things. On the spiritual path, sometimes people change identities and say, "I am being of light", "I am a soul", "I am a Buddha", "I am divine" etc .. this is the same problem, these are just more ideas about 'I'.
With the idea that you are a farmer, a doctor, a teacher, a student, a father or mother, a husband or wife; with any of these ideas come other ideas, judgement and notions about what it means to be that. Judgments and notions of how you should be and feel, how everything should be for you as 'that entity'. Your sense of who you are becomes increasingly divided, disconnected from the way things are in the actuality of the moment. It becomes disconnected from your deepest being as it tries to live life as multiple personalities.
This is tension, this is the ground of discontentment and anxiety. Trying to live based on an idea of what you are, you cannot see what is there at each moment, because you are seeing yourself and the world behind the lenses of all these ideas, instead of living from a genuine response and integrated with how things are in each moment.
Everyone tries to tell you how you should be, how you should be as a father, as a mother, as a husband or wife, as a professional , as a human being even. Society tries to tell you, psychologists and therapists try to tell you how you should think to be happier, everyone is trying to tell you how to be and how to think. You also tell yourself all the time how you should feel or be based on a lifetime of accumulated ideas.
Ideas will never bring you happiness, not truly, not in a deep and authentic way, because it will always depend on empty concepts, on external factors and judgments. Who you are is not an idea, a label. Who you are is not a thought, and cannot be changed or derived from thoughts.
There is no truth that can be found by thoughts or ideas. Truth is how things are, how it is at each moment - no thought can touch it or know it, only your own deepest being, awareness, can know, truly know how things are. The mind can only think up of relative and temporary things.
In the same way, only your deepest being, your deepest intrinsic awareness can know your self, how you are are, your nature. Only your deepest nature can know itself how it really is, and that is happiness. That is wisdom. That is discovering what you are.
The world is not what it seems to be, you are not what you think yourself to be.
The world is not what it seems to be, you are not what you think yourself to be.
This can only be seen through grace, guidance from a teacher, and the touch of the infinite itself, it cannot be seen by words or ideas. Because words and ideas cannot go beyond themselves, and what you are is beyond the mind itself!
