A question asked by many seekers and never seem to get an answer. I shall call myself John in this talk. So am I John? If I am John and should I change my name to Paul have I changed? Many people take on a different name from the one given to them at birth. So the name I respond to is nothing more than an audible sound which I attach to my form. So I am not the name I respond to as it can change should I decide to at any time in my life.
How about the form I take is that really me? People go for cosmetic surgery to transform themselves to an extent that they look different from birth. So am I the form? I don’t think so. I am then not the name nor the form I recognised at present. Then who am I?
Let’s look at the question again “Who Am I” The two words “am” and “I” are the ones we shall discuss today. Let’s look at “I” When we say I, who are we referring to. Not the body nor the name as we have discussed earlier. So it seems there is another entity that lives in us that we refer to as I casually without much thought to it. What or who is that entity?
Let’s look again at what makes us tick. The human body functions with the thinking mind. This allows you to decide what to do good or bad, it also goes to rest when you sleep. Is that the I? Think again, what happens when we sleep? Our conscious mind takes a rest so to speak, I shall not go into details of the different levels of sleep here but let’s just say our thinking mind takes a break. It does not respond to external calls to your name if you are in deep sleep so the conscious mind or thinking mind cannot be the “I” because in sleep the “I” is still there in you and functions as dreams at another level of consciousness.
What is the difference between a sleeping person and a dead person? Sleep is nothing more than a short death and death is a long sleep. Think about that! In sleep the life force keeps your bodily function working and in death the life force is gone and the body deteriorates in a matter of hours. That is the difference between a dead person and a sleeping person. If you believe in an afterlife then you can accept that the soul lives on after death. For some who belief in rebirth, the soul takes on another form for those who do not believe in rebirth the soul lives an eternal life somewhere. Both believers will agree that the soul remains unchanged, it is eternal. Everything else is subject to change from your name to your form to every transient material attachment to the things you value in your life.
So who then is the “I” in you that remains unchanged? Meditating and contemplating on the I in you will result in a change from “Who Am I”? to “I AM” because the word “who” is no longer valid as you have found your True Self.
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