Self Inquiry: “Who am I?” - Part I
By Chun Ko Lin
In today's world, various techniques for self-inquiry exist, both individually and in group settings. However, we won't delve into those issues in this text.
Here, we'll consider some perspectives on SELF for inspiration purposes only, so that everyone can look for and find their own understanding.. This topic might interest those on a journey of self-discovery, seeking answers even to the unanswerable questions.
What follows isn't an answer to the initial question. Instead, it points to a possible direction of thought that might inspire some. Not everyone will resonate with this perspective; it could suit some but not others, as different approaches to the same topic may be more fitting for different individuals.
Let's initially simplify the concept of "SELF" into two parts. While there are many other ways to categorize the elements that make up the self, for now, let's stick to this simple two parts division temporarily only for practical purposes.
One part is the "Body-Mind Organism," encompassing the body (physical) and the mind (including perceptions of emotions, thoughts, images, and all bodily sensations).
The other part in our analysis is "Awareness."
Here's a simple experiment:
Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Be aware of your breath. Now, be aware of the sensation of your body sitting or standing. Be aware of any sounds around you. Be aware of any thoughts passing through your mind.
In this moment of awareness, you can observe the Body-Mind Organism—the sensations, thoughts, and emotions. You are not your thoughts; you are aware of your thoughts. You are not your body; you are aware of your body. This awareness is the silent witness to the ever-changing phenomena of the Body-Mind Organism.
Body-Mind Organism
First, let's focus on the visibly changing aspect of ourselves—the Body-Mind Organism. Does trimming nails or cutting hair change our body? Yes, it does. The body changes—shorter nails, shorter hair, and consequently, a different appearance. This is a symbolic example because everything related to the Body-Mind Organism is in a constant state of change. Our cells, thoughts, and feelings are continually evolving, and our bodily perception constantly receives new stimuli.
Are all changes in our Body-Mind Organism under our individual control?
Let's explore how this Body-Mind Organism came to be and how it functions. In a broad and simplified sense, all living organisms on this planet have individual histories but share a common origin. Every living being, from a five-month-old baby to a teenager, a centenarian, a humanoid monkey, to grass, traces its roots back to the evolution of living organisms on Earth three and a half billion years ago.
Did we, as individuals, decide and determine the genetic processes and programs we inherited over the last three and a half billion years of the evolution of our Body-Mind Organism?
Additionally, each of us, as human beings, is born into specific circumstances—birthed by a woman in a particular environment, within a family or outside of it, in a certain climate, within specific economic conditions, religious customs, mentality, language, and more.
Could we determine where we would be born, the influences from the environment on our development, and the challenges we would face throughout our lives?
Consider the differences for someone born a thousand years ago. The language, daily life, absence of computers, the internet, airplanes, cars, movies, fitness clubs—family behavior norms were all different. The influences on an adult were different, and daily challenges varied compared to today.
Does an individual have an impact on the circumstances of their birth, the timing of their birth, and the influences and challenges of daily life that affect their Body-Mind Organism?
Our genetic program, combined with new daily environmental influences, shapes and programs our Body-Mind Organism. The dynamic interplay between genetics and conditioning from the environment creates a continuous process of change that happens daily and onwards.
Our Body-Mind Organism is in constant interaction between genetic characteristics, past conditioning, and new influences that are essentially new conditionings. This not only affects our body but also influences our thoughts and feelings, which, like our body, have evolved and function according to their genetic programs and environmental influences.
In what sense, then, are we free and independent if the creation, development, and evolution of our Body-Mind Organism are governed by the laws of life?
Decision-Making
Nevertheless, despite all of the above, we have a clear sense of free choice. Every day, we make decisions hundreds of times. The distinct feeling that we are free and that we make decisions is also genetically given to us—it arose during our evolution without our conscious choice to have that feeling. "I have decided."
We feel that we have freedom of choice. However, this feeling is an additional experience that comes after our Body-Mind Organism has already made a decision or choice based on its genetic program and conditioning from the past, as well as the choices offered by the environment—all beyond our conscious manipulation.
The decisive part of making any decision happens automatically, spontaneously, according to the deterministic laws of the subconscious, where we have no authorial influence. Our decisions and choices actually occur on an unconscious level.
Choice and decision-making are a combination of a mental and emotional phenomenon. Our conscious part of mental-emotional content is about 10%, while 90% of our mental content is in the subconscious. Therefore, the crucial 90% influencing every decision resides in the subconscious, completely beyond our conscious control. Hence, decisions essentially occur on an unconscious level, and the feeling of having freely made a decision is just an addition to all the laws and actions that occurred spontaneously, without our authorship, in each choice or decision.
We are aware that we cannot determine our emotions and, consequently, what we will like or dislike. The emotional part of any decision is the entirely spontaneous subconscious part of decision-making that we cannot manipulate.
However, after decisions or choices have already happened, we say, "I chose" or "I decided," "I am free," or "I have freedom of choice," etc. To make it more interesting, keep in mind that every second, billions of different influences affect our every action, thought, decision, environment, etc., of which we are aware of only a tiny, almost insignificant part.
The same applies to thoughts. We cannot predict in advance which thoughts will pass through our minds, nor can we know which emotions will engulf us at any given moment, just as we cannot predict what the external environment will bring into our lives.
Similarly, this writing is happening and the action of reading this text now, is simply a combination of all the mentioned influences and laws of evolution, genetics, conditioning, and environmental influences that led to the occurrence of writing and reading right here, right now.
Perhaps the example with desires is even more illustrative. You've worked for years to fulfill a desire, and eventually, you've achieved it. "I achieved my desire." First of all, you could never determine whether that desire would come to you or not. Desires come to us, or they don't; we cannot decide which desires will arise. The moment we start pursuing a desire, all our abilities, inherent in our life, are working towards fulfilling that desire. But we have no control over an occurrence or not occurrence of that desire.
So, where is the true freedom of choice, despite having the total freedom to choose anything?
In practice, we choose and decide every second, but then comes the main question—did we author those "decisions and choices," or were they already predetermined by billions of defined influences and circumstances, essentially already set in motion?
Does all this actually just spontaneously happen through us? Could life itself spontaneously live through all of us and everything that exists?
Awareness
Now, let's consider the second part of our symbolical temporary division of Self; the Awarenes.
Consider the following:
Can you be aware that you have a body?
Can you be aware that you have thoughts and feelings?
Can you be aware that you make choices and decisions?
There is an undeniable awareness of all these aspects. This awareness is not the body, not the thoughts or feelings, not the choices or decisions; it's something subtler, more fundamental.
This awareness is not limited to personal experiences. It is not confined to the individual Body-Mind Organism. It is universal, all-encompassing, and transcends individual identities.
Life spontaneously lives through us in this ingenious game of the mystery and miracle of existence, where we have the privilege of being designed to be aware of this incredibly complex and magnificent experience of life.
Amidst this whole pile of changes that constantly happen at the level of our body-mind organism, we always know without a doubt that we are always here. That we are somehow always the same and that one day we woke up in this body and in this world.
What is it that gives us the impression that we are somehow always the same? It's that awareness without which nothing would exist for us. Without awareness, we wouldn't know that we exist, and then nothing else would exist for us.
To know that something exists, there must first be awareness in which some content of perception appears – an image, thought, emotion, bodily sensation, or anything else. Awareness is the only stable element that is always the same and without which there is no reality. It is, in fact, the only stable, enduring, unchanging reality without which there is nothing else in our universe.
In short, this is our greatest asset because our body-mind organism and environment exist for us only if we have awareness, and it is also part of everything that exists. Awareness is just one quality of the universe that is given to us and does not belong to our authorship.
Awareness is simply one of the qualities the universe has, and it is as ubiquitous as space. In fact, everything that exists is built, or has within it, awareness, including our body-mind organisms.
Therefore, we have what is called an individual body-mind organism, but awareness is universal; it is not individual, and we all have the same awareness. All body-mind organisms are just different instruments for the perception of life. Each body-mind organism is formed as a small whole that is different from other body-mind organisms.
Now, it's time to discard our division of SELF into two parts. This division only served us to get to the point where we can see that SELF as an indivisible whole.
The body-mind organism is the instrument through which awareness perceives the experience of life. Awareness is the infinite, eternal, and divine within us, as mentioned in many religions.
All body-mind organisms can learn and acquire new things. They are essentially new conditioning of the inherited genetic and conditioned structures from the past. True self or AWARENESS witnesses, knows the life of every second, depending on how the interaction of the body-mind organism with the environment unfolds.
Oneness
Simply put, every body-mind organism is defined and determined by the entire universe, functioning in an environment that is determined at every moment by the laws of development and changes in the universe.
It's like a big machine with many laws simultaneously at work, resulting in a large number of different movements, where each individual body-mind organism is just a small element of the indivisible unity of all existence.
Everything you've ever done, thought, felt, or decided, and what you do, think, feel, or decide now and in the future, can only be the result of a combination of these influences of circumstances and universal laws. It's easy for us to accept that the past was as it was. But why was it like that? Because all existing influences resulted in it being that way and no other.
This means that everything that was, is now, or will be, must be exactly as it is and no other way. This applies not only to your mental and physical body but to everything that exists. Right now, everything is as it is.
What are the consequences of such a view of existence and of human beings? This perspective eliminates the misunderstanding of what is happening today, anywhere or anytime in the past or future. It removes our own misunderstanding and non-acceptance of the mystery and magic of existence as it is.
Gone is the pride in any creative and constructive work attributed to OURSELVES, and likewise, the reproach for any wrongdoing, thought, or feeling. If we still get angry and reproach, so it must be. But despite the unavoidable necessity of events, every criminal act will be punished and condemned by society.
Millions of tons of unnecessary burdens, accusations, reproaches, and false pride fall off our shoulders and hearts. It brings lightness but does not reduce friction with the environment and does not eliminate the problems we will encounter in life. Problems are part of life; they are part of the entire game of the universe. It is precisely through problems, friction, and solving problems that the universe has evolved and created this species of animal called Homo sapiens.
New things are happening every second, many of which we cannot even perceive because we do not have the instruments of perception developed for them. However, Homo sapiens is created as a social being that gladly communicates about anything, even about what cannot be fathomed at the moment.
Although everything is determined by the laws of the mystery and miracle of existence, we cannot know how things will unfold further. Therefore, for us, it is still a great game of the mystery and miracle of existence.
What is your body-mind organism, really? Imagine this: separate your body from everything outside your body. Then, that part outside your body and extending in all directions from your body is, in fact, the infinite universe into which everything enters except your body.
This great infinite universe outside your body has built and embedded everything – photons, electrons, atoms, cells, as well as all known and unknown characteristics, laws, and abilities that your body-mind organism has.
So, you are the way you are because the entire existence of the entire universe has been striving for billions of years to create precisely such a living being as you are now, and precisely in such circumstances that exist here and now.
However, everything is in constant motion of changes, including our "curiosity," which is also given to us and leads us further into new games and adventures of discovering unknown games, laws, and phenomena in this mystery and magic of existence.