Who Are You?
Thoughts on self-identity
One thing that we know for certain is that everything changes. Nothing is permanent. We try to take refuge in so many things, thinking that those things will shelter us as we weather the storms of life. But the storm ravages all, including our shelters. Sooner or later, we find ourselves exposed to the maelstrom with no shelter.
What do I mean by shelter? I mean the things that we hold onto to try and make sense of our lives. The things that we hold onto to try and define who and what we are. But who are we when those things are blown away? Who are we when we no longer have anything solid to hold on to? Those things were never as solid as we presumed, including our very conception of self.
We say and believe things about ourselves. Things like, “I am such and such job”, “I am such and such political orientation”, “I am such and such gender”, “I am such and such religious belief”.
If those things were taken away from you, who would you be? It behooves us to ask these questions now, while we still have some semblance of strength and resolve, before our identities are challenged and we fall into despair, anger, and hatred. Rather than blame and resent the fact that they were taken away, could you center yourself and be at peace without them?
Who are you if your job was taken away from you?
Who are you if your family was taken away from you?
Who are you if your religious institutions and organizations were taken away from you?
Who are you if your political institutions and organizations were taken away from you?
Who are you if your nation was taken away from you?
Who are you if your sex and gender and sexual desires were taken away from you?
Who are you if your friends were taken from you?
Who are you if your enemies were taken from you?
Who are you if your body was taken from you?
Who are you if your hopes and dreams were taken from you?
Who are you if your pain and fears were taken from you?
What if your memories were taken from you?
Anything that you can add to the statement “I am… <insert whatever here>” can be taken away from you. So what is left? There is indeed something left. You are still conscious and aware. You still exist. Whether you believe in an immortal soul or some version of panpsychism, the result is the same. There is a you prior to all of those things.
I would argue that if this project were sincerely done in earnest, what you would find is that there is nothing left other than you and God. God looks a lot different from this perspective.
You see, all of these things get in between you and God. All of these things get in between you and yourself. You are not the things that you say you are when you say “I am blah blah blah”. You are simply “I am”. You exist and observe and experience and that is all you are. When the Buddhist or Hindu says that we are suffering from illusions, the illusions that they are referring to are these things that we think of as part of our self-identity. They may be real enough for a time, but they are not really you.
I don’t like the word “illusion”, because it implies a non-reality. No these things have very real and dire consequences in the world. They are real. I much prefer the word “distraction”. These things are distractions, leading you away from yourself, leading you away from God. They widen the gulf between us and our Creator.
Can you sit quietly, just you and God, without all of those distractions? Can you be at peace even if the entire world is burning down around you? Can you be at peace in Hell? I think we create our own Hell by believing in these distractions, by worshiping them, by identifying with them. We go on to create our epic self-narrative with all of this stuff, but we never return to our beginning, our source.
I challenge you to meditate on these thoughts. I challenge you to strip away everything that you think is you, until there is nothing left but awareness. It would be better to do this now, of your own volition, than to wait until time and change rips them from your grasp. It’s going to happen sooner or later.
Once you are there, just you and God, and you are at peace, can you then let go of that one final bit? Can you let go of your awareness of self?
Then what is left?
