Who are you?  Usually, you will only stop to ask the perennial question ‘who am I?’ when things go “wrong” in your life. 

When things are going well in your life, you would not bother enquiring into your true nature  unless you have grown up in surroundings that foster such an enquiry.  Many see it as unpractical, outdated theological thinking — who has time for that when you’ve got bills to pay, people to see and places to go?

It is only whenever you encounter loss of some kind, as all life forms must, you will be caused to ask this question — and it is at precisely those points that you will encounter a portal or doorway into your Inner Being, the real you…

Whenever you encounter loss, the ego — which is the unobserved mind — is happy to engage in this question but only from a negative perspective.  Usually, the question is phrased not as ‘who am I?’ but ‘why is this happening to me?’

The false, unhappy self asks this inverted question to itself, and dwells on feelings of frustration, despair and unhappiness. It fixates on whatever it can’t change, generating yet more negativity and resentment.

The little me quickly descends very quickly into emotional turmoil essentially because the external world of forms is essentially uncontrollable — a sudden injury or an illness may prevent you from doing what you want, you may struggle with meeting basic needs as you experience financial loss of some kind, you may feel alone and bitter after the breakup of a relationship, and so forth.

All of these are, however, what I call ‘cracks’ in the egg of perception.

When everything is going well, why bother to ask such a deep question?  It seems like a fanciful pastime which has no bearing on real life.  To the ego, serious contemplation of this eternal riddle is also the beginning of the end of it, and it knows this.

The master meditates on the impermanence of all forms — including himself or herself — for this reason.

It may seem that you are a passive observer, and that things and events happen ‘to’ you… but it is a grand shift in perception when you realise that things and events happen through you.  The grand fact of your life is that you, as the soul, are co-creating each moment as you wish it to be – all of it!  The good, the bad and the downright ugly!

So, who are you really?

Who are you as the “I” that perceives and also experiences?

Each person must ultimately come to ask himself or herself this question because it is the nature of consciousness to become self-aware.  

“Although you cannot know consciousness, you can become conscious of it as yourself.” Eckhart Tolle

You are the experiencer of your life and you are also the experience.  You are both the subject and the object combined — which explains why no two people ever have the same experience of outer reality, precisely because there is no such thing.  You might have similar experiences to others but you will never have exactly the same experience because you are always creating your experience.

You are not the labels that are in your brain/mind, that you have inherited from your parents and society – these whimsical structures seem permanent but they are as fleeting as clouds in the sky.

Thoughts, feelings, emotions, even seemingly permanent forms come and go.  One day, the Himalayas will not be there…. even the ‘eternal’ life giver of our solar system, the sun, will one day vanish.

And so you are not “Geoffrey Jones, Accountant, 45, bankrupt once, divorced with three kids” for example. This is object consciousness, a fiction, a made up reality. It belongs to the world of form that comes and goes.

Your mind’s nature is to fragment realty into teeny tiny bits.  The scientist is identified with object reality, the mystic is only concerned with direct perception of the “I” beneath all forms.

Once labelled the ego believes it knows everything about what is observing but the minute you reduce ‘consciousness’ to an object, you have taken yourself out of an alive ‘knowing’ to a mental abstraction that is dead.

If you take this planet Earth, as an example, you cannot possibly ‘know’ everything there is to know about this beautiful planet you live on. You can only know things about it – so called ‘facts’ and your interpretation (or others’ interpretation) of those facts.

“This is a tree” does not allow you to really know what a tree is.

Take your shoes off and feel the mud or sand beneath your feet. Take your clothes off and swim in the ocean. Lie under amoonless sky where brilliant stars take your breath away (a breathless state is one where the mind stops)…. simply and gloriously put all your attention on a bird singing as dawn breaks, and you will come into contact with your own Beingness. You then become part of the energy you are experiencing.

Choose today to reduce mental labelling in your life, and instead get in touch with the formless dimension of yourself.

“What cannot be seen with the eye, but that whereby the eye can see: know that alone to be Brahman the Spirit and not what people here adore. What cannot be heard with the ear but that whereby the ear can hear: know that alone to be Brahman the Spirit and not what people here adore…. What cannot be thought with the mind, but that whereby the mind can think: know that alone to be Brahman the Spirit and not what people here adore.”

Kena Upanishad 

Notice that there is no separation between you and what you are witnessing, ever.

Each time you do this, you grow in aliveness, in alertness because you become conscious of the Eternal “I” that is the real you.