Who Am I?

“Who are you, really?” Or better, at first, to ask the question, “Who you are not?” First, you are not the body. Umm, sounds a little crazy, but let me elaborate. You would not mistake me with what I am wearing today…. You would not mistake me with my shirt or jacket. Well, my body that you see should not be mistaken from who I am. The discovery that you are not the body has far-reaching consequences. You no longer see black or brown or white or yellow people. Instead you see people who wear beautiful coloured shirts. No longer do you see other people of different sex, status, culture, beauty, and religious beliefs. You awaken to the central truth that we are all one in the same. So remember this, our bodies are garments we wear.

The next stage is to come to the realization that we are not the mind either. I know what you are thinking. I have now completely destroyed the concept of who you thought you were. Let me explain. Have you ever listened to the internal chatter of your mind? If not, sit quietly and listen to it now. Yes, some other entity is in the background, constantly chattering. Most of the time you are unaware of the internal noise that you generate. This subconscious being that is observing is truly who you are and is separate from your mind. That is, the observer (you) is different from what is observed and recorded in the mind.

Not convinced yet? Let’s go a little further: You have the ability to conceive an apple, in your mind’s eye so to speak. This idea or concept of an apple is not the thing one eats, the real apple. The concept you have of a pen is not the actual thing that writes. Likewise, the concept of who you are is simply an idea and is not the real you. In psychological terms, the ego is that idea of who you think you are. This is quite a revelation, but how are you able to discover the true “you”?

Discovering that we are not the body or mind, we now can ask the question, “Then, how do I find out who I really am?” To answer the question we need to go below the surface of the mind, beyond the body and our conscious being. And the best way to do this is through meditation. Through mediation we go into the deeper self-awareness and focus within, and discover who we are. Only then can we find our true identity.

Evolving Cosmos

During one lifetime, we witness many changes. Changes that are motivated through culture and schooling, interactions with people and nature, events and experiences that we have; even our psychological self-concept and environment can change the person we are. To a large extent it is an evolutionary process. Can we also assume that the cosmos has experienced a similar change since much has happened over the last 13.7 billion years? And has our understanding of the Creator changed during our time on Earth? I think not. Let us consider the well-accepted fact that that God equals peace and love, and yet we see our world is full of conflict and strife. How can this be? Why hasn’t, our belief of peace prevailed? Before the creation of our universe there was no tension, but during the creation there was a period of extreme upheaval, and disruption continues through forces of expansion and contraction. Scientists tell us, that this will continue ad infinitum. Prior to creation, the universe must have been a place of utter silence and perfection, and God was at peace. But during and after the Big Bang, the universe entered a state of upheaval, friction, and flux was the order of the era. From being, the universe and God was becoming. This emergence does not equate to love and peace, but rather to an on-going process of evolutionary tension. Is there a possibility that our idea of a God filled with love, compassion, forgiving is out-dated? No doubt it still remains relevant in our being worldview, but does this only reflect a half-filled glass? Whereby, the other half, the evolution part, the becoming, looks and feels exactly like the changes we and the world is experiencing at this present moment. Understanding this, we can embrace the interpretation of who and what God is experiencing in an evolutionary process. That God is still loving and forgiving, but also dynamic, evolving that leads to a higher emergence.

Creation

So the question we want to ask is, “Why was the universe created.” It is not a philosophical, abstract question, but a spiritual one that, in a personal context can help us gain a better understanding: of who we are and why we are here at this time; is there a purpose to life; and how we can go beyond most life’s problems?

Based on our earlier discussions, we realize that energy is never created nor destroyed, and therefore, we have always been present in time. At the beginning of time we were part of the unitary force behind creation, in a formless energy dimension. Then with the single explosive impulse of the Big Bang, we became a small piece in the enormous expansion. But what was the force behind the impulse, call it what you want, but let us name it, the creator. There had to be some intention, a purpose for evolution, where the formless became form and the one became many.

Let us envision what it must have been like just prior to this event. Imagine the creator resting in a joyful, peaceful state. Not dissimilar to meditation where no desire, no ego, no time enters into the picture. As the creator surmises everything, there is nothing but stillness, contentment, infinity. However, the creator realizes that in this nothingness everything is possible. Perfectly happy with the present state, the creator envisions the possibility of a heavenly host of many, an expansion of the unitary force. Is this possible? Why should the creator do such a thing? And most important, is all this conjecture? It is not speculation, it must have happened because we are here asking this very question in the now, and we were part of the impulse 13.7 billion years ago. It couldn’t have been anything else, we are the only specie which has the ability to contemplate, be self-reflective, and experience conscious awareness.

What is … Everything?

“There is, there will be, and yet there was a time that never was.” Can you imagine a time when there never was; when nothing existed, neither time nor space? And yet scientists suggest that 13.7 billion years ago there were no planets, no stars; yes, absolutely nothing existed. And out of this nothingness, something was created, our universe. And 13.7 billion years later, we marvel and experience the extensiveness of our universe, the heavenly stars, the beauty of planet Earth, all manifested life forms, even our personal self. We live in a reality of space and time, we were created from nothing. How could this possibly be?  Why did this happen? Is there a higher purpose? What is our relationship with all of this? How do “you” fit in?

To answer these and many other questions you may have about creation, we begin our story at a time before anything existed? What was it like? And what was the force that created our cosmos? Scientists call it the Big Bang; out of a dense singularity, an enormous impulse caused an initial expansion which generated the building blocks of our universe. The Big Bang is a well-tested theory and is widely accepted in the scientific community.  If everything started with the Big Bang, then you are part of that singularity which began 13.7 billion years ago.  Think about it—your creation started with the Big Bang, this is where “you” and everything began. If you dispute this, ask yourself, “Where else you could have been when the Big Bang occurred?” Probably, this is what Max Ehrmann meant when he wrote, “You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars.”  Extrapolating this forward to today, you who were there right from the beginning, are a result of the Big Bang.

Out of nothing, something was created, and centuries of evolved forms followed—from an unmanifested formless state to a manifested formed reality. The state of creation can be observed in human terms, in our work, play, interactions and relationships. For example, in order to write this article, from nothing, something is created. A more complex example is the initiation of a conscious thought out of nothing. Something is coming from nothing every few seconds! But the question we need to ask is not how, or what is creation, rather the pièce de résistance is, “Why?” Scientists have identified which elements make-up our universe, and how it all came about, but existentially the beckoning questioning of creation is why?  The “why” question is paramount in finding answers to the questions posed earlier. Finding the answer that is authentic for you, will change how you think about life, and alter how you live your life.  So why not investigate further and find a truer you? I believe, we have reached a tipping point in our evolution; whereby, we can find our life purpose, go beyond the egocentric self and move forward.  We will continue the discussion in our next blog and find how we can evolve with more purpose, and plan for a better future.

A New Beginning

We are at a point in human history when there is an urgent need for change. The old ways are just not working. Many of our current problems seem to be a repeat of the past. At best these issues are systemic, at worst, they are chronic; either way, there are too many apparently unsolvable issues. We have global problems concerned with crime, culture and religion, security, terrorism, overpopulation, poverty, global warming, the environment, and the latest recession. Even youth have their issues. College students face an alarming number of worries, including pressures of school, social acceptance, drugs, bullying, relationships, physical appearance, gangs, peer pressure, even information overload. These outside forces produce a state of anxiety, stress and depression. These types of issues have arguably been around in the past. Unfortunately though, they keep reappearing. When faced with insurmountable problems, in the past, we had the time, and financial resources to cope and make necessary changes. The serious issues today require our urgent attention. We may not have the time, the resources, and scientific knowledge available to resolve all of the issues. We need to re-engineer our thinking in order to solve these problems. Otherwise we may engineer our demise. Ken Wilber remarks that, “Whatever the process of evolution was, it seems to have an incredible intelligence—from matter to life to mind to conscious awareness. But strange, the very mechanisms that allowed evolution to become conscious of itself were simultaneously working to engineer its own extinction.” Isn’t it time for a new approach? A change in our thinking? Our conceptualization of reality is based on seeing things from the outside and translating what we see with our intellectual mind—a sort of myopic limited one-self view of reality. The corrective vision we need is to see reality from the inside and tap into the outside universal intelligence. Is this new view possible? The corrective lenses are available, and awaiting our use. Our short-sightedness is now so severe that we need to take action. The weekly blogs that follow will look at our unconscious, relative view of reality, and suggest that most of our problems can be rectified through a concentrated change in conscious awareness.