Who are you at the core? Find out.
by Vic Shayne
author
Consciousness: The Potentiality of All Existence: Exploring reality and belief as a subjective experience
I could tell you what I have observed by going deeply into this idea of the Self over the past number of years, but in the end this will only be more information for you. And if I give you this information, it’ll be no better than secondhand information even though I am being honest with you. Ultimately, to make it real you’d have to do what I have done, and what others have done (I’m not any more special than anyone else). Simply, you just observe yourself and probe into the question of who you are without judging what you observe.
Parts of a person
Our experience as human beings involves a biological, physical body, as well as a mind and an egoic mind (sense of self). The egoic mind is created as a belief system; it is an accretion of tightly held thoughts that make us believe we are connected to phenomena, ideas, memories, people, places, events, experiences, achievements, the body, emotions, etc. We buy into the idea that we are a certain race, religion, creed, personality type, and so on. These are all ideas, and ideas are thoughts.
The egoic mind, which is what you call “me,” or “I,” is formed at a very early age by parents, teachers, authority figures, religion, culture, relatives, and on and on. The mind is thus conditioned to think that it is connected to the body and all of its associations.
It takes observation, which anyone can do
To find what exists behind this mask of the egoic self takes observation. It takes investigating what you are, why you behave in certain ways, where thoughts come from, why you gravitate to certain ideas and thoughts, what you tend to think about and fixate on, what your relationships are, etc. Find out what brought this egoic self to the fore. But most of all, find out whether this egoic self really exists at all. You do this by searching for it and figuring out whether you are this or something else.
Who is aware of the thoughts?
If you sit down to be quiet you will notice that thoughts arise. In fact, we get more than 60,000 thoughts a day. Where do these come from? Why do some stick and most others do not? Why are you concerned about certain issues, but your friends have no interest at all? It is the egoic mind and the physical body that makes us appear different. But when you sit and notice thoughts arise and fall, what is it that never changes and is witness to this coming and going? Is this the “real” you?
If the egoic mind, the sense of self, is built out of thoughts, and you can observe thoughts coming and going, then you must be something other than thought, which means you are something other than this egoic self. You are that which is aware of the thoughts . Find out what this is.
There is something driving this world and everything in it. You can call it a force, energy, a substance, a movement, and so on. The name doesn’t matter as long as you do not anthropomorphize it by giving it human characteristics and qualities. Are you this force that is beyond the egoic mind? Find out.
And maybe you will discover that there is even something that is yet beyond this force that is often called consciousness — maybe you are that which is unchanging, motionless, boundless, indescribable, permanent, immeasurable, and infinite. Perhaps this is what you are. Find out.
