So...Who are you?

[freemind]

Dude: So if I say, Who are you?, you will start to describe yourself--you are a father, a mother, a husband, a wife, a friend; you are a lawyer, a clerk, a teacher, a manager. You have these likes and dislikes, you prefer this type of food, you tend to have these impulses and desires, and so on. Chick: Yes, I would list all the things that I know about myself. Dude: You would list the "things you know about yourself." Chick: Yes. Dude: All of those things you know about yourself are objects in your awareness. They are images or ideas or concepts or desires or feelings that parade by in front of your awareness, yes? They are all objects in your awareness. Chick: Yes. Dude: All those objects in your awareness are precisely not the observing Self. All those things that you know about yourself are precisely not the real Self. Those are not the Seer; those are simply things that can be seen. All of those objects that you describe when you "describe yourself" are actually not your real Self at all! They are just more objects, whether internal or external, they are not the real Seer of those objects, they are not the real Self. So when you describe your- self by listing all of those objects, you are ultimately giving a list of mistaken identities, a list of lies, a list of precisely what you ultimately are not. So who is this real Seer? Who or what is this observing Self? Ramana Maharshi called this Witness the I-I, because it is aware of the individual I or self, but cannot itself be seen. So what is this I-I, this causal Witness, this pure observing Self? This deeply inward Self is witnessing the world out there, and it is witnessing all your interior thoughts as well. This Seer sees the ego, and sees the body, and sees the natural world. All of those parade by "in front" of this Seer. But the Seer itself cannot be seen. If you see anything, those are just more objects. Those objects are precisely what the Seer is not, what the Witness is not. So you pursue this inquiry, Who am I? Who or what is this Seer that cannot itself be seen? You simply "push back" into your awareness, and you dis-identify with any and every object you see or can see. The Self or the Seer or the Witness is not any particular thought--I can see that thought as an object. The Seer is not any particular sensation--I am aware of that as an object. The observing Self is not the body, it is not the mind, it is not the ego--I can see all of those as objects. What is looking at all those objects? What in you right now is looking at all these objects--looking at nature and its sights, look- ing at the body and its sensations, looking at the mind and its thoughts? What is looking at all that? Try to feel yourself right now--get a good sense of being yourself-- and notice, that self is just another object in awareness. It isn't even a real subject, a real self, it's just another object in awareness. This little self and its thoughts parade by in front of you just like the clouds float by through the sky. And what is the real you that is witnessing all of that? Witnessing your little objective self? Who or what is that? As you push back into this pure Subjectivity, this pure Seer, you won't see it as an object--you can't see it as an object, because it's not an object! It is nothing you can see. Rather, as you calmly rest in this observing awareness--watching mind and body and nature float by--you might begin to notice that what you are actually feeling is simply a sense of freedom, a sense of release, a sense of not being bound to any of the objects you are calmly witnessing. You don't see anything, you simply rest in this vast freedom. In front of you the clouds parade by, your thoughts parade by, bodily sensations parade by, and you are none of them. You are the vast expanse of freedom through which all these objects come and go. You are an opening, a clearing, an Emptiness, a vast spaciousness, in which all these objects come and go. Clouds come and go, sensations come and go, thoughts come and go--and you are none of them; you are that vast sense of freedom, that vast Emptiness, that vast opening, through which manifestation arises, stays a bit, and goes. So you simply start to notice that the "Seer" in you that is witnessing all these objects is itself just a vast Emptiness. It is not a thing, not an object, not anything you can see or grab hold of. It is rather a sense of vast Freedom, because it is not itself anything that enters the objective world of time and objects and stress and strain. This pure Witness is a pure Emptiness in which all these individual subjects and objects arise, stay a bit, and pass. So this pure Witness is not anything that can be seen! The attempt to see the Witness or know it as an object--that's just more grasping and seeking and clinging in time. The Witness isn't out there in the stream; it is the vast expanse of Freedom in which the stream arises. So you can't get hold of it and say, Aha, I see it! Rather, it is the Seer, not anything that can be seen. As you rest in this Witnessing, all that you sense is just a vast Emptiness, a vast Freedom, a vast Expanse--a transparent opening or clearing in which all these little subjects and objects arise. Those subjects and objects can definitely be seen, but the Witness of them cannot be seen. The Witness of them is an utter release from them, an utter Freedom not caught in their turmoils, their desires, their fears, their hopes. Of course, we tend to identify ourselves with these little individual subjects and objects--and that is exactly the problem! We identify the Seer with puny little things that can be seen. And that is the beginning of bondage and unfreedom. We are actually this vast expanse of Freedom, but we identify with unfree and limited objects and subjects, all of which can be seen, all of which suffer, and none of which is what we are. Patanjali gave the classic description of bondage as "the identification of the Seer with the instruments of seeing"--with the little subjects and objects, instead of the opening or clearing or Emptiness in which they all arise. So when we rest in this pure Witness, we don't see this Witness as an object. Anything you can see is not it. Rather, it is the absence of any subjects or objects altogether, it is the release from all of that. Resting in the pure witness, there is this background absence or Emptiness, and this is "experienced," not as an object, but as a vast expanse of Freedom and Liberation from the constrictions of identifying with these puny little subjects and objects that enter the stream of time and are ground up in that agonizing torrent. So when you rest in the pure Seer, in the pure Witness, you are invisible. You cannot be seen. No part of you can be seen, because you are not an object. Your body can be seen, your mind can be seen, nature can be seen, but you are not any of those objects. You are the pure source of awareness, and not anything that arises in that awareness. So you abide as awareness. Things arise in awareness, they stay a bit and depart, they come and they go. They arise in space, they move in time. But the pure Witness does not come and go. It does not arise in space, it does not move in time. It is as it is; it is ever-present and unvarying. It is not an object out there, so it never enters the stream of time, of space, of birth, of death. Those are all experiences, all objects--they all come, they all go. But you do not come and go; you do not enter that stream; you are aware of all that, so you are not caught in all that. The Witness is aware of space, aware of time--and is therefore itself free of space, free of time. It is timeless and spaceless--the purest Emptiness through which time and space parade. So this pure Seer is prior to life and death, prior to time and turmoil, prior to space and movement, prior to manifestation--prior even to the Big Bang itself. This doesn't mean that the pure Self existed in a time before the Big Bang, but that it exists prior to time, period. It just never enters that stream. It is aware of time, and is thus free of time--it is utterly timeless. And because it is timeless, it is eternal--which doesn't mean everlasting time, but free of time altogether. It was never born, it will never die. It never enters that temporal stream. This vast Freedom is the great Unborn, of which the Buddha said: "There is an unborn, an unmade, an uncreate. Were it not for this unborn, unmade, uncreate, there would be no release from the born, the made, the created." Resting in this vast expanse of Freedom is resting in this great Unborn, this vast Emptiness. And because it is Unborn, it is Undying. It was not created with your body, it will not perish when your body perishes. It's not that it lives on beyond your body's death, but rather that it never enters the stream of time in the first place. It doesn't live on after your body, it lives prior to your body, always. It doesn't go on in time forever, it is simply prior to the stream of time itself. Space, time, objects--all of those merely parade by. But you are the Witness, the pure Seer that is itself pure Emptiness, pure Freedom, pure Openness, the great Emptiness through which the entire parade passes, never touching you, never tempting you, never hurting you, never consoling you. And because there is this vast Emptiness, this great Unborn, you can indeed gain liberation from the born and the created, from the suffering of space and time and objects, from the mechanism of terror inherent in those fragments, from the vale of tears called samsara.

[bradybaker]

Interesting read. But it seems me that it is demonstrating the limits of language more than anything else. Here's a question, if awareness is separate from time, matter and energy then how does the physical effect it? (ie. psychological disorders, diseases). Awareness is very different under such conditions. Check out the Conciousness thread.

[Belisarius]

I loved this read, it was really inspiring(wrong word probably). It helped me understand Buddhism alot more and was well put together. Baker, you obviously didn't get this at all. Any objections based on empiricism at all are meaningless when brought against the points in this post because empiricism is an analysis of objects whereas this post attempts to describe the subject(or rather, guide you to realization of the subject through language). Experiences like that of psychotic people are just experiences and you can draw no meaningful conclusions based on them. Even so, it isn't evident at all that psychotic persons don't have the exact same "self" or a "self" at all.

[Neil]

Awesome post, freemind. I know a guy on another messageboard who practices Zen and has posted similar thoughts about the nature of the self. Having read this, I felt quite peaceful and the most relaxed I have been all week ( it has been a stressful week for me). I think that mentally ill people perhaps have a different self-awareness than normal people.

[imported_Berserk_Exodus]

Most of us haven't met our true selves. I've heard a whisper, felt its presence every so often but other than that he is out of reach. But at least being on the path itself promises that there will eventually be an end to it. Nietzsche called it the physis, the bridging the gap to the ubermensch. The ultimate expression of personality, individuality, the core being. Chick: I was just making small talk, jeez Siddharta...

[AirRick101]

I've had a few glimpses of feeling "no self" in meditation, and can become quite daunting after a period of time. But a lot of this concept has become new age hype that most practitioners don't really understand... I used to think that I was so good after this experience, even arrogant. I denied the advice of letting go of experiences, even if they are good. At school, we were discussing who we are, and common kids said that "obviously, you are (name)...blah blah" and lists a bunch of descriptions. I remember thinking that "he doesn't know anything..." I even enjoyed the conversations with my girlfriend cuz she understood my exp...yeah, she's a strange one, hehe. We both went through very intense life paths... But whatever!! The enlightenment path has been appealing to me for only a short while. Maybe I wasn't ready for it... Even after my meditation experience, I wondered why I still inhabit consciousness in this body if I am indeed not limited to it. I understand interconnectness, but not quite a concept of "oneness." Personally, in a practical matter, a real sense of no self is pretty much when I'm not focused on myself, and more onto others. Easy, eh?