If you ask the question "What am I" or "Why am I here?" You have already made a statement that you are not the creator or source of your being. You have admitted that something else is the author of your body/mind. You have revealed that the person you find yourself to be is not something you created. You need to discover what this thing is! And what it is supposed to do!
If you just consider the question you are asking, you have already acknowledged God, whether you call it that or not. Call it nature, call it energy, whatever, it is the source of your existence.
To answer this question is often a life long goal. It is certainly worth pursuing. Religion and philosophy are a means to answer the question. But, to simply adopt a religion or philosophy as a belief, does not answer the question deeply enough. It can keep existential angst at bay, but it will not deeply satisfy unless it is known in one's core.
It seems that one needs to go deeply into who is asking the question. It is the person, the ego, the intellect, that is asking. It is the seeking of the Holy Grail. The answer that answers all fundamental questions. Advaita says the answer is "existence, consciousness, peace."
To know "I exist" is to be conscious. To realize that personality, ego, and body are focal points in consciousness, and are known to you, suggests that you are other than the personality, ego, body, or intellect.
If you go deep enough, the answer to "What am I" can only be consciousness itself. Not a particular consciousness, but awareness itself. That awareness in which the whole universe exists. That awareness that was before the big bang. That awareness that will be there at the end. And after the end. And you are that. And that is peace.
If you just consider the question you are asking, you have already acknowledged God, whether you call it that or not. Call it nature, call it energy, whatever, it is the source of your existence.
To answer this question is often a life long goal. It is certainly worth pursuing. Religion and philosophy are a means to answer the question. But, to simply adopt a religion or philosophy as a belief, does not answer the question deeply enough. It can keep existential angst at bay, but it will not deeply satisfy unless it is known in one's core.
It seems that one needs to go deeply into who is asking the question. It is the person, the ego, the intellect, that is asking. It is the seeking of the Holy Grail. The answer that answers all fundamental questions. Advaita says the answer is "existence, consciousness, peace."
To know "I exist" is to be conscious. To realize that personality, ego, and body are focal points in consciousness, and are known to you, suggests that you are other than the personality, ego, body, or intellect.
If you go deep enough, the answer to "What am I" can only be consciousness itself. Not a particular consciousness, but awareness itself. That awareness in which the whole universe exists. That awareness that was before the big bang. That awareness that will be there at the end. And after the end. And you are that. And that is peace.
2 comments:
“Extensive as the ‘external’ world is it hardly bears comparison with the depth- dimensions of our inner being, which does not need even the spaciousness of the universe to be, in itself, almost unlimited. It seems to me, more and more, as though our ordinary consciousness inhabits the apex of a pyramid whose base in us...broadens out to such an extent that the farther we are able to let ourselves down into it, the more completely do we appear to be included in the realities of the earthly and, in the widest sense universal existence, which are not dependent on time or space.” Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926)
Nice quote. Hadn't read that one before. So true! Thanks for sharing.
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