Who Am I?

"Abba Poeman said to Abba Joseph: Tell me how can I become a monk. And he replied: If you want to find rest here or hereafter, say in every occasion, who am I? and do not judge anyone."

-- Greggory Mayers --
("Listen to the Desert," p. 9.)

One of the most insightful observations in the Bible is found in the Book of James, where it is plainly stated (at James 1:8) that, "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways."  

In one pithy sentence, this profound observation diagnoses the basic human dilemma - the duality of the ego and 'who' we actually are - as well as the symptoms of our dilemma, i.e., the instability of our egoically-inspired thoughts, words and actions. A person identified with the ego is, of course, apt to think, say or do just about anything in any circumstance. Thus, Abba Joseph's sage advice is to ask oneself repeatedly, and in whatever circumstances one may find him or herself in, the question, "Who am I?" Are our thoughts, words and actions driven by the all-too-human separate "self" of the ego, or do they emanate from the authentic "Self," i.e., in strictly Christian terms, from "the Kingdom of God within" us? (See Luke 17:21.)

Almost as an afterthought, Abba Joseph also adds the advice: "and do not judge anyone," for he must have known that each of us is liable to find him or herself at any time within the throes and under the dictates of of our smaller "self." This is the heart of Jesus' admonishment: "Judge not, lest ye be judged." And, of course, it is the ego, itself, that renders the harshest judgment, and is metaphorically willing to serve as prosecutor, judge, jailer and executioner. Our greatest challenge is, thus, quite literally, to get over our "selves."

"Only he who has renounced the impassioned thoughts of his inner self, which is the intellect" observed St. Hesychios, "is a true monk. It is easy to be a monk in one's outer self if one wants to be," notes the father of' centering prayer, "but no struggle is required to be a monk in one's inner self."

[Palmer, et. al, "The Philokalia," Vol. 1, pp. 174-175.]

Facing Death and Overcoming Ego

"Whatever be the means adopted, you must at last return to the Self, so why not abide as the Self here and now?"

-- Ramana Maharshi --

Philosophers from all traditions have observed the irony that everyone has the knowledge that all things die, yet they manage to avoid an acceptance of their own mortality.

The ego does not want to face the inevitability of its death, and only in rare instances will an individual face the inevitability of death down by examining just what that means and what it will be like. The vast majority prefer to evade thinking about death's inevitability altogether, or to comfort themselves in their belief of an after-life described by their religious tradition. Yet facing death as an inevitable part of what life holds, in certain instances, may lead one to enlightenment in this lifetime.

If you ask, many people will tell you exactly where they were when they came to the realization that they too would die, and what their reaction was. In most instances, the reaction will be to avoid the fact, and to divert one's attention elsewhere. Yet, one of those rare individuals to face down the inevitability of their own death was the great Indian sage, Ramana Maharshi.

Ramana Maharshi
(1879-1950)

In the Introduction to the book, "Talks with Ramana Maharshi," we read how facing down the realization of his mortality propelled the then-teenaged "sage of Arunachala" (known, at that time, as Venkataraman) to a state of unitive consciousness which endured throughout the remainder of his life.

"After the death of his father," we read, "Venkataraman's family moved to the famous temple town of Madurai so that they could be under the watchful eye of a paternal uncle. It was here that the "Awakening" would take place, that waves of spiritual fervor would overtake him while reading the Periapuranam, the lives of sixty-three Tamil saints. From his childhood, there was a continual inner throbbing of "Arunachala, Arunachala," as if the Self - his real Being - was reminding him of his forgotten nature. Once, when a visiting relative recounted his recent pilgrimage to Tiruvannamalai (a temple town where the solitary, sacred hill Arunachala rises above the South Indian plains), young Venkataraman became astonished and overwhelmed that Arunachala was in fact a place on earth - a place one could actually go to."

"Shortly after this time, during a hot July day when Venkataraman was just sixteen," we read, "he faced his own mortality. One day, when everyone else was away from home, the young boy became completely overcome with the fear of death. Rather than panic or retreat into fear, Venkataraman had the remarkable presence of mind to face the situation, then and there. He dramatized the death occurrence to be able to help bring the experience to its ultimate conclusion, by holding his breath, stiffening his body, and allowing no sound to escape his lips."

"To die before death is to face the void; the emptiness in which the content of the mind has no ground on which to endure. It is rare for one to face the void without recoiling back into form. Venkataraman, like the Buddha, was determined to stay the course. Upon firm investigation into the nature of his "I-sense," his former self died, and the infinite Self, the Eternal "I," rose to take its place - the true resurrection."

Carl Jung
(1875-1961)

In an interview in his later life (embedded below), the great Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung, himself a student of Ramana Maharshi's teachings, observed that: "I have treated many old people and it is quite interesting to watch what their unconscious is doing with the fact that it is apparently threatened with the complete end. It disregards it. It behaves as if it were going on."

"And, so," he suggests, "I think it is better for old people to live on, to look forward to the next day as if we had to spend centuries. Then we live properly. But when he is afraid, when he doesn't look forward, he looks back. It petrifies him. He gets stiff, and he dies before his time. But when he is living on, looking forward to the great adventure which is ahead, then he lives. And that is what the unconscious is intending to do."

"Of course," he notes, "it is quite obvious that we are all going to die and this is the sad finale of everything, but nevertheless there is something in us that doesn't believe it, apparently. But this is merely a fact. Does it mean to me that it proves something? It is simply so. . . . If you think along the lines of nature," he concludes, "then you live properly."

But what, in fact are "the lines of nature," that Jung speaks of?

"Ramana taught that we exist as Supreme Self at all times," we read in the Introduction to "Talks with Ramana Maharshi," and that, "(w)e need only awaken to this reality by seeking the source of the ego, or "I-thought," and abide in the Self that we always are."

"The path of Self liberates one from the never-ending fear and disorder resulting from taking the ego to be real. By becoming free of the ego-illusion, one experiences true freedom and supreme peace. It is a path that takes one from the apparent duality of the individual and the world to the bliss of one's true nature."

And, of course - as Ramana Maharshi, himself, demonstrated - it is in facing (and facing down) the fear of mortality that the ego projects that we are freed from the small "self" and emerge into the greater consciousness and reality of the eternal Self.

Krishnamurti: On a World Crisis of Consciousness

In 1966, Jiddu Krishnamurti, either a man before his time or, perhaps, a timeless man, observed: "The crisis . . . in the world is a crisis in consciousness, a crisis that cannot anymore accept the old norms, the old patterns, the ancient traditions, a particular way of life - whether it is the American way, or the European way, or the Asiatic way."

"And, considering what the world is now, with all the misery, conflict, destructive brutality, aggression, tremendous advances in technology and so on . . . though man has cultivated the external world and has more or less mastered it, inwardly he is still as he was. The great deal of animal still in him is still brutal, violent, aggressive, acquisitive (and) competitive. And he has built a society along these lines."

Listening to this enlightened teacher almost fifty years later, one has to ask: 'Have we changed, or have we just become more so?'

"Question:   Of what significance is hope and faith to living?"

Jiddu Krishnamurti
(1895-1986)

"Krishnamurti:   I hope you won't think me harsh if I say there is no significance at all. We have had hope. We have had faith - faith in church, faith in politics, faith in leaders, faith in gurus - because we have wanted to achieve a state of bliss, of happiness and so on, and hope has managed this faith. And, when one observes through history - through our life - all that faith and hope has no meaning at all because what is important is what we are. What we actually are, not what we think we are, or what we think we should be, but actually what is. If we know how to look at what is, that would bring about a tremendous transformation."

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

"We are the product of the society in which we live," Krishnamurti observes, "(of) the experience, the knowledge and all the rest of it. And there is nothing original. We repeat, repeat, repeat. To find out anything new requires tremendous inquiry and meditation."

"You don't just get it by just coming to a meeting for an hour and thinking about meaning," Krishnamurti warns, "one has to work tremendously hard."

"This requires much more alert, much more careful examination," he notes. "And one does not have the energy, the patience or the interest, because this is non-profitable. It does not bring you profit, financially or any other way."

"When you are really faced with a problem of war, of famine, of death, of poverty and so on," says Krishnamurti, "you can't argumentatively discuss about it. One has to deal with it. One has to put one's teeth into it. And you cannot artificially (and) intellectually have teeth to put to problems that are vital."

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

A half century after Krishnamurti's talk, and in a world evermore rife with existential problems - global warming, climate change, species extinction, over-population, hunger, intolerance, war, pollution and poverty - are we, or are the  leaders we allow to govern us, any more willing to put "teeth into" the problems that so manifestly cry out for our attention?

It seems not. Therefore, more so than ever it is apparent that we still face a crisis -  a crisis of both consciousness and conscience.

Eckhart Tolle Part I: Ego, Silence, Being and Enlightenment

Enlightened spiritual teacher, Eckhart Tolle,
best-selling author of "The Power of Now"
and "The New Earth: Awakening to Your
Life's Purpose."

In an uncut three-part interview, best-selling author and enlightened spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle, a German-born modern-day mystic who lives in Vancouver, sat down with the Canadian Broadcasting Company's Sandra Abrams to discuss internal silence and being, the nature of the ego and his own enlightenment experience, as detailed in his books "The Power of Now" and "The New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose."

"Most people have a voice in their head which is the usual thought processes that they are usually identified with," says Tolle. "So for most people that is their basic reality, that 'voice in the head'. And, they are so identified with these continually arising thought processes," he notes, "that they don't even know that they are identified with every thought that comes to them. They don't know that there is a 'voice in the head' because they are the 'voice in the head.'"

"To find that there is another dimension inside you," says Tolle, "where this mental noise is not operating for a while, that is like finding a depth inside yourself that perhaps you didn't know was there. And that," he notes, "essentially is a spiritual dimension. So it is really about finding that dimension in yourself where the continual mental noise for a while subsides".

"There is still an awareness of noises that you hear," he explains, "or your eyes may be open (and) you may be looking at things, but you are not labeling the noises that you hear. You are not interpreting them. You know they are there," he observes, "but you are not labeling them. The compulsive labeling that most people live with subsides for a while, and that is a tremendous liberation."



"Everybody has time for a moment of space," Tolle observes, "and it could start with taking a single thing, like taking one conscious in-and-out breath occasionally while you are waiting at the bus stop or at the traffic light, or while you are going up and down in the elevator."

"Instead of mentally projecting yourself forward to the next thing you have to do, that you are going to, or that you haven't done, why not take a moment," he asks, "when you are simply conscious of your breath?"

"Breathing in, the breath is always there, so you just put some attention on that. One conscious in-breath, feel the air going into the body, and one conscious out-breath.  During that space you have taken attention away from 'the voice in the head,'" Tolle notes, "and a little bit of space has opened up inside you. In that little space," he observes, "you feel a bit more alive. There is a certain aliveness and power in that space. Its not just nothingness; there is a power in there."

"Just to experience that you are not your thoughts" is a liberating experience that not many people find Tolle observes. "You are the awareness behind your thoughts. And to know that, you have to find that little spot inside you. In the silence."

Tollle concludes Part I of his CBC interview by talking about the dysfunction of the ego and the role it has played in human history, particularly recent human history.

"The ego is a mind-made sense of self," he explains. "The ego has a certain structure to it, (and) it needs certain things to survive.  It needs to emphasize the 'otherness' of others. It needs to judge people. It needs to immediately conceptualize and define a person that you meet. Immediately you will find judgment arising, and comparison arising. The image of who I am, (and) how does that compare to the other person. Inferiority? Superiority?" These are the ordinary functions of the ego, of which far too many people are wholly unaware, he explains.

"So there is a basic dysfunction built into the structure of the ego that works both on a personal level and on a collective level," Tolle says. And, it appears to be profoundly deep-seated and anti-social in its nature.

"There is this built in tendency to make the 'others' into enemies," he notes. "Why is that? Because the ego needs to emphasize the 'otherness.' By creating enemies outside, you have a stronger sense of who you are. But it is a false sense of who you are," he notes, pointing to the senseless wars of the 20th century.

"There is a very strong element of dysfunction in the human mind. And, really, this is what we are addressing when we become more conscious of compulsive thinking, and (when) we become conscious that we have been deriving our sense of self from what we have been telling ourselves in our minds of who we are."

"Then suddenly," says Tolle, "we see this operating in ourselves; we see this unconscious process . . . and by seeing it another dimensions has arisen. It is a profound "Awareness"" or Presence," as he calls it.

See: Eckhart Tolle Part II: Fear and Awakening

"The Work' of Byron Katie

"Life comes out of your imagination. Life is a mirrored image of what you imagine to be true,' says enlightened spiritual teacher, Byron Katie. '

The Work,' as Katie calls her process of examining and re-orienting the thoughts of the mind, is a genuine liberation practice that has changed hundreds of thousand of lives, helping its practitioners to carve a different path through a world of hurt and pain.

In a two-hour audiostream special on Global One TV, Katie takes the viewer through a tour of her doing 'the Work' with a number of audience participants in different venues, dealing with a host of issues from prejudice to resentment and fear, and from the need for approval to the feeling of being unloved and unappreciated.

Watch live streaming video from globalonetv at livestream.com

"You know those people that are so cold?," Katie asks. "They're innocent. They are believing their thoughts."

"You know those people that have been so mean to you?," she asks. "They have to be. They are believing their thoughts about you, about the world."

"You know the things you do that you're so sorry for?," Katie continues. "Those things you regret? Those things that you experience guilt over? If you go back and you look at what you were believing before you did what you did, you will see clearly that you had no choice. Zero! And whatever you were believing before you did it," she notes, "you still believe. And you will do it again. Only you will just be a little more subtle about it so that you don't get caught so obviously next time.

And, so," she observes, "we become so secretive . . . so painful."

Katie offers those who practice 'the Work' an opportunity to examine their life stories, to see where they would be without that story, and to turn that story around so that they see who they could become without their story.

"I know the taste of freedom," Katie boldly states. "I know what that is. And if you don't love your world, I invite you to question what you believe about the world."

'Mindsight' and the Science of Mental Well-Being

"Mindsight is the ability of the human mind to see itself. It is a powerful lens through which we can understand our inner lives with more clarity, tranform the brain, and enhance our relationships with other."

-- Dr. Dan Siegel --

In one of the more insightful videos in an already insightful series of Google  TechTalks (below), Dr. Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., Co-Director of the UCLA Medical Center's Mindful Awareness Research Center and Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute, goes where many other mind scientists refuse to go and defines what the 'mind' is. He then takes his audience through a fascinating and informative tour of the brain, highlighting how 'mindfulness' enhances brain function and increases mental and physical health.

Dr. Daniel J. Siegel, M.D.

"You'd be amazed," says Dr. Siegel, "but a lot of people live there lives just having thoughts, feelings, beliefs and attitudes, having hopes and dreams, and memories and perceptions - all the stuff we can use to describe the mind - but they haven't developed the capacity to actually observe those mental activities as the flow of energy and information, as the mind itself."

"That process of being able to see mental activity with more clarity and then modify it with more efficacy is something you can name with the word 'mindsight,' he says, defining 'mindsight' as "the ability to actually see your mind, not just have one."

"When you look at different areas of research what you find is that when 'mindsight' is present, various ways of understanding mental health are also present. There is something about being able to see and influence your internal world that creates more health."

 Dr. Siegel, a developmental psychiatrist by training, then takes his audience through the paradigm-shifting case of the family of a woman whose middle pre-frontal cortex was permanently damaged in a tragic car accident; a woman who, in essence, said that she had "lost her soul."

Pre-Frontal Cortex

Siegel describes how the middle pre-frontal cortex of the brain regulates the body, attunes communication, optimizes the flow of emotional balance, inhibits fear, gives an individual the ability to pause before acting (response flexibility), and gives the individual insight (auto-noetic consciousness), self-knowing awareness, the capacity for empathy, the capacity for morality, as well as compassion and intuition, or introception (the ability to 'be in touch with the feelings of the body' that controls the individual's ability to have empathy).

"A healthy mind emerges from integrated systems. Integration, (being) very clearly defined as the linkage of differentiated parts," says Siegel. "So that when you have a nervous system that is integrated you get these nine functions," both in the individual and the family, as well as in larger groups.

In the practice of mindful meditation, notes Siegel, there is a 2,500 year tradition of specific mental training to develop mindfulness traits, and a tradition which is designed to develop all nine systems, centered in the middle pre-frontal cortex. "We have every reason to believe that what you are doing in (practicing meditation), says Siegel, "is strengthening the integrative fibers of the brain, in particular the middle pre-frontal areas."

Thus, he concludes, practicing meditation affects both the ability to approach problem areas in life that the meditator once withdrew from, as well as  improving his or her the immune system. "But," he cautions, "(t)he mind uses the brain to create itself, and if the pathways aren't there, the mind can't do it."

Nisargadatta on Acceptance and Love

Sri Nisigardatta (1897-1981)

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, one in the long line of self-realized Indian sages, was perhaps the foremeost teacher and philosopher of the non-dualistic Advaita Vedanta since his predecessor, Ramana Maharshi. In 1973, the publication of his most famous and widely translated book, "I Am That," an English translation of his talks in Marathi by Maurice Frydman, brought him worldwide recognition and followers.

[Source: Wikipedia.com]

 In the attached video (below), it is explained that Nisargadatta Maharaj "refered to the illusory sense of being, traditionally called the ego, as the I-Am-ness. He says that to find the source of this I-Am-ness and fully understand it as nothing more than a conceptual idea of one's self is the way to self-realization and wholeness. Maharaj asks the seeker to be in the state which is prior to the experience of I-Am-ness."

"The concept 'I Am' comes spontaneously and goes spontaneously," says Nisargadatta. "Amazingly, when it appears it is accepted as real. All subsequent misconceptions arise from that feeling of reality in the 'I-Am-ness.' The moment the feeling 'I Am' appears, the world also appears. Any image you have of yourself is not true. True knowledge is to abide in your own Self."

"The teachings of Maharaj," it is observed, "move our awareness from the I-Am-ness, this sense of separate identity, to a non-dualistic sense of oneness with the Absolute, which is our real nature." In explaining this shift in his consciousness, Nisargadatta explained to his visitors that what he meant was that he was "free of all content."

"To myself," he explained, "I am neither perceivable nor conceivable. There is nothing I can point out and say, "This I am." You identify yourself with everything so easily. I find it impossible. The feeling I am not this or that, nor is anything mine, is so strong in me, that as soon as a thing or a thought appears, there comes the sense, 'This I am not.'"

"I find that somehow by shifting the focus of attention,  I become the very thing that I look at and experience the kind of consciousness it has. I become the inner witness of the thing. I call this capacity of entering other focal points of consciousness 'love.' You may give it any name you like. Since at any point of time and space I can be both the subject and the object of experience, I express it by saying that I am both and neither, and beyond both."

This radical acceptance of what is - this love without subject, object or conditions - an enlightened and acceptive state of higher consciousness. What is, is. And we are part of that totality Nothing could be plainer. In the beginning chapters of his book, "I Am That," Nisargadatta addresses how the fundamental problem of the mind is overcome with an acceptive love:

"What is wrong with (the mind) seeking the pleasant and shrinking from the unpleasant? Between the banks of pleasure and pain the river of life flows. It is only when the mind refuses to flow with life, and gets stuck at the banks, that it becomes a problem. By flowing with life I mean acceptance - letting come what comes and go what goes. Desire not, fear not, observe the actual, as and when it happens, for you are not what happens, you are to whom it happens. Ultimately even the observer you are not. You are the ultimate potentiality of which the all-embracing consciousness is the manifestation and expression.

[Nisagardatta, "I Am That," page 6.]

"Meditation will help you to find your bonds, loosen them, untie them and cast your moorings, says Nisargadatta. "When you are no longer attached to anything, you have done your share. The rest will be done for you."

"Only in the dissolution of the problem in the universal solvents of enquiry and dispassion,' he notes, "can its right solution be found."

[Nisagardatta, "I Am That," pages 54-55.]