Remembering Who You Are

If someone asked, “who are you?” what do you respond with? Most people would answer with their name. But is your name really who you are? Or is it just a word that you identify with when other people call you it? If you are not your name then who are you?

This question has been inextricably elusive to me and I have thought about it deeply for a long time. If you start to think about who you are what do you find? I found that I didn’t know! At least not right away, what you are is an incredibly complex situation to think about in which I detail more here.

Its easier to narrow down by first describing what you are not. You are not what other people say you are, by definition this is false because they are not you. If you are not what others say you are then who are you? If you think about this question long enough you will realise that you are nothing permanent. You are a forever-changing pattern of biology that interchangeably influences, and is influenced by its environment. Now this is a good description of your physical body, but what about your mind?

Your mind is even harder to pinpoint. Are you merely the electric symphony that’s happening inside your head? Or are you more than that? Consciousness is an emergent property that the physical structure of the brain creates. So one could say that you are more than the physical properties of your awareness. We are getting closer to what you are, not just your body or just your mind, but a combination of both. But how would we describe this?

What you are fundamentally is a focal point of consciousness, at which the universe perceives itself. You are everything there is, but your pretending you’re not. The basic energy that everything is made of; you are the essence of reality itself only you’ve forgotten.

The reason you’ve forgotten what you are is a result of your biological and environmental conditioning you attain when growing up. You are born with innate biological markers that determine certain personality traits, and also receive conditioning by the information taken in by your environment. The fault is not yours nor anyone else’s and becoming aware of this kind of thinking seriously benefits your mental health.

It is precursor for detachment, and what I mean by that is once you recognise you are not merely the character that you play in the social game but much more than that. You know you are not what others say you are, so you are no longer affected by what people think of you. You also become aware that you are separate from thought, you do not have to attach to what you think. Understand that you are not anything specific but all of what there is, just from your point of view. Now what implications does this line of thinking have?

Firstly, if you are all there is that means that everything that you do is also what is happening to you. That means that you are responsible for all that goes on from your perspective. This is a good way to learn how to cope with bad situations and appreciate good ones. You will realise that when a catastrophe happens you have the power in how you respond to it. You also realise that good things are to be appreciated for what they are.

Secondly you will realise that what you’re looking for in life is the place at which you are searching from. There is no puzzle to solve, no valuable to get, there is only the realisation that you are searching for yourself. This fundamental essence that underlies all things, and has no motivations or desires, no negative emotions, the witness of your perspective and thoughts – that’s you. The moment you stop searching for something other than you is the moment you get all tangled up in the game of life.

You are God (whatever your interpretation of that word means), only you’re pretending you’re not. If God is everything, everywhere, all the time; that is not an experience that can be perceived as there is no outside from which to perceive it. The one thing God lacks is limitation; you are that limitation manifested, in order to perceive what you have created for yourself.

I found this line of thinking not as new knowledge but something that I had always known but I’d forgotten. That’s why I think it struck me as something fundamentally meaningful and true. We get so caught up in others perceptions of us or lose ourselves trying to chase something that can never catch. To realise who you are you must forget what you know.

So go create the world you want for yourself.

From the ashes, you will rise.

Liam.