Who are you?

[Otis]

On the first page of this thread, I talked about the various mirrors within which I can get a view of "who I am".

 

But I neglected to really talk about the most obvious and ancient mirror, which is the mirror of my mind.

 

When I look at my own mind, I see my own functions, reflected back at me. Over here are thoughts, over here memories, intuitions, emotions, associations, impulses to act, etc.

 

If I stand back and watch, then none of the functions really seem to belong to me, at all. The thoughts come up, unbidden, and sometimes they surprise me. Intuition comes from some out-of-sight place, as do memories and associations. I can see the relationship between emotions and thought, but when I am just watching, they don't seem so closely linked, nor is it always clear which gives rise to which.

 

If I'm not watching my mind, but am being driven around by it, then the emotions not only seem to come from me, but they seem to be me. I am angry. I am sad. The thoughts that arise seem to reflect my "truth", even though they may very well be contradicted by later, equally valid, thoughts. At this time, the mirror is mostly ignored; I only see my self in retrospect.

 

Even the impulse to act may drive me, without me being consciously aware of it. I may find myself standing at the refrigerator door, and only then ask myself whether I'm hungry or not. If I'm emotionally distraught, or if I'm inebriated, I may find that I am the impulse to act. Words may come out of my mouth before they seem to go through my mind.

 

So, whose mind is this, that I can sometimes watch, other times be driven by, and still other times be tormented by? Why do my thoughts, when correcting me, refer to me as "you"? How is that there are arguments within my mind, as if two separate functions are struggling for control over me?

 

And I am even sure that "mind" is an accurate concept, since most of the aspects of this mind do not seem to belong to "me"? Is it possible that "mind" is just another funhouse mirror, a way of watching my internal machinations? Am "I" really involved at all in the processes of mind, or am I just an observer, looking into the mirror?

[Vmarco]

Someone asked me this question in another thread and it caught me off guard. I understand why he asked me this question, that the question wasn't so much who am I in a metaphysical sense, but rather who do I think I am, but to be honest I started to think of it as "who am I really?"

 

So my question to you is, "who are you?" I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

 

Aaron

 

I guarentee this,...you will never understand Who you are, until you realize When you are.

 

V

[Aaron]

I guarentee this,...you will never understand Who you are, until you realize When you are.

 

V

 

 

Hmm... didn't have enough of the past-present-future discussion over in "Heartmind"?

 

I disagree... I think you're placing too much emphasis on time in regards to one's ability to awaken their awareness of the heartmind. In regards to understanding who you are, I think many people understand this on an intellectual level, long before they "get it" on an experiential level. In regards to my experience and understanding of time, I know that time only exists within this realm, so I don't worry so much about whether the past alone exists, rather I worry about my actions in the here and now.

 

In truth I think we agree on about 90% of the discussions out there, but the 10% we disagree on seems to be a doozy.

 

Aaron

 

p.s. I am the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end.

Edited July 26, 2011 by Twinner

[mYTHmAKER]

I guarentee this,...you will never understand Who you are, until you realize When you are.

 

V

 

[Informer]

Well to be quite frank, anything I say will be incorrect. So I will give an anology.

 

I am like water.

[Vmarco]

I disagree... I think you're placing too much emphasis on time in regards to one's ability to awaken their awareness of the heartmind. In regards to understanding who you are, I think many people understand this on an intellectual level, long before they "get it" on an experiential level. In regards to my experience and understanding of time, I know that time only exists within this realm, so I don't worry so much about whether the past alone exists, rather I worry about my actions in the here and now.

 

In truth I think we agree on about 90% of the discussions out there, but the 10% we disagree on seems to be a doozy.

 

 

 

The practice of 'looking for Who', is an admirable goal. The next step may be a doozy from your current point of view, however it must eventually come up before Who is uncovered. For example, every Buddha is a Tathagata,...and a Tathagata implies the realization of When.

 

Imagine it's 1811,...you were born and raised on a farm near St Louis,...and decide to go to San Francisco. I meet you in Kansas, and tell you about the Rocky Mountains,...you could think I'm pulling your leg, or you could take note that this may be something to occur before you reach san Francisco..

 

I agree,..that the past has no existence except as it is recorded in the perceived present,...but the perceived present is in the past. Agsin,...the object-ive minded do not see the world that surrounds them, but only the one that surrounded them.

 

What if, David Bohm, and other physicists aree correct,...that all matter is frozen or slowed down light. How would that affect the understanding of the vessel used in perceived existence, and the Five Skandhas which we are not? Who one is, cannot be accessed in time, which is part of the skandhas.

 

Consider As Above, So Below. Look at a star at night (or in the daytime from a deep hole, like the Maya did),...the light you're seeing, depending on the distance, could be thousands of years in the past. Likewise, every object you see around you is in the past, albeit a shorter past,...but the past, nevertherless. This will become even more apparent when you start practicing the first Ultimate Bodhichitta,..."look at everything you perceive as a dream."

 

Walter Russell wrote,..."Change is an illusion of the senses due to motion. There is no change whatsoever in the universe. There is only an illusion of change set up by the two interchanging lights (positive and negative) that divide and multiply within moving matter and mass.

 

The senses are the audience for [divided] light's pulsations. The senses are a part of this illusion. Senses are electric. They belong to the universe of motion and do not respond to stillness. As motion itself is non-existent, so also are senses non-existent.

 

The senses are but the imagined records of imagined motion, matter and change. The senses have no knowledge of what they sense. They merely record motion. The senses respond to motion in only one direction. They sense the forward flow of time but not its back-ward flow. If they could register both directions, they would become aware of the stillness of this zero universe of seeming motion."

The awareness of the backward flow of forward moving things is the consciousness of a Tathagata. When our knowing exceeds our sensing, we will no longer be deceived by the illusions of our senses.

 

 

V

[JustARandomPanda]

So my question to you is, "who are you?" I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

 

I'm quickly discovering all the answers in this thread and others don't help me figure that out.

[Adishakti]

I am you and you are me ...and god can be the flea.

 

This poem by John Donne came to mind for some reason.

 

The Flea

 

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,

How little that which thou deniest me is ;

It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,

And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.

Thou know'st that this cannot be said

A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;

Yet this enjoys before it woo,

And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two ;

And this, alas ! is more than we would do.

 

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,

Where we almost, yea, more than married are.

This flea is you and I, and this

Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.

Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,

And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.

Though use make you apt to kill me,

Let not to that self-murder added be,

And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

[Green Tiger]

I am you and you are me ...and god can be the flea.

 

 

Heh... that reminds me:

 

I am he as you are he as you are me

and we are all together

[Aaron]

I am you and you are me ...and god can be the flea.

 

This poem by John Donne came to mind for some reason.

 

The Flea

 

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,

How little that which thou deniest me is ;

It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,

And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.

Thou know'st that this cannot be said

A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;

Yet this enjoys before it woo,

And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two ;

And this, alas ! is more than we would do.

 

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,

Where we almost, yea, more than married are.

This flea is you and I, and this

Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.

Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,

And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.

Though use make you apt to kill me,

Let not to that self-murder added be,

And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

 

 

Hah! That is one of my favorite poems. Donne is among the best writers to have ever lived, in my opinion. One of my favorite quotes is from Meditation XVII as follows...

 

"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

 

Really powerful stuff. Thanks for that poem.

 

Aaron

[Aaron]

The practice of 'looking for Who', is an admirable goal. The next step may be a doozy from your current point of view, however it must eventually come up before Who is uncovered. For example, every Buddha is a Tathagata,...and a Tathagata implies the realization of When.

 

Imagine it's 1811,...you were born and raised on a farm near St Louis,...and decide to go to San Francisco. I meet you in Kansas, and tell you about the Rocky Mountains,...you could think I'm pulling your leg, or you could take note that this may be something to occur before you reach san Francisco..

 

I agree,..that the past has no existence except as it is recorded in the perceived present,...but the perceived present is in the past. Agsin,...the object-ive minded do not see the world that surrounds them, but only the one that surrounded them.

 

What if, David Bohm, and other physicists aree correct,...that all matter is frozen or slowed down light. How would that affect the understanding of the vessel used in perceived existence, and the Five Skandhas which we are not? Who one is, cannot be accessed in time, which is part of the skandhas.

 

Consider As Above, So Below. Look at a star at night (or in the daytime from a deep hole, like the Maya did),...the light you're seeing, depending on the distance, could be thousands of years in the past. Likewise, every object you see around you is in the past, albeit a shorter past,...but the past, nevertherless. This will become even more apparent when you start practicing the first Ultimate Bodhichitta,..."look at everything you perceive as a dream."

 

Walter Russell wrote,..."Change is an illusion of the senses due to motion. There is no change whatsoever in the universe. There is only an illusion of change set up by the two interchanging lights (positive and negative) that divide and multiply within moving matter and mass.

 

The senses are the audience for [divided] light's pulsations. The senses are a part of this illusion. Senses are electric. They belong to the universe of motion and do not respond to stillness. As motion itself is non-existent, so also are senses non-existent.

 

The senses are but the imagined records of imagined motion, matter and change. The senses have no knowledge of what they sense. They merely record motion. The senses respond to motion in only one direction. They sense the forward flow of time but not its back-ward flow. If they could register both directions, they would become aware of the stillness of this zero universe of seeming motion."

The awareness of the backward flow of forward moving things is the consciousness of a Tathagata. When our knowing exceeds our sensing, we will no longer be deceived by the illusions of our senses.

 

 

V

 

Hello Vmarco,

 

You're still missing the point. The discovery of who you are is not interdependent on the notion of when you are, but rather on the notion of what you are and even more importantly what you are not, because in fact our recognition of Heartmind and Buddha nature does not stem from learning, but undoing what we have learned. It is by systematically understanding the nature of thought and experience, where they are born from and whence they go, that we understand, first our connection to each other on a physical level, and second our connection to each other on an even deeper level, an understanding that stems from contemplation and communion with the source.

 

When one is searching and in searching examines the tiniest details, oftentimes his focus on the small prevents him from understanding the larger landscape that is present before him. As I stated before, understanding time is not required for one to understand who they are. When they are is just as much a construct of the mind as anything else, so in fact if time plays any part in this discussion, it's simply that one must do away with the notion of time in order to understand who they are.

 

Aaron

[lienshan]

Now correct me if I'm wrong

I'm wrong ... are we kindred?

[mYTHmAKER]

[Vmarco]

 

You're still missing the point. The discovery of who you are is not interdependent on the notion of when you are, but rather on the notion of what you are and even more importantly what you are not, because in fact our recognition of Heartmind and Buddha nature does not stem from learning, but undoing what we have learned. It is by systematically understanding the nature of thought and experience, where they are born from and whence they go, that we understand, first our connection to each other on a physical level, and second our connection to each other on an even deeper level, an understanding that stems from contemplation and communion with the source....

understanding time is not required for one to understand who they are. When they are is just as much a construct of the mind as anything else, so in fact if time plays any part in this discussion, it's simply that one must do away with the notion of time in order to understand who they are.

 

Aaron

 

Surely,...understanding time is not required for anything,...anymore than understanding anything that is part of the illusion. I never said understanding time is important,...I said, There is no Present in Time,...which is more irrefutable than saying the Earth revolves the Sun.

 

To critique your post further,...there is nothing to discover, only to uncover,...which I feel you could agree with. There is nothing to learn,...but to unlearn,...although a minimum of re-training is necessary to bridge the massive amounts of conditioning that cerebral-centric entities are weighed down by.

 

Although "notions" are better than no notions, the realization of 'When' you are is not a concept. Shakyamuni himself did not breakthrough to Who he was, until he realized the Middle Way,...that is, When he is was. When you hear Middle Way, picture standing on the fulcrum of a see-saw.

 

You are not who you think you are,...thinking can NEVER uncover who you are. The Heart-Mind can uncover it,...but first you need to uncover the Heart-Mind. No one, that I've ever heard of, who has a fully open Heart-Mind, is unaware of When they are,...again,...not the you that you think you are, but the you that you are.

 

Just as "hope" can keep you from ever uncovering anything meaningful,....the attention or looking as to 'When' you are, can by itself, invite more and more of the Permanent Self into this dream, so that this dream of 3D reality is seen more and more lucidly.

 

Recognition of Heart-Mind does indeed depend on realizing 'When' you are,...they are inseparatable. You are obviously having difficulty understanding that. The you that you think you are does want such a thing as accepting a non-condition (that is, When), for to see 'When' will kill the idea of the 'i Think.'

 

The Heart-Mind isn't like inventing a god,...which humanity usually contrives to be like themselves, or some attributes to admire, from a cerebral-centric point of view. The Heart-Mind is about the Unconditional,...the conditions of the 'i Think' cannot enter. Wasn't it Voltaire that said, if cockroaches had a god, he'd be a big and powerful cockroach.

 

You can fight my posts all you wish,...but that is not going to enable you to "put the 'i think' before the I Am, and let the you that you think you are into the Heart-Mind. The 'i Think' belongs to time, and can only witness time,...like the senses can only see movement.

 

Understanding the "nature of thought and [sensory] experience" is as helpful as understanding time,...from an ego point of view. Realizing 'When" you are however, is as a quantum leap onto a wholly different dimension.

 

From reading your posts, I'm quite confident you'll be noticing the When of you, pretty soon,...in this lifetime.

 

V

[Aaron]

Surely,...understanding time is not required for anything,...anymore than understanding anything that is part of the illusion. I never said understanding time is important,...I said, There is no Present in Time,...which is more irrefutable than saying the Earth revolves the Sun.

 

To critique your post further,...there is nothing to discover, only to uncover,...which I feel you could agree with. There is nothing to learn,...but to unlearn,...although a minimum of re-training is necessary to bridge the massive amounts of conditioning that cerebral-centric entities are weighed down by.

 

Although "notions" are better than no notions, the realization of 'When' you are is not a concept. Shakyamuni himself did not breakthrough to Who he was, until he realized the Middle Way,...that is, When he is was. When you hear Middle Way, picture standing on the fulcrum of a see-saw.

 

You are not who you think you are,...thinking can NEVER uncover who you are. The Heart-Mind can uncover it,...but first you need to uncover the Heart-Mind. No one, that I've ever heard of, who has a fully open Heart-Mind, is unaware of When they are,...again,...not the you that you think you are, but the you that you are.

 

Just as "hope" can keep you from ever uncovering anything meaningful,....the attention or looking as to 'When' you are, can by itself, invite more and more of the Permanent Self into this dream, so that this dream of 3D reality is seen more and more lucidly.

 

Recognition of Heart-Mind does indeed depend on realizing 'When' you are,...they are inseparatable. You are obviously having difficulty understanding that. The you that you think you are does want such a thing as accepting a non-condition (that is, When), for to see 'When' will kill the idea of the 'i Think.'

 

The Heart-Mind isn't like inventing a god,...which humanity usually contrives to be like themselves, or some attributes to admire, from a cerebral-centric point of view. The Heart-Mind is about the Unconditional,...the conditions of the 'i Think' cannot enter. Wasn't it Voltaire that said, if cockroaches had a god, he'd be a big and powerful cockroach.

 

You can fight my posts all you wish,...but that is not going to enable you to "put the 'i think' before the I Am, and let the you that you think you are into the Heart-Mind. The 'i Think' belongs to time, and can only witness time,...like the senses can only see movement.

 

Understanding the "nature of thought and [sensory] experience" is as helpful as understanding time,...from an ego point of view. Realizing 'When" you are however, is as a quantum leap onto a wholly different dimension.

 

From reading your posts, I'm quite confident you'll be noticing the When of you, pretty soon,...in this lifetime.

 

V

 

 

Hello VMarco,

 

I'm sorry if I was misleading you, but I've already recognized Heartmind and experienced it. I don't expect you to accept this, nor should anyone accept such a claim, I'm just merely stating that you shouldn't feel the need to guide me to something I already know the directions to. But maintaining heartmind is not something anyone, in my opinion and experience, can maintain permanently, but once achieved it has a profound effect on you and your actions.

 

As for when, there is no when, there just is, so it's not like standing on a fulcrum, for there is no fulcrum, no middle-way, there is just the way. When I recommend not worrying about time, not contemplating it, it is because when you finally experience heartmind you understand time for what it is. You also understand you for what it is and that there is no purpose, that every purpose you have is merely a thought that has arisen from flesh.

 

The body has one purpose, to survive. The self has one purpose, to experience life. That which you were before you were self has no purpose at all, it simply is. When you experience what is, then you understand the futility of existence, the illusion of all this, and virtue cannot help but arise.

 

When I asked, "who are you?" Well that was simply a question that I felt deserved perspective. So your idea of who you are is just as valid as my idea, since neither idea, in the end, changes who you actually are.

 

Aaron

 

p.s. in regards to time, don't imagine it as being a line, but rather an ocean. Time is not linear, rather it is connected inexplicably to everything that exists. So when I say I am the alpha and omega, it is because I realize that I am from the beginning to the end. In the same way you understand that time only exists in this world, that the source is beyond time. If you're wondering what it feels like, the best thing I can come up with is that there is no desire there, no needs or wants, not even satisfaction, just an immense peacefulness, not even peace as you know it, but just a stillness, as if nothing is moving, nor needs to move.

Edited July 28, 2011 by Twinner

[Adishakti]

I'm not that smart but this poem and The Canonization stirs something within. Deep, deep stuff.

 

Reading Meditation XVII, thanks for sharing.

 

 

Hah! That is one of my favorite poems. Donne is among the best writers to have ever lived, in my opinion. One of my favorite quotes is from Meditation XVII as follows...

 

"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

 

Really powerful stuff. Thanks for that poem.

 

Aaron