Shifty Me

[PureExp]

Its my observation (and I guess of many of you) that what I call "myself, me or I" is not constant, it keeps shifting from one thing to other. This made me think

In the early days, there was no I, there was just this magical experience of seeing through these two holes in the head. Later people told me I was me, something different from them. As I grew, I grew.

It was very fuzzy initially, but later took a form, which could be seen in the mirror. Others had similar forms, and they referred to themselves as I, so I started calling this body as I too. So I sat, I ran, I stood or danced. Actually body did all that, something simply tagged it as belonging to I.

Later a name was added and I was this name now, just a sound. More additions happened, and I was now also a son of particular humans that lived with me and fed me etc. Many things started piling up under the umbrella of I - looks, education, degree, profession, age, relations, attitude, nature, likes, dislikes, things I did, things I did not do and hundreds of things were I.

I was thoughts, I was emotions and feelings, I was a personality, an individual, which kept changing everyday and every second. Not very long ago, the I was a seeker, full of ego and "knowledge", I the knower, I the seeker, I the ignorant who is getting wiser. I was lost in me.

It slowly became apparent that I is only a thought, an idea, a concept which is a tag for certain experiences, namely that came via this body and mind. Everything else was not-I ..... objects, others, anything that was not so immediate and could not be controlled. So the mind divided the continuum of experiences into two - I and not-I. When seen neutrally, there were just events, experiences, some bearing tags of I, some not.

Another interesting thing to note was, the mind was not consistent. Sometimes I was sitting, sometimes "my" body was sitting. Other times it disintegrated into "my leg", "my hands", "my eyes" etc. Sometimes I was thinking, sometimes the thoughts were "mine". Sometimes I was a writer, sometimes I was just doing the job of a writer. So the identification and ownership kept alternating. It was just a play of language, a convenient way of describing some things. There was no concrete I there.

The I also becomes Self, the witnessing consciousness. This is the new game in the town. So I am that. But then when seen closely, its just another tag for an experience that simply is there. Now this experience also got added into the giant container of I.

I keeps changing colors. I is virtual, not a real thing, so it can do that. It is highly dependent on what is most important to the mind - body, people, objects, skills. It all is held together in a structure called memory. No memory, no I. The personality thus constructed out of millions of life experiences is just a few bits of memory, which is assigned to a variable - I.

Once I realized this, the I almost disappeared, it became unimportant. There was just "this-ness" - the experience of now and here. Now it is very clear that the thing called I was just an illusion, an artificial construct in the mind. Its back to the magical experience of seeing through these two holes in the head

[Bloodshadow]

wow fascinating, with this kind of thinking or way of being it shouldn't be so hard for you to achieve astral projection, and to achieve the  all knowledge that you seek, your body is just a vessel of experience, I think of my body the same but things has got a bit complicated with my occupants, or  magical experiences as you call them, I have come to stop thinking as my body as a vessel and become to attached to the point where its hard for me to tell the difference of the me inside. or maybe I'm just perceiving  things all wrong including your post, but it still fascinates us.

[PureExp]

Bloodshadow, AP is a tiny step towards the ultimate. Isn't it?
Spiritual evolution starts with recognition that I am not this body. It should not stop at the Astral body. Its just another vessel, a shell, non-physical, but essentially discard-able.
Obviously, I like AP a lot, but thats not my ultimate goal. And I urge others also to look beyond. Who are you? Ask it now