Understanding of 'I am nothing; I am pure consciousness' may be developed in two different ways. For those who prefer an emotional, devotional, fluid and poetic approach, the articles under Sufi & Bhakti Poetry may be helpful. For those who prefer a rational, structured approach, Advaita Vedanta techniques may be helpful. Somebody who can connect with both approaches may find something of value in both!
The 'Who Am I' puzzle can be solved by finding answers to a series of questions. These answers may initially be discovered by relying on analysis (deduction or reasoning) or faith (by quoting somebody or some books that you trust). However, it is really important to answer these questions from direct experience. Then your conviction will be 100%.
In Sanskrit, direct and indirect knowledge are called pratyaksha jnana and paroksha jnana, respectively. Direct knowledge emanates from first-hand, personal experience. When you answer a question based on direct experience, you 'know it' because you have experienced it in the past, or because you are experiencing it at that very moment. In contrast when you have indirect knowledge, the answer to a question is based on analysis (deduction or reasoning) or faith (you quote somebody else whom you trust).
Question: Are you the beings and the objects perceived through the five senses?
This question is easy to answer in the negative from direct experience. It is easy to see that 'I see the tree' or 'I hear the bird' establishes a subject-object relationship between 'I' and the beings & objects perceived through the five senses. Thus it follows that 'I am not the beings and the objects of the five senses; I experience these beings and objects through the five senses; I am the experiencer of these beings and objects.'
Question: Are you the body?
Most people find it hard to answer this question in the negative because they believe that 'I am the body'. Let's explore if it's possible to conceptualize the body differently.
What is our 'direct experience' of our body? We experience our body via the five senses. Additionally, we experience our body via body sensations! Some of these sensations are at the surface of the body; some are internal. For example, pay attention to your foot — do you feel something there? That's body sensation of the foot. This way, all parts of the body can be experienced via body sensations.
By experiencing the body as a combination of body sensations and as objects in the five senses, would you agree that a subject-object relationship between you and your body can be established? Is it possible to say the following: 'I experience the body via body sensations and via the five senses; I am not the body; I am the experiencer of the body'?
Attendees of the 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat are able to assert 'I am not the body' immediately (Awareness and Equanimity presents an overview of the 10-day courses). Why? Because the primary practice in these retreats is maintenance of awareness and equanimity towards body sensations. Through this practice, we get trained to perceive our body via body sensations (and via the five senses).
Some people conceptualize the body as a mixture of various physiological systems like cardiovascular, digestive, endocrine, and so on. Some others conceptualize the body as made up of atoms. It is important to recognize that at the moment the body is being conceptualized this way, at that moment, you are actually experiencing your mind (the mind is discussed in the section below). The conceptualization in the form of images and statements from physiology exists in the mind, it is not a direct experience of the body.
Some people say that 'I am the body' because it is always with me. For them, the story of King Janak and Sage Ashtavakra is helpful. That story is narrated in a later article: The Fourth State.
A devotional person might say that 'I am not the body; it was given to me by God'. How the body was created or how it came into being is a different question. For the 'Who Am I? question, it is important to recognize the direct experience of the body and establishing a subject-object relationship between you and your body.
Question: Are you the mind?
This question is even harder to answer in the negative. However, progress can be made as follows. Do you remember some moment in which you noticed the thoughts that you were having at that moment? Or some moment when you noticed that your mind was tapping into memory? Or some moment when you noticed the emotion that you were experiencing at that moment? In these moments, who noticed the thought or the memory or the emotion? Does the answer to that question help establish a subject-object relationship between I and mental phenomena like thoughts, memory and emotions? If this relationship can be grasped, it becomes easy to say that 'I am not the mind; I experience the mind; I am the experiencer of the mind'.
Ramana Maharshi (1879 - 1950), a sage from South India, used to encourage practitioners to quieten their minds using whatever meditative practice they followed, then notice the first thought that occurs and enquire 'To whom does this thought arise?' See Who Am I? by Ramana Maharshi.
The 10-day Vipassana meditation retreats are also helpful in seeing the mind in third person. The main practice is to develop awareness and equanimity towards body sensations. However, as a side effect of the practice, we are also able to 'see' / 'witness' ongoing mental phenomena like thoughts and emotions too.
To get 100% conviction that 'I am not the body' and 'I am not the mind', we need direct experience to 'see' the body and the mind in third person. What technique can make that happen? I believe that some form of meditation is necessary. Mantra-based meditation (for example, Naam Simran in Sikhism) is quite popular among many traditions. I have tried it occasionally. However, I am not familiar with mantra-based techniques and their dynamics. The meditation technique that I am somewhat familiar with is Buddhist meditation (mindfulness or Insight Meditation) taught at 10-day Silent Retreats. An overview of that technique is presented in Awareness & Equanimity.
Some people mistakenly believe that by 'seeing' / 'witnessing' is meant 'seeing some light' or 'seeing an Avatar or a deity in your dream' or some 'special experience' or developing some supernatural power. Actually, by 'seeing' / 'witnessing' is meant being able to see mundane, ordinary phenomena occurring in our day to day lives, including the phenomena in our body and our mind, in third person. The Buddhists (whom we will talk about in a separate article) call this 'awareness'.
Once it is understood that 'I am not the beings and the objects in the five senses; I am not the body; I am not the mind;' because 'I experience the beings and the objects via the five senses; I experience the body; I experience the mind;', then it is easy to define 'I' as the experiencer and everything else (the beings & objects of the five senses, the body and the mind) as the experience. It is also important to understand that there is nothing else to experience.
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