The Most Important Question

The great masters tell us that The Most Important Question in the world is: “Who am I?” Or rather: “What is ‘I’?” What is this thing I call “I”? What is this thing I call self? Who’s living in you as you? 

Transcript

Chapter 15 Finding Yourself The great masters tell us,

The most important question in the world is,

Who am I?

Who am I?

What is I?

That's so important.

What is I?

What is this thing I call I?

What is this thing I call the self?

You mean you understood everything else in the world and you didn't understand this?

You mean you understood astronomy and black holes and whatever those other things are,

Quasars or whatever they call them.

You understood that and you picked up computer science and you don't know who you are?

You're still asleep.

You're a sleeping scientist.

You mean you understood what Jesus Christ is and you don't know what you are?

How do you know that you have understood?

Who's this guy?

Who's this woman who's doing the understanding?

Found that out first?

That's the foundation of everything,

Isn't it?

And it's because we haven't understood this that you've got all these stupid religious people who are engaging in all kinds of stupid religious wars,

Muslims fighting against Jews,

Protestants fighting Catholics and all the rest of that rubbish.

They don't know who they are because if they did,

There wouldn't be wars.

Like the little girl who says to the little boy,

Are you a Presbyterian?

He says,

No,

We belong to another abomination.

But what I'd like to stress right now is self observation.

You're listening to me.

Are you picking up any other sounds besides the sound of my voice as you listen to me?

Are you aware of your reaction as you listen to me?

Extremely important or else you're going to be brainwashed.

Or else you're going to be influenced by forces within you of which you have no awareness at all.

And when you're aware of how you're reacting to me,

Are you simultaneously aware?

Are you aware of where it's coming from?

Maybe you're not listening to me at all.

Maybe your daddy's listening to me.

You think that's possible?

Of course it is.

Again and again in my therapy groups,

I come across people who aren't there at all.

Their daddy's there.

Their mommy is there.

They're not there.

They never were there.

They really weren't.

I live now,

Not I.

My daddy lives in me.

Really.

But that's absolutely true.

Literally true.

Literally true.

I could take you apart and say,

Now this sentence,

Does it come from daddy,

Mommy,

Grandma,

Grandpa?

From whom?

It reminds me of grandma and grandpa who are celebrating their wedding anniversary.

They're old.

It's the 60th anniversary of their wedding.

And they go through all the celebrations and they're tired.

And towards the evening,

The two of them are sitting alone in a room.

And grandpa says to grandma,

He says,

You know,

Grandma,

I'm proud of you.

She says,

What's that you said,

Pa?

You know,

I can't hear you without my hearing aid.

Would you say that louder?

He says,

I said,

I'm proud of you.

He said,

That's all right.

I'm tired of you too.

So it's like,

Who's living in you?

It's pretty horrifying when you come to know that.

You think you're free.

There's probably,

There probably isn't a gesture,

A thought,

An emotion,

An attitude,

A belief in you that isn't coming from someone else.

Isn't that horrible?

And you don't know it.

Talk about a mechanical life that was stamped into you.

And you're feeling pretty strongly about certain things.

And you think you are feeling strongly about it.

But are you really?

It's going to take a lot of awareness for you to understand that maybe this thing that you call I is simply an agglomeration.

Of your past experiences and of your conditioning and your programming.

You're a human computer.

That's painful.

In fact,

When you're beginning to awake,

You experience a good deal of pain.

It's painful to see your illusions being shattered and everything that you thought you had built up crumbling.

That's painful.

That's what repentance is all about.

That's what waking up is all about.

So now,

How about this?

How about you're taking a minute to be aware of,

Even as I talk,

Of what you're feeling in your body and what's going on in your mind and what your emotional state is like.

How about being aware of the color of the walls?

How about being aware of my face?

And the reaction you have to that face of mine,

Because you have one,

Whether you're aware of it or not.

And it probably isn't yours.

You were conditioned to have that kind of reaction.

And how about being aware of some of the things I said?

So that isn't awareness now.

That's memory.

I'm cheating.

But still,

I'm assuming you're beginners.

Think of some of the things you did not like.

And think of some of the things you liked and how you reacted.

Be aware of your presence in this room.

It's a sudden switch.

I'm in this room.

It's as if you were outside yourself,

Looking at yourself,

Sitting here,

As if you're looking at someone else.

What is the slightly different feeling?

Later we laugh.

Who's this person who's doing the looking?

I am looking at me.

What's I?

What's me?

But for the time being,

It's enough that I would be watching me.

And if you're tending to condemn yourself or to approve of yourself,

Don't stop the condemnation now.

Don't stop the judgment.

Don't stop the approval.

Just watch it.

I'm condemning me.

I'm disapproving.

Or I'm approving.

Just look at it.

Period.

Don't try to fix it.

Don't say,

Oh,

We were told not to do this.

No,

Just observe what's going on.

As I said to you before,

Self-observation means watching,

Observing whatever is going on in you and around you as if it were happening to someone else.

Reviews

Amazing message, thank you 🙏🏼

Hard to summarize … very deep and meaningful … a lot to sit with.

Thank you for sharing and creating.

Fascinating…I suddenly remembered saying to my mummy that I could see me. She reached for the antibiotics and told daddy I had a temperature….again!!! 😊 Thank you, I’ll be searching for that feeling again now 🙏🏼

On point

Love to listen to this man, who always presents without varnish sugar, or sentimentality. Spot on and thought provoking as always.

Such an eye opening meditation. Thank you for sharing!

Introspective question “ Who Am I?” Great exercise

Such an ESSENTIAL INSIGHT and WISE COUNSEL in challenging ourselves to bring forth the FULLEST POTENTIAL with which God has Gifted us ❣️🙏🏻💕

👍👍Excellent. Where can we find more recordings of Anthony? This is valuable and essential. Timeless wisdom. Thank you for sharing!

You are so helpful. Thank you