Who Am I?

The implications of knowing who you really are means a dramatic upgrade in how you experience life, relationships, and how you see yourself. It is ultimately the direct experience of your true self that causes this seismic shift. Using the method of self-inquiry you'll learn how to drop into your true being relatively quickly - and notice immediately the sense of separation drop away, feeling whole and complete.

Transcript

So we have been spending a lot of time looking at what we are not.

That we are not the ego,

The separate self,

We're not our thoughts,

We're not our feelings,

Our emotions,

Our stories,

Our drama.

That this is who we are not.

And we spend so much time looking at this because the ego,

The separate self,

This is who we identify with the most strongly.

And we need to be able to pull that grip back a little bit of who we think we are in order to give us a little bit of space so that we can then understand who it is that we really are.

And that's what I want to talk about in tonight's class.

If we are not the ego,

The separate self,

We're not our thoughts,

Our feelings,

Emotions,

Then who are we?

And to set this up,

I want to tell a story.

This is the story of a great Indian emperor called Chanaka.

And Chanaka is not only an emperor,

He's a philosopher.

And by the end of the story,

He is also enlightened.

So the story begins,

The emperor is in his bed,

Sleeping in the palace,

And his attendant comes rushing in and he's shaking him,

Waking him up and saying,

Wake up,

Sir,

Wake up.

The kingdom is under attack.

So immediately the emperor starts putting on his armor and he says,

Alert the generals,

Get the army,

We must go defend the kingdom.

So off they all go into the night to defend the kingdom.

And as the battle is raging on,

Things are not looking good for Chanaka.

He's losing.

And then he gets wounded.

And then he gets captured.

So he's brought before the leader of the enemy,

The conqueror.

And the conqueror looks at him and he says,

Chanaka,

You are a man of noble birth.

So I won't kill you,

But I will banish you from the kingdom forever.

So Chanaka walks away.

He's humiliated.

He's lost his kingdom.

He's wounded.

He's hungry.

He's thirsty.

And as he's walking through the village,

He's asking different villagers for some help.

And all of them are afraid to help them because of this new tyrannical conqueror.

They're so afraid of repercussions.

So no one will help him.

So he continues walking on.

He walks out into the forest until eventually he comes to a neighboring kingdom.

And as he walks closer towards the village,

He sees this long line of poor people that are being fed.

So he thinks,

Oh,

I'll go get in that line.

I'll get some food.

And so he waits in line.

He gets to the front of the line.

And the man that's handing out the soup says,

I'm so sorry.

We don't have any more.

I just gave the last bowl to the man before you.

And Chanaka is just crestfallen.

So the man looks at him and he says,

Look,

I can see you're really having a bad day.

And so if you like,

I could scrape off the grizzle off the bottom of the pan and I could give you that.

And Chanaka says,

Oh,

I'd be so grateful.

Thank you.

He scrapes off the grizzle.

He puts in the bowl.

And as he's handing the bowl to Chanaka,

Chanaka with trembling hands is taking the bowl and he's putting it towards his mouth.

This bird comes swooping down and knocks the bowl out of his hands.

The bowl and the grizzle all go flying into the dirt and the dust.

And with that,

Chanaka just drops to the ground.

He is completely despondent.

He's lost his kingdom.

He's wounded.

He's hungry.

He's thirsty.

He doesn't know money.

He doesn't know what to do.

And then he wakes up and he looks around and he's back in the kingdom.

He's in his bed and his attendant comes running in and says,

Sir,

Sir,

Are you all right?

I heard you call out.

Now,

Chanaka is a philosopher.

So instead of saying,

Oh,

My God,

It was a dream.

Like,

Thank God it was just a dream.

I have my kingdom.

Everything's OK.

Instead of saying that,

He says,

Was that true?

Or is this true?

Was that true?

Or is this true?

So the attendant's a little concerned.

He goes and gets the queen,

Tells the queen what's going on.

She comes in.

Darling,

Are you all right?

And the emperor says,

Was that true or is this true?

So she goes and gets the doctor.

The doctor comes in.

Are you OK,

Sir?

Did you hurt yourself?

Did you fall?

The emperor says,

Was that true or is this true?

So word of this spreads throughout the kingdom that the emperor is not doing particularly well.

And the following day,

A great sage is coming through the village,

Through the kingdom.

And he hears of what's going on with Chanaka.

So he goes up to the palace.

And he goes in to see the emperor.

And he says,

Emperor,

Are you all right?

Is everything OK?

And the emperor just says,

Was that true or is this true?

So the sage,

Knowing exactly what's going on in the emperor's mind,

He says,

Sir,

Last night,

When you were having the dream,

When you were filled with humiliation and despair and hunger,

You didn't have a penny to your name.

You were wounded.

Was any of this,

Your hero on your throne,

Your queen,

Your generals,

Your health,

Your wealth,

Was any of this there in the dream?

And the emperor says,

No,

No,

This was not in the dream.

And so the sage asks him,

He says,

And now as you sit here on your throne with your queen and your wealth and your health and all your generals and attendants,

Was any of the despair and humiliation and the being wounded and the hunger and the thirst of the dream,

Is any of that here right now?

The emperor says,

No,

No,

It's not here.

So the sage says,

That's not true and this is not true.

And the king's,

Or sorry,

The emperor is not particularly thrilled with this answer.

He says,

Well,

If that's not true and this isn't true,

Then is there no absolute truth?

The sage asks him,

He says,

Sir,

In the dream,

When you felt humiliated,

Despair,

You were wounded,

You were hungry,

You were thirsty,

Were you there?

Were you experiencing it?

The emperor says,

Yes,

I did experience it.

I was there.

And now as you sit here in your kingdom,

On your throne with all your attendants,

Your queen,

Your wealth,

Are you experiencing this?

He says,

Yes,

Of course,

Yes,

I'm experiencing this right now.

And the sage says,

That's not true.

This is not true.

You are the absolute truth.

You were in the dream.

You were in the waking state.

You are the absolute truth.

You were the only thing that was consistent between each state.

So we have,

There are actually three states of consciousness.

There's the waking state,

There's the dream state,

And then there's the dreamless deep sleep state.

And the dreamless deep sleep state,

We are there too.

And we know that because when we come out of a deep dream,

When the mind is inactive,

We know that we were in the deep sleep because we say,

I slept like a baby.

It was amazing.

It was great.

I was out.

Everything was there that knew you slept like a baby,

That you were out.

So in these three states,

If we are in the waking state,

The dream state and the dreamless state do not exist.

If we are in the dream state,

The waking state and the dreamless state do not exist.

If we are in the dreamless state,

The waking state and the dream state do not exist.

So these states are all impermanent.

They arise and pass away.

But the common denominator is that we are there.

There is something there,

A part of us that is there to experience it all.

And while,

What we're saying here is that while these states are impermanent,

I'm not suggesting that we go and in our waking state walk in front of a car going 60 miles an hour because we are still subject to the limitations of this realm.

But what we're saying is that the waking,

The dream and the dreamless state arise and pass away.

The waking state that we take to be so permanent,

So fixed,

So real is not as absolute as we think.

And we know this because we would die if we had to stay awake for,

I don't know,

Maybe a couple of weeks or something like that.

I mean they use this as a torture tactic.

We can't be in any one of these states forever.

The states are impermanent.

What's fundamental is the I that is in all of these states.

And the only reason we don't experience the I,

The absolute I that is always there is because we are so lost in the content of our minds,

Of our experience,

Of our thoughts,

Of our feelings,

Emotions,

Of our stories,

Of our dramas,

That we are so fixated there we completely miss what is always there.

But the I,

The absolute I is always there and all these experiences,

These thoughts,

Feelings,

Emotions,

They come and they go.

If I say to you,

I was upset this morning,

But I'm not upset now,

Why do I know I was upset this morning?

Because the I was there and the I is still here now for me to be able to say,

Yes,

I was upset this morning,

I'm not upset now.

The being upset comes and goes.

If I say I was angry last week,

But I'm not angry now,

The I is what's consistent.

The I was there when the anger was arising and the I is there when the anger has subsided.

So the I is always there,

But the experiences,

The contents of our minds,

Our thoughts,

Our feelings,

Our emotions,

Those are constantly arising and passing away,

Always changing.

So it's the absolute I is who we are.

The I before we add anything on,

The I before I am tired,

I am disappointed,

I am sad,

The I before we add anything onto it,

That is what's fundamental.

That is the absolute truth.

And a good analogy that's often used for this is a movie.

The screen on which the movie is projected is the absolute I.

And the movie that's projected onto the screen,

All the different images,

The characters,

The different plot lines,

This is our experience,

This is the contents of our minds.

This is our thoughts,

Our feelings,

Our emotions,

Our interactions with other people,

All arising and passing away,

Arising and passing away.

But because we're so lost in the movie,

We forget that it's being projected on the screen,

That in fact we couldn't even see the movie without the screen.

And we know,

We've all had this experience when we go to a movie,

Where we get so into the movie that we forget it's a movie.

So if it's a scary movie,

We get so,

Oh my God,

This is terrifying.

If in the movie one of the characters is getting dumped,

We feel like we're the ones getting dumped,

We feel the fear of the terror,

We feel that being dumped in our whole being.

And then we remember,

Oh,

It's just a movie,

That's not happening to me.

And the moment we remember that,

We relax.

We stop fighting it,

Clinging and resisting,

Like we talked about last week.

And in that,

We feel that,

Ah,

Ah,

It's okay,

I'm all right.

So the screen is never affected by what's happening by the movie that's being projected on it.

Scary movie,

Happy movie,

Love story,

Sad story.

The screen is completely unaffected by all the characters,

The shapes,

The images,

The dialogue and yet it's always there.

And when we take this analogy into our own lives,

And to remember when we get lost in the movie,

The story of our lives,

Of what that person did to me and how I was so wronged and why that person's getting more than me and I'm so unworthy and everyone else's life is better than me.

And we get so lost in that projection and that story and that narrative.

And then we can remember,

Oh,

This is just an experience,

It's arising and passing away.

In fact,

Mostly it's not even an experience because most of the drama that we're creating isn't even remotely based on reality.

We're just lost in our thoughts.

So we can say,

Oh,

This is just a projection.

It's not really who I am.

That fear,

That anger I have towards that other person,

That jealousy that I can remember,

Oh,

This is just a projection,

This just comes and goes.

Just like if I'm tired,

It comes and goes,

If I'm angry,

It comes and goes,

If I'm sad and it comes and goes,

I'm hungry and it comes and goes,

I'm thirsty and it comes and goes.

Oh,

It's just a projection.

And in that recognizing that's not fundamentally who I am,

We can feel again that,

Ah,

Ah,

The release,

That everything's okay again.

Our suffering is gone in that moment in recognizing who we really are because the I,

The absolute I is unaffected by all of this stuff,

By all of the contents of the mind,

All of the different experiences.

And when we can keep coming back to who we really are,

We're free in that moment.

We lose all that suffering that we were creating through these stories.

So the way that I want us to be able to experience the I,

The I am,

The absolute I is through a particular type of questioning called self-inquiry questions of the direct path.

And as it sounds,

It's a very direct path.

It's a line of questioning that's meant to take us experientially directly to who we are.

So it's not saying you've got to meditate for hours and quiet your mind and hopefully you'll get into a Samadhi state or into the jhanas,

That these questions have a way of using the mind so far and then we drop the mind at the last moment and go right into experientially knowing who we are.

And it doesn't matter at what stage of our practice that we can all experience this.

And yet I do think there's some important things to talk about with that.

So when I first experienced these teachings,

It was on a retreat in India in 2009.

It was a three-week meditation retreat.

The last week of the retreat was solely on the teachings of Ramana Maharshi who really,

What I'm told is he really revived the self-inquiry type questioning,

This part of the practice in the Advaita Vedanta school.

And on this retreat,

I finally knew who I was.

I finally could answer that question experientially.

I was there.

I knew the I am,

The absolute I am.

Now I had been practicing for 10 years at that stage,

Meditating for 10 years,

Practicing Buddhism and really very into my path.

So I had done quite a bit before I got there.

And it was amazing because it was so easy to just experience the absolute I that in many ways I questioned like,

What was I doing all that stuff beforehand when I could have just done this?

And yet this is what I will tell you about this.

And this is why I'm kind of talking about this.

What I have found in my own experience,

I find this to be true.

This may not be true for everyone,

But what I have found is that the Buddhist teachings of understanding the separate self,

The ego,

How it arises and passes away,

That's not who we are,

The wisdom teachings of impermanence,

Of emptiness,

Of interdependence,

Interconnectedness,

That it was all of that intellectual understanding that I had of all of those things that allowed through this direct line of self inquiry of these questions that took me there.

And again,

As I said,

You don't have to have all that ahead of time,

But it wasn't frightening.

And I think it would have been a little frightening and very unstable if I didn't have all of that understanding beforehand.

And so what I have found is that Buddhism is really the foundation that gives us that intellectual understanding,

Again,

That really solid understanding,

At least even at an intellectual understanding of who we are not.

And then the direct path just takes us right there.

And it seems so easy because you're just like,

Man,

It was just that quick leap,

Like,

Wow,

I could have just done that so easily before.

But without the foundation of those teachings,

I think it would be very unstable.

I think it would be because we just rush back so quickly to the ego and be like,

I don't really even know what that was.

You know,

It was just,

I don't know,

Some kind of weird self inquiry.

I felt something,

Yeah,

But I don't know,

I trust my ego more.

So it's kind of like how I would describe it as if the spiritual path is a hundred mile path and if Buddhism gets us,

You know,

Or some other wisdom teachings get us like kind of 90,

99 miles there,

You know,

And so let's say 99 miles and that last mile is always the hardest.

The direct path teachings literally collapse that distance,

That one mile like down to an inch,

Like just like that.

And it seems so easy in that moment,

But I do find it's the guard rails of all the wisdom teachings that really keep us on the path and keep us,

Really prime us for these direct path teachings.

And so what I have found,

And again,

Just my own experience by weaving the Buddhist teachings,

Wisdom teachings,

Practices,

Alongside the direct path teachings of self inquiry,

Of Advaita Vedanta,

That we get that intellectual understanding,

That framework,

That foundation,

But we get more of that experience as well of knowing the I am.

And I think it's a really,

It's a sound way at the very least,

It's one way,

It's a sound way I think of getting us there.

And for those of you that know Eckhart Tolle,

He woke up through the direct path teachings.

Now it was very,

He had no idea about the direct path teachings.

He didn't have any spiritual practice at all.

His only teacher was suffering.

And one night he was so,

His suffering was so intense and he was I think laying on the bathroom floor and he said to himself,

I can't take this anymore.

I can't take my suffering anymore.

And spontaneously this question came.

It was a self inquiry question.

Who is it that can't take this anymore?

And it was the first time he thought about that,

Who is it that can't take this anymore?

And he looked for the who,

Or the I that was so unhappy,

Right?

The I with experience,

Not who we are.

The ego,

The separate self.

And by looking for it,

Looking for something solid,

And remember it's not solid,

It's not inherent,

It's not absolute.

It arises through thoughts about ourselves with experience,

With something attached to it.

I am sad,

I am angry,

I am depressed.

And without those thoughts the ego doesn't exist.

So then he's looking for it and he can't find it.

And when he can't find it,

He is then brought into the absolute I am,

The absolute I.

And it just melted away for him permanently.

But it took him years to integrate that.

Years.

He had no spiritual understanding for what had happened.

He felt deep peace but didn't quite know what to do with it.

He reportedly would just sit on a park bench each day.

Peaceful but not sure of what happened.

And so we can go there sometimes too quickly.

And people have been reported over the years,

There have been books,

Historians have documented this of people that now we look back and they can say,

My gosh,

That person was probably enlightened and they were locked up in an insane asylum because no one understood what happened to them.

They didn't understand what happened to them.

So again I find that having that really solid foundation of the wisdom teachings of the ego,

The separate self,

Of the teachings of impermanence and emptiness and interconnectedness is so helpful for us then to be able to go that last bit which is,

All right,

We understand all that.

Now who am I?

So Ramana Maharshi,

The most common or I think his most favorite usage or excuse me,

The most common self inquiry line of questioning that he would use is who am I?

Who am I?

And he would tell,

Ask yourself who am I?

And so what we're saying here is not to say I'm Meredith,

I'm a woman,

I'm 57 years old because those things aren't essential.

I could change my name tomorrow.

I could change my sex.

I won't be 57 a year from now.

I wasn't 57 a year ago.

All of those things are changeable and not inherent to who I really am.

And so we use the mind,

We ask the question who am I and we peel back the layers of what we're not.

We know all that through all of the work we've done on the ego,

The separate self.

And what we get to is the I,

The absolute I,

The I am,

Not I am this,

I am Meredith,

I am a woman,

I'm a teacher,

Not any of that,

Just I am.

And it brings us in very quickly to who we are.

Or as Eckhart Tolle does,

And I actually really like the way he does it,

If we're upset,

We're angry at someone and we can't let that go,

That storyline.

I would say this to them and then they would respond and I would say this and I would put them in their place and we just keep playing the real,

Just keep projecting this movie.

And it's painful and it hurts but we're so lost in it,

We so strongly believe in that little I in the projection that's been hurt and why we're so angry.

And we could just ask who is it that's angry and look.

And really there is no,

We're not really looking for an answer.

I mean the answer is the I,

I am,

If you were to use words.

That's all you can really know in that state,

I,

I am.

But we're not really looking for an answer.

We're just looking to get you there.

Who is it that's angry?

Who is it that's upset?

Who is it that feels unworthy?

Who is it that feels unlovable?

Who is it that feels they were taken advantage of?

Look for who it was.

And when you look this way and you are using the mind,

We use the mind so far and at the last step we drop the mind because,

And this is where,

This is the beauty of the self-inquiry.

We just,

The mind takes you so far,

It doesn't go any further,

It drops and you're there.

You're in the absolute I.

And the,

The most,

The most accessible way of doing this is to simply ask ourselves,

Am I aware?

Am I aware?

So if I ask you that question,

Am I aware or are you aware?

You use the mind for a moment and then you're aware.

You are the awareness.

So when I say the absolute I,

It's awareness,

It's universal consciousness.

It's your Buddha nature,

Your true nature,

Spirit,

Soul,

God's presence.

It goes by many,

Many names.

It's all the same thing.

It's the awareness.

And I do like that word awareness or universal consciousness,

Just words.

Doesn't really give it justice,

But we have to use words here somehow to communicate this.

But when you are the awareness,

The I that's always there,

When you drop into that and you experience it,

And there is a sense of spaciousness,

Of freedom,

Because it's like the screen,

It's untouched by what's happening out there.

It's untouched by the movie.

So there's just this expansiveness.

There's a sense of peace because we're no longer burdened by the weight of the ego,

Of that unworthy image that we carry around with us all the time.

There's just this openness,

This expansiveness.

And every time we do this,

And the instructions with the self-inquiry questions are just to keep asking.

You're angry.

You're upset with someone.

And so you ask yourself,

Who's angry?

Or am I aware?

And you pull yourself out.

That clinging,

Resisting is gone.

You feel that freedom,

That spaciousness,

The burden or unburdened by the ego,

All that pain and suffering and the anger.

You feel it all melt away.

It doesn't take too long before we want to run back to that little frightened ego again.

We're so used to it.

We run back to it.

And then we ask again.

Am I aware?

Who am I?

Who is it that's angry?

Whichever.

We all find kind of a question that really works best for us.

And we'll play with these over the next few weeks.

And I'll ask you to do that in between classes as well.

So you ask the question again,

And then you're back again.

And you just keep doing that.

You ask the question.

You keep coming back.

You feel that.

And you do start to get the sense,

OK,

I suffer when I'm lost in the story.

That I,

That if I just ask the question a certain way,

That I come back and experience,

It's always there.

It always has this sense of openness,

Of spaciousness,

You know,

Of peace,

This feeling of not feeling separate anymore,

That the separate self,

That the ego creates in me,

That disconnection.

I feel that wholeness.

And you start to trust this more.

And it doesn't mean that we turn into some kind of a blob,

You know,

Or as Eckhart Tolle says that,

You know,

We turn into a head of cabbage,

Right?

Because that's what people think then.

Oh,

You know,

You're just going to be,

You know,

You're not going to think anymore.

You're not going to know what to do.

And the first thing that I would say to that is that the way we are running around right now,

The way everyone's running around so stressed and getting so angry,

Just think of it like a traffic light,

Like losing our minds over a traffic light,

As though we were being attacked by a tiger,

Same physiological response.

I would suggest that's not living particularly effectively.

But I do think the more that we can know the I that we really are and still be in the world,

Not lost in the world,

Still experiencing the world,

Experiencing it better than how we have been experiencing it more fully without getting so lost in the despair and the sadness and the anger,

And that most of it,

95% of it that we're just making up in our heads,

That we are actually better,

That this is what we're looking for.

We want to experience this I.

We are so tired of being ruled by our egos,

The separate self.

We've made the ego the servant,

Excuse me,

The master.

It should be our servant.

We should know who we really are,

Know the I,

The I that I am.

But what I find is the most precious gift in all of this.

I mean,

Of course,

Our suffering is gone.

I find that not having the burden,

And I'm not suggesting that I live permanently in the state,

I don't,

But the more I practice,

The more I live here,

And your suffering is greatly reduced,

And you take things less personally,

And you don't create all these fantasies of how you've been wronged and harmed.

And there's so much more energy for creativity and kindness and compassion and gratitude and generosity.

But the most beautiful gift of this,

Of all,

That really affects our lives is that what we recognize is that the I that I am is the same I that you are,

Not that you're not having a different experience,

That you're having a localized experience as Sue,

As Steve,

As Katie,

Not that you're not having that different experience than Meredith,

But behind the experience,

Behind the content of our minds,

The activity of our minds.

The I am that I am is the same I am that you are,

That when we are in this awareness,

This field of awareness of consciousness,

There's no borders.

You sense it,

There's no differentiation.

And so as you recognize that more and more,

Each time you step into it,

When you interact with other beings,

With other people,

With animals,

With insects,

You see into the eyes and you realize that I am,

The absolute I that I am is the same absolute I that you are.

And when we experience the world this way,

Really knowing that we are one,

The love that we can feel for all beings,

Not that we like every being that we meet,

But that we see behind or excuse me,

Beyond the bad behavior,

The curmudgeonly behavior,

And we see the I am that I am,

And we feel that sense of love.

And when you look into the eyes of another being,

Knowing that we are one,

And when you know that there's that sense of connection,

Of wholeness,

Of completeness,

You can't feel alone.

You can't feel excluded.

You can't feel isolated.

How can you when you understand your true being,

When you know the I am that I am is the same I am that you are?

It changes everything.

Reviews

Thank you. 🙏

So good, thank you! Great reminder to try to keep my ego at bay. Thank you!

Many thanks for your teaching. It resonates deeply with me.

So Grateful…awakend a simple pure Awareness I have on the brink of…🙏🏻♥️

Thank you 🙏🏻, I want to get there so much, I can see myself, I see my own watcher but I just see it , I can’t get to that level of peace realizing that I am not that that I am feeling , intelectualy I know that no negative feeling it coming from me, because I am light or God, I really want to be in that peace 🙏🏻 there are situation that last too long and I keep coming back to the when it going to end… what about homeless they are there… living it how do you go to the deep I in that situation.
Thank you so much for that talk it makes my brain think more of what I already think… know I just need to get to that peace place, many blessings 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🥰

This talk gives you a perspective, took me away from life's drama. Thank you, really needed this.

you have an amazing gift for explaining and teaching- and that in combination with me being in a place where i am teachable is a powerful experience- i will listen to this talk a few more times. not to analyze but to allow it to pour over me- thanks Meredith 💕🌙🙏🩵🦋✨💕🌙🙏🩵🦋✨💕🌙🙏

A great Talk that make sense of the I. Thank you 😘💗😘💗😘

How insightful ! Loved the presentation of this material. I’m going to try listening to more from you!

Oh thank you! 🙏
You put into words something I experienced when meditating some years ago. I had a sense that the'I' was pure, expansive, free and ageless, and the 'I' was connected to everyone else. As someone who was, and still is sometimes, prone to believe in or get lost in my ego and those beliefs I have about myself, it was a game changer... I still go back there but more as a visitor than a resident! 😅
As you said, once you sense this, you cant go back... so grateful. 🙏
Thank you for your wisdom and skill at communicating this truth. 🙏🐣

Another excellent session! Love your stories ! Thank you 💕

Just such a beautiful Talk I will be listening often 💕
Thank you Meredith 🙏