Who am I?

To get started, read a dialogue in a group therapy session from the film "Anger management" with Jack Nicholson (Dr. Buddy Rydell BR) and Adam Sanders (Dave Buznik DB):

BR: Tell us about yourself Who are you?

DB: Well, I'm an assistant manager in a large pet products company.

BR: Dave, we don't want you to tell us what you do, we want you to tell us who you are.

DB: Oh well I guess I'm all right I like to play tennis now and then.

BR: Also not your hobbies Dave not so complicated just who you are.

DB: Perhaps you could give me an example of a good answer? What did you say?

General laughter.

BR: You want Lou to tell you who you are?

DB: No, I... I'm a nice, well-adjusted person. I might want to be a little more decisive.

BR: Dave you describe your personality I want to know who you are.

DB: Hell, I don't know what you want to hear.

All: Oh...

DB: I'm sorry, I'd love to answer that, I just don't know how to it seems.

BR: I think we know...

Who am I? Am I the body? the feelings? the thoughts? the personality?

OSHO speaks: The mind is the past, the memory, the accumulated experience. Everything I have ever thought, wished and dreamed of includes the mind. Until I free myself from the memories, I am not able to control the mind. Who are you besides your memories?

When I ask you, "Who are you?" You tell me your name - that's a memory. Your parents gave you that name.

I ask, "Who are you?" and you tell me about your family, about your father, about your mother - these are memories.

I ask: "Who are you?" and you tell me about your education and training and your degrees and diplomas and doctorates and that you are an engineer or architect - these are memories.

When I ask you, "Who are you?" and you really look inside, your only answer can only be, "I don't know.

No matter what you say - it's always just a memory, not you. The only real authentic answer is "I don't know". Knowing oneself is the last experience. I could answer that question but I won't. You cannot answer the question who you are but you have an answer ready. Those who know are silent about it because when someone has let go of all memory and left all language behind, no one can say who he is. I can give you a gesture. I can be with you with all my being. The answer cannot be given in words because everything expressed in words is part of the memory, part of the mind and not of the consciousness.

How can I get rid of the memories? Observe them as a witness. And always remember: "I learned that, but this is not me". Of course you were born into a certain family, but that is not you that was something outside of you. Of course someone gave you a name, it's useful but the name you are not. Of course you have a form but you are not that form, the form is just the body you are in. And the body was given to you by your parents. It is a gift to be able to experience here but you are not the body. You are also not the feeling and thinking. You have taken your way of thinking from your parents, teachers and role models. Don't try to stop the thinking or the mind, just observe it, just let it happen. Give him absolute freedom. Let him rattle as fast as he wants and do not try to control him in any way. Just be an observer, a witness. Your brain is a wonderful mechanism so complex with so much potential. Watch him. To observe the mind is to look at it with deep love, with deep respect, with appreciation. He is God's gift to you, nothing is wrong with your mind, nothing is wrong with your thinking.

Observe the subtle nuances of the mind, the sudden maneuvers, the wonderful turns, the jumps and associations, the games the mind plays, the dreams it weaves, the imagination, the memory, the thousands of projections it creates. Observe all this. Observe with distance not involved... When a thought passes by watch it, one thought comes up the next one has not yet appeared and a gap arises, in this gap you will get a taste of the disappearance of the mind for the first time.

Keep peeling away all the identities you're not family, body, mind... and a moment will come when you will have peeled off everything you are not. When all that you are not is discarded, your being suddenly appears in this emptiness. In this state you suddenly meet yourself for the first time you meet your own being. For the first time you meet yourself and this encounter becomes your mastery. Let the thoughts come and go wherever they want to go, try not to manipulate them, try not to steer them anywhere. As more and more gaps arise a new clarity will emerge in you. Not only will you see the outer world more clearly, you will also be able to see into the inner world. The Divine will touch you so deeply. But do not fixate on it every fixation is food for the mind. Being an observer, witnessing without any fixation is the way.

The philosopher René Descartes (1596 - 1650) recognized that we are in essence purely spiritual beings who have taken on a body during our earthly existence. He formulated his famous sentence: "Cogito ergo sum" "I think therefore I am"

1. I think (Latin: cogito).

2. when I think then the carrier of this thought exists.

3. I am the bearer of this thought.

So I exist (ergo sum).

Thus Descartes established that, if we observe a thought process, we exist. As long as we think we cannot imagine without contradiction that we do not exist. However, we can imagine without contradiction that we also exist without physical characteristics. And now comes something crucial which most people have not yet understood: The mind is not limited to the brain - after death, thinking continues. Thinking happens in the mental body, one of the human energy bodies. This penetrates the physical body and goes far beyond. It reaches, so to speak, into the "cloud" where all knowledge is stored. Unfortunately, passwords are required to retrieve this knowledge ...

You are the witness, the observer. But what does the observer consist of? Who am I?

I have a physical body. He can be sick or healthy. But I am not that body.

I have feelings/emotions. Feelings come and go. But I am not my feelings.

I have thoughts. Thoughts come and go. But I am not my thoughts.

Who am I? I'm what's left... I am the witness, the observer.

I AM Awareness, Consciousness, That I am.

TAT Tvam Asi - Though art THAT