Dimensions of Existence and the Question of “I”
I wonder about the many dimensions of existence that I am only now beginning to truly notice. Yet the fundamental question remains: Who am I? Perhaps I will never know for certain. Or perhaps I do know, but simply cannot express it fully. So am I only “that” which I can express? And what about all that remains unexpressed — whether due to limitations of language, speech, writing, or any other means of conveyance?
I am conscious. I experience what I call the “real” world. I dream and witness both “real” and “unreal world”.
I think. I think and express. I think and do not express.
I feel. I feel and express.I feel and do not express.
In deep sleep, I neither dream nor engage with my “real” world…
I could go on and on. Each sentence begins with “I.” So again — who am I?
Lately, I have been feeling a moments that stretch to longer period of deep calm. There is a new clarity in my mind about things I have long worried over, suffered through, and at times enjoyed in daydreams. Anxiety, too, has lessened considerably.
Meditation session a couple of weeks ago — lasting more than an hour — felt like a turning point in my life journey. I cannot fully express in words what I experienced. I joined an online guided meditation that was being broadcast around 1:30 a.m local time. I was awake, so I sat with it. Before the meditation, the facilitator shared stories from his younger days, how at the age of eighteen, he received his first sitting and how profoundly deep that experience was.
The next morning, when I meditated, I too felt a remarkable depth. After a brief relaxation exercise and prayer, I found an effortless way to enter meditation.
One of the ways that I became aware of some months ago for dealing with images and / or memories that arise during meditation is “request them to join in the meditation.” I follow this advice, and more often than not it works beautifully.
I try to simply witness the “slideshow” of images. When I am able to do for this for some time successfully it greatly helps and getting into meditation mode becomes easier.
It has been more than three weeks and I am regular and am able to go easily into a meditative mode. This morning as well, I was able to sit for over 45 minutes with the same ease and stillness. I also notice a change in both in my inner and outwardly behaviour too. I am much less anxious therefore relaxed and am able to deal with my chronic back pain and other ailments much better.
But the agnostic in me has again raised questions in my mind. Is that what I experience is reality. Is the “I” in me the one who witnesses or experiences things without interfering—without doing, thinking, or feeling? Is that who I am? I have no idea.
Those who only believe for them that belief is the reality. For an agnostic like me reality is something elusive in spite of endless search.
Hopefully a day will come when I will realize. Or that day may never come. Should I then just start believing? And forget about this search for Who am “I” ? Probably not.
But how and when?
Till then
Thank You in Me, and Me in You and Me in All.
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