It is very clear that each and every person needs to address the question; who am I?  Too many people go through their entire lives without ever asking or trying to find answer to this question. The fact is also most probably that many are frightened too ask, not so much the questions, but the answers that they may produce. Most people know either consciously or sub consciously that they are in imbalance with the innermost, thus they are scared of facing the utmost reality. As Carl Jung stated; People will do anything, no matter how absurd, In order to avoid facing their own soul. It is essential that we ask this question about who am I in order to face without fear, what may come. Thereafter we need to address the question regarding why or what we are doing here or why we exist. When both questions are answered we can then establish a solid foundation of spiritual growth and happiness. A happiness and peace that will not rely on external consequences. A solid foundation indeed.

So who are we? Who are you? Most people would arguably reply automatically by their name and thereafter what they do for a living.

Maybe thereafter they would fill in a brief description of their personality, not as it is mind you but rather how they want to be perceived. However, personality, name and job description is all wrong. They are merely experiences of this moment and will cease to exist. They are merely concepts or ideas you as a consciousness is experiencing right now. In time, you will not experience them anymore. Let’s briefly examine a hypothetical example of identification with concepts or ideas. Imagine a person who have studied rigorously and worked very hard in order to get a specific job. This person has a conviction that this job is who and what he is and his identity accordingly. He has made a foundation based upon a 100% identification with that specific job title, that is what I am, this is me. The person will start working and after a while he realizes that things were not as he imagined they would be. He has the job title which he desired and also the life accordingly, but still there will be something missing. The goals of life and career have been achieved, but still there exist no satisfaction. In this scenario, the person has a choice of either remaining in his so called identity or to create a new one. However, both of them will involve elements of pain as their current psychological identity has to cease. Imagine the same person gets fired from the job. Here, the foundation gets changed outside his/her circumstances and control. The foundation which the person has built his identity on has quickly been shredded to pieces and a new one must be built. This is where the person will take on a new job, a new study etc. in order to construct a new foundation fast. Everyone who has experienced this knows it is painful, the experience of realizing that you were not the person you imagined yourself to be.

Many people will choose to not accept it and will thus stick to their old identity even when they do not possess it anymore. Others will find a new identity and build a new foundation accordingly as fast as possible. Few are those who question the way the foundation is being built. People normally build the foundation based on their identity which is taken from the mind. This results in a superficial foundation which is merely focused on the facade of the foundation, aesthetics. If we structure and make our foundation from the perspective of our consciousness, it is clear that the foundation will be solid and rigid as it originates from a higher place of truth, perception and is timeless.

Most of us experience pain when our identity and the foundation where we based our “I” on falls to the ground. Still, most of us restructure our new foundation in the exact same way only containing different elements. A new job, new friends, new apartment or maybe new hobbies, in other words, a new identity, but constructed exactly the same way as the previous one. Who can tell if this foundation will stand the course of time? So what can one do in order to avoid the pain that is synonymous with constructing our sense of self on the basis of false things? It is obvious that we need to construct the foundation about what we are in a different way than we have done before. We have to go deeper and past everything that is regarding personality, status, job titles, prestige, race, body and nationality etc. The truth is that these are all experiences of the moment. You are living energy, a consciousness experiencing seemingly or subjective separation from the source by being in a physical body here on earth in the third dimension. Your body, mind and personality are elements your consciousness is working through in this moment. It is not what you are, but merely filter . They will all dissolve with time. In other words, you are consciousness experiencing this reality by having a physical body. Your mind and intellect is also not what you are. The mind is the home of your thousand “I”s stealing the light of the consciousness in order to waste it in search of subjective desires which amplifies the notion of separateness from light, thus strengthening the continuum of suffering. The change in a person’s psychology which builds his/hers foundation on the basis of his/hers consciousness is extraordinary. This is the foundation based on the fact that you are not the body, but the consciousness that is experiencing this reality through it. This is the foundation we need to build our self-identity on.

It is needed to comprehend this physical existence and life as a reality we experience in order to learn and to grow the soul. Imagine you have 5 minutes left to live. Do your diplomas from university matter now? What about your money or lack of it? Your house? Work achievements? That time you won an argument? Most probably the answer would be no to all of these questions. Ironic it is then, that most people live entire lives making all the before mentioned things matter in a way it consumes their entire energy and dictates their entire identity. We make the things that do not matter at all matter to the point of obsession and we neglect the things we ought to spend energy on. We get pulled and sucked into the illusion and we forget our real self. We must not identify ourselves with our body, race, job etc exceeding the point that it is just an experience and not what we fundamentally are. You may observe yourself how many conflicts which have and still are born from a mistaken identification of self towards physical things and concepts about what we are. It is essential to build a new foundation, a solid one which cannot fall to the ground simply because it is real and that is why. We need to build a foundation where we observe the mind continuously and with solid spiritual practices such as meditation which will link us up to and strengthen our ties with our innermost. Then we can take that foundation and go out in the world and start a life on those premises and values. Then it will be harder to become confused and pulled into illusions regarding what or who you are. Jobs may come and go and we are OK because we were never 100% identified with them to begin with. Tough situations in life will become easier to handle as we have our foundation based on the innermost or consciousness which is real. With that foundation, which is the fact that we are not our mind and desires nor projections of ideas about ourselves, but consciousness experiencing itself as human, we will naturally see ourselves from a totally different point of view. We will experience a grander perspective on existence and where we previously got pulled in in every context, emotion or provocation, we now have a solid anchor that pulls us safely away every time. We can see ourselves through our consciousness instead of the filter that is the ego. From this angle it is easier to control the mind and to see a more correct and total picture regarding occurrences in everyday life as well as life defining moments.

The society around us creates a pressure that dictates or pushes us into boxes which it has created for us. Otherwise, it is like we do not fit in. They use fear of being alienated and viewed as different as a tactic for putting people’s consciousness’s solidly asleep in their ideas about themselves (in their minds). Society will try to pull you into the illusion by pressuring you to find an identity it has created, for then to get you identified with it and thus your consciousness has been trapped. The whole of society is based on this and this is one of the reasons why it can be hard to find out for yourself that you are not your race, job, nationality etc, but your consciousness. Different boxes are being made with different labels and then it is up to you to pick one. However, you have to pick one of them, you cannot just be you. You need an identity made by society, a label. The society has a grotesque need to put labels on everyone, put them in boxes which identifies them. She is a blogger so she will be like that. This is how we get stereotypes which is another worthless concept made up by the mind and its boxes of identities. He is a business man so he must be like this. She is a journalist, he is an environmentalist, he is hostile towards immigrants and she is a Muslim. They are all boxes constructed in our heads. We are all consciousness and we are all part of a single greater consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. Start looking at yourself from the perspective of the consciousness first. This is the foundation. Thereafter, view your physical body along with race and nationality as something you are experiencing. Thereafter view your job titles, intellectual achievements etc. in the same way. They are only experiences. They are here today and gone tomorrow. This is the way to build a foundation that will withstand all storms and that will provide you with strength when it is needed. The foundation will need maintenance and that is why we need to do meditation and other spiritual practices. However, meditation is the foundation of the foundation itself. I do not try to discredit people with education or people who have made lots of money. It is OK if you want to be proud of achievements and it is nothing wrong with money in itself, but it is important to have the total picture and not get identified with these completely worthless things as what we are. It is easy for people to make the mistake of believing themselves to be better than others because of intellectual achievements or a successful venture. As stated before, there is nothing wrong with money, but it is important to view money as it is and not let it define you. I also write about the mind in what some people might feel a negative manner. For the sake of good order, the mind is a fantastic instrument, but it needs to be tamed. The mind has to serve the consciousness and not the other way around as the vast majority of humanity is experiencing. Most people are completely slaves of their own mind without even being close to realizing it.Learn to meditate, smash your foundation and escape the prison!

This is an excerpt from the book “A guide to meditation and awakening the consciousness”. If you would like to read more please send me a message and I will forward it to you for free.