Who am I?

The question "Who am I?" often arrives as a strange visitor—both unsettling and somehow familiar. It stands at the heart of spiritual traditions like Advaita Vedanta and certain Buddhist schools and it echoes through metaphysical inquiry, religious believes, conspiracy theories and all sorts of different outlooks and notions that aim to search for a theoretical definition as an answer. Among the many philosophers, spiritual teachers, and saints who have posed variations of this question, perhaps the most well-known to have explored it with great depth was Ramana Maharshi—a revered sage of India, whose core teaching was rooted in this inquiry.

Ramana Maharshi sitting in the Arunachala Mountain

Although some of us might not immediately tend to answer the question straight away and question the very question itself as in: "What does this really mean?" or "Am I the one asking, or the one being asked?", commonly our first instinct might be seeking an immediate response, an answer that would quickly satisfy the disturbance of not knowing. But rather than doing so, this question is here presented as an invitation—a doorway into a deeper exploration of what we might often take for granted. And as you are the authority in your inner life, so the real value of this investigation comes from your own direct experience. Ready to investigate based in your own deepest knowing?

A recurrent tendency, for instance, is to respond by defining ourselves through a collection of experiences, preferences, and roles - in other words, a storyline woven from memory. Unconsciously, there might be an ingrained believe in us that would almost automatically reply to that in the lines of “I am a good person”, “I am a dedicated worker”, “I am an empath” and so on. Yet these identities, though familiar, seem to be shaped by our life circumstance, culture, and conditioning, emerging long after we were born, raised and the ideas of good and bad, worthy and unworthy were instilled in us.

So, beyond these shifting aspects, who are we, truly? If everything we identify with—our thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and even our bodies—is subject to change, can we truly say we are any of them?

Or is there something deeper, untouched by change?

Ramana’s perspective suggests that if we undergo change, there must be something within us that remains constant, something that can say, "I have changed." This would be the aspect of ourselves that exists prior to the change—more fundamental and intrinsic than what shifts. Sounds good, but what is that – if there is such a thing?

In Advaita Vedanta, that way of inquiring is commonly used to challenge assumptions and acknowledge what we are not. It proposes a process of negation, where one eliminates all things that cannot be our true self encapsulated in the phrase "Neti, Neti"—which means "Not this, not this". This is meant to allow our sense of self to move beyond identification with the transient and towards an essential, unchanging nature. Big words, yet its application is not really that complicated. Simply put, what is invited is a shift from having, doing or being a certain way to simply being, just being.

Perhaps the most common assumption up until now was: "I am my body". Let’s take that as an example of this way of reflecting. Is it truly possible?

Our bodies are constantly changing and there is awareness of that change. So, if we are observing this change, can we be limited to being exclusively the body and its changes? Or as per Ramana, “To whom does the body belong to?”.  What we were as a child, a teenager, a baby, a grown-up, and what we might become in old age—or even what we were in our mother’s womb—seems to transcend or exist prior to the body itself. Likewise, emotions, feelings, and sensations appear to be fleeting experiences. The deeper question is: what is it that is aware of them?

Another common assumption is "I am the mind." To explore this, it might be helpful to define what we mean by the "mind." If the mind is a bundle of thoughts, wouldn’t it also be subject to coming and going? And if that’s the case, how do we notice these changes—the presence, absence, or shift of thoughts? On the other hand, if by mind we assume the capacity to think, would we cease to be when that capacity is absent, as in deep sleep for instance? A possibility would be to assume the mind as “that in which thoughts appear and disappear in”. That assumption is very much at the core of the exploration “Who am I?” and seems to lead us into a tipping point in the quality of this exploration.

As the thinking process is recognized as insufficient to grasp the essence of what we are, it becomes clear that it is an inadequate tool for leading this task. That recognition might be first felt as something terribly frustrating, but it is really a gateway. It contains the delight of the possibility of expansiveness a baby chick might feel while hatching from its egg, or a butterfly might enjoy while squishing its newly-developed wings out of the cocoon. From that point onward, there is a possibility of inquiry undergoing a massive shift in quality—from intellectual analysis to a more careful and heart-felt investigation of our direct experience of what lies beyond thought.

Would the conclusion "since what I am cannot be apprehended by the intellect nor the senses and my experience seems to be limited to them, I don't exist" suffice, for instance? It does seem that what we truly are cannot be verified through the senses or the intellect. Yet, can we truly deny our own existence? One possibility is that, in this exploration, a subtle sense is uncovered: the sense of "I am” or something that could be described as an unqualified sense of existence, one that is not bound by time or space. This sense of "I am" is also referred to in various spiritual traditions as "the child of God," "pure witnessing," "beingness," "the door to the absolute," and many other expressions.

But what does it mean to be "not bound by time and space"? While it may seem like a profound, otherworldly experience, it can also be understood as a very gentle or basic awareness of time and space. And if there is awareness of the changes within time and space, doesn’t that suggest it must exist prior to them?

Many spiritual teachers offer at this point instructions like: "just be," "simply be," "keep silent," "stop everything," "drop everything," "without thought, what is here in this instant?", "be conscious of consciousness," "abide as I am" , “be still and know”, and many other variations. If any of them speaks to you in particular, what effect do these words have on you? How do they resonate with your own direct experience, if at all?

Such instructions can be followed while we are awake—or perhaps even while dreaming. But what about deep sleep? Are we there at all? Can we deny our existence during deep sleep?

In deep sleep by definition there is no consciousness of our existence. Here, consciousness is not used in its spiritual sense, but in its literal meaning of "the ability to perceive" or "phenomenal experience." This leads to a challenging and unconventional conclusion: whatever we are, it seems to transcend consciousness. But if we can’t perceive anything during deep sleep—and yet we still exist—how can we possibly perceive what we truly are? Can we?

If what we are could be perceived, wouldn’t it then be an object of consciousness, or a content of awareness? Yet, it seems intuitive that consciousness itself precedes its contents. How does this resonate with your own experience?

Lastly, to continue this inquiry, we’ll need, for a brief moment, to direct our attention away from all its contents—including this text—and trace its source. What happens when attention is invited to retreat back to awareness?

Enjoy the exploration!