Who am "I" ?

Who is meditating? Who is the observer?

Often people say that "I" meditate. The fundamental problem with this statement is the subtle distinction between the observer and the observed. Let me elaborate on the issue. A observes B. Here A is different from B. If A observes himself, does that mean that there are two parts of A and one part of A is observing the other part? Are both these parts inside the brain of A? How can one be sure that this division is not imaginary and real? There are many such questions that are likely to arise in the process of observation.

What is "self"

Probably, the answer to some of these questions lies in understanding “how we feel the sense of self?” Many neurologists have researched this aspect. There are localized areas in our brain that make us experience different sensory inputs and make sense of those. There are different areas of the brain to process and understand the visual inputs, auditory inputs, and the sense of touch, taste, and smell. When it comes to the question “Who is experiencing?”, there is no answer available from neurologists. It's also difficult to say how we make life decisions. We all choose different streams of education, careers, and friends, and have different motivations. These choices also vary from time to time. The same “I” at different points in time seem to be making quite different choices. Every time we make a choice, we are fully sure that it is the same “I” that has made the choice. But if “I” is the same, then why the choices made by the "I" are varying from time to time. 

Astrological explanations and their limitations

Astrology attempts to answer it, to some extent. We all are different because the 9 forces of nature are manifest within us in different forms. Also, within a person, they manifest in different forms, at different points in time, depending upon the Dashas of the planets. However, Astrology also does not offer any explanation as to why the sense of “I” is so constant and where it lies. If life decisions are being driven by the Dashas of the forces of nature, then how and why do we feel that we have made all these decisions.

Parallel from theatre: actor becomes a character

Questions naturally arise whether this strong feeling of “I” is an illusion and if so why this illusion is so strong and what is the way out to know the reality? We may try to get some insights into the hard problem by drawing parallels to theatre. In theatre, the stage is illuminated and the rest of the auditorium is dark so that the actors on the stage are fully engrossed in the play. In life also, we largely remain unaware of the happenings in most of the world except our own lives and life of a few near and dear ones. In fact, many a time, even the happenings in the lives of close friends and relatives come as a surprise to us. Many a time, we are not aware even of what is happening in our own kids' lives. Thus, we also operate with very limited knowledge of what's happening around us.

Actors on the stage keep performing their roles as per the script and the directions of the director. Sometimes, accomplished actors play on the stage without any defined script or director and improvise while performing on the stage. Similar way, the life decisions of most people are taken along the lines of do's and don'ts decided by the family and society. They just keep performing their roles on the dotted lines. There are very few who dare to challenge these norms. 

Now, suppose an actor plays a particular character on the stage all the time, throughout his life, there is every chance that he will forget being an actor. Similarly, we all play these roles for such a long time that we develop deep identification with the roles and forget the reality of being actors. The moment, we have a doubt, the rational mind immediately comes to the defense of the illusion. “I” know what “I” am. 

Now the question arises that if a person is hallucinating or under illusion, how will he know the reality. The problem is even bigger when a larger chunk of fellow human beings is also operating under the same illusion. They will develop a “confirmation bias” also. They will confirm from each other the reality and since everybody around has the same illusion, all will be reassured about their illusion or hallucination being the reality.

Can the actor look beyond the stage?

What’s the way out to check whether “I” is an actor or a character on the stage? To the best of my understanding, one can’t be aware of being an actor unless one realizes that life exists beyond the stage. There are so many indications for the existence of life beyond the stage. We see so many stars in the sky each night to catch our attention to the wideness of the universe. We get so many diseases time and again to understand the delicate balance of the body. We get so many unforeseen situations in our lives to make us realize how we are not operating in isolation. We see so many persons dying each day, yet we remain so certain of being alive ever. 

I feel we have a very strong addiction to the neurotransmitters giving us pleasure. We can not think of living without regular doses of these neurotransmitters primarily adrenaline, dopamine, and serotonin. That is precisely the reason that we keep ignoring all the indicators to make us realize the vastness of life and spend our entire lives playing the same role. 

Vairagya

So long as we are enjoying the pleasure of being on the stage, we will keep ignoring all these indicators toward the larger reality. Sometimes we feel saturated with pleasures or we are not able to tolerate the pain. In such situations, our attention gets drawn toward these indicators. It so happened with Rama when he developed vairagya from the world and then Sage Vashistha and Vishvamitra helped him understand reality and their conversation is written in Yoga Vashistha. It so happened with Gautama, when he got disillusioned from the world and started searching for reality. It so happened with Valmiki, when he found that his family will not shoulder the responsibility for his crime. It also happened with Tulsidas when he was insulted by his wife. Unless one develops this vairagya, it’s probably impossible to move even a single step in the direction of understanding reality. Generally, this vairagya comes with some major shocks in life. However, this vairagya is quite natural to a few like Krishna, Shankaracharya, Sri Aurobindo, Ramakrishna Paramhansa, Ramana Maharishi, Swami Vivekananda, Paramhansa Yogananda, J. Krishnamurthy, etc.

Beginning of the inner journey: the inner movie screen 

Once the feeling of vairagya grows inside, a person starts his search to find the truth. The easiest way to find the truth is to look inside. However, most of us, who have tried this, would have experienced that the moment we close our eyes, our mind is full of thoughts. It’s like a movie of thoughts going inside our own cinema hall. When the movie starts getting projected on the screen, the lights are turned off. Similarly, when we sit for meditation, we cut ourselves off from external stimuli. 

Slowly, we start identifying with the characters and scenes of the movie. After some time, this identification becomes so intense that we almost start feeling the emotions of the character we identify with as if we are living that character to the extent that we feel the fear, anxiety, and stress, of that character. We enjoy each victory as our own victory. What is happening here? It’s a simple psychological trick used by cinema halls to enrich our experiences. They switch off the lights and insulate the movie hall from the outside sound. The seats and temperature are comfortable. Thus, all the major sensory inputs are controlled. There is no vision other than the scene on the movie screen. Due to the darkness in the movie hall, we are not able to see the other people present in the hall as well. There is no sound other than the sound of the movie. There is no unpleasant input to the skin. No smell. The only input available is tasty popcorn and other stuff, that the spectators generally eat unconsciously. Thus, the entire attention is captivated on the movie screen and we get fully engrossed in the characters forget the reality for some time, and start identifying with the characters of the movie. At least for some time, we lose awareness of our physical identity. The moment, it is interval and lights are switched on, we immediately realize that it was all illusion. The same thing happens when we sit with eyes crossed in so-called “meditation” or “dhyana”. We cut ourselves off from most of the sensory inputs and start enjoying the interplay of thoughts and imaginations on the screen of the mind.

Breath: the exit lights on the staircase of the cinema hall

A question arises how can the process of meditation help us realize our reality. Even in meditation, we are just busy observing mental projections. We are generally so obsessed with our thoughts that it is impossible for us to come out of them even for some time. True observation takes place only when we move out of the cinema hall. It's easy to come out of the cinema hall. We can use the breath, as the lights on the staircase of the cinema hall to exit the hall. Breath has a very unique feature. We may breathe both ways: consciously and unconsciously. So breath is the bridge between consciousness and unconsciousness. Through breath, we may peep into our own unconscious world. 

We fix our attention on our breath, like observing, the exit lights in the staircase, and come out of the cinema hall. Since we are fixated on the pleasures of watching the movie, we get drawn to it again and again. Sometimes, to the same screen and other times to different screens in the multiplex of the mind, one after the other. Even after coming out of the cinema hall, our attention may be fully engrossed with the movie. It may be off our eyes but may be going on inside our thoughts.

Role of unconscious

At this stage, we realize that the source of this fixation lies somewhere else. When we look further deep inside, we realize that the fixations to pleasure lie deep inside our unconscious. We are not aware of these fixations but they keep driving our life. Realized souls like Buddha, with intense awareness, could understand the operation of the unconscious mind and taught us how to break the cycle.

 

Feedback cycle discovered by Buddha

Buddha said that each sensory input is evaluated by the unconscious to categorize the same into pleasure or pain. Accordingly, painful or pleasurable sensations are felt in the body. The sensory input categorized as pleasant results in pleasant sensations in the body. The sensory input categorized as painful results in painful sensations in the body. 

The body, due to habit patterns and lack of awareness, seeks to maximize pleasant sensations. The body keeps giving feedback to the unconscious mind about how it feels. It's a craving for pleasant sensations and an aversion to pain. This feedback further strengthens the division between pain and pleasure, which exists in the unconscious mind. This process keeps taking place unconsciously. The latest studies in neuroscience have confirmed this.

Buddha told in addition, that this cycle can be broken if we stop giving feedback on the pleasantness/pain to the unconscious. We have an opportunity to be aware when sensations are being felt by our body. If we become conscious of this process, and observe these sensations, we realize that these sensations come and go. The more we react to these the more intensely we feel them. The less we react to them, the less we feel them. Their intensity disappears as we observe them with equanimity and non-reaction. 

Finally, steps to be aware

Thus, to summarize, an actor, who gets fixated on a role, may regain awareness of being an actor with the following steps:

1. Till the actor remains fixated on worldly pleasures, there is no beginning. He will keep playing the same character throughout his life and will not be able to look beyond the stage.
2. Once there is vairagya from the stage, we become attentive to so many indicators on the stage. So many questions start coming to our minds.  What is life all about? What is death? What is the purpose of life? what is this universe? who am I? Are our opinions and ideas very different from the ideas and opinions of the society we live in? Have we not just mirrored the social mindset and branded these ideas to be our own? Have the books we have read and life experiences we have had not spaced these viewpoints (that we call our viewpoint) to a large extent? Do I think and feel the same way as I used to think and feel when I was a child? Am I at the age of 10 years and today 40 years the same? If I have changed then, is there anything stagnant giving the sense of I? If we ask all these questions to ourselves, we will soon realize that probably, we are constantly acting as a character on the stage. We start identifying with the characters we play.
3. With this, we feel the urgency to find answers to these questions. Initially, we try to find answers to these questions through our rational minds. We read a lot of books and have discussions to find the answers to realize soon the limitations of the science of the day and logic.
4. With this, we turn inward to meditate and find the answers inside us. Initially, we get trapped in the cinema hall, watching the thoughts and imaginations on the screen of the mind. We keep shifting from one screen to the other.
5. We take support of the breath, as exit lights on the staircase of the cinema hall and come out of the hall. We become aware of the existence of the unconscious deep inside us.
6. We observe the sensations on the body without reaction. With this observation, the feedback loop gets broken. The strength of the likes and dislikes in the unconscious mind is reduced. We start becoming relatively free.

The original questions

Again coming back to the original question: who observes? It is the actor who observes always. While the actor is unaware of its wider existence, he observes life as a character. He feels pain and pleasure based on what happens in the life of the character on the stage. Fixation with the character exists both at the conscious and unconscious levels. Till there is vairagya, the fixations with the character, in emotional mind, leads life. All motivations aim at the maximization of pleasure and minimization of pain. Only when situations turn negative (except in the case of people having natural vairagya), does the actor start being attentive to the divine indicators. He tries to regain the awareness of his true self through the rational mind. However, the fixations are too strong to allow him to regain awareness. He meditates and watches the play of the unconscious on the screen of the mind. Then he works on the unconscious by observing the body sensations with equanimity. This makes the unconscious free of fixations. With this, the fixations in the emotional mind also lose their strength. The reasons and logic also start gaining purity. One regains the awareness of the true self of being an actor.

He goes back to the stage and performs different roles, with an altogether different mindset and motivation. Now the motivation is bigger and richer. Now, there are no insecurities or fears. The sole motivation is to explore the entire potential as an actor. There is no hesitation in taking up the toughest of the roles.