WHO I REALLY AM
DON'T GET CONFUSED WITH WHAT YOU HAVE OR WHAT YOU BELIEVE
(See also The Basics Of Life, Part I, from which this is excerpted.)
CONTENTS:
PRIMARY TRUTH:
Who you really are
A child, I am not
A fool I am not nor am I "Dumb and "Dumber"
So that clearly leaves me being...
The most important commitment of your life
VIEWING POINT 2:
Let's look at who I am, really
I an not my beliefs or stories
There is nothing to fix
I am not my body
I am not my past
I create my way of being newly in every moment
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WHO YOU REALLY ARE
If YOU really think about it, YOU are that entity that does the thinking, that is conscious of what is going on. YOU are the one who experiences life. Your liver or other lower functions don't really experience alot. In fact, if you were simply a primitive form of life, it is debatable that you would experience anything, that you would simply function and survive. If you were an animal (only), then you would operate off of primitive, simple instinct to survive; it is doubtful that you would even think about there being a "you."
If you were a being with only your two lower brains, which we call Dumb and Dumber (actually the instinctual very primitive "lizard" brain and your primitive but more highly sensing "monkey" mind), you would not have a concept of "you". You would be able to sense danger and react. But you wouldn't be able to make a choice.
The thing that makes you YOU is the higher brain that humans developed, which adds the power of reasoning, the ability to make a choice, "consciousness", and the ability to create and add meaning to things.
As a child, you began to add some "human" capabilities in your brain, which was not fully developed until about 21 years old. If you are over 21, I would suggest that you are not "under 21". A seemingly purposeless, inane remark, but one that hopefully will help you realize that you are not a child and that you are not an adolescent. And the importance of knowing that is that you don't have to suffer through the type of thinking that is involved at those levels.
A CHILD I AM NOT
I learned to be logical and to use reason to to a beginning degree when I was about 7 to 9. I, however, did make a number of decisions about life and what to do in life, as my primitive thinking had me thinking and doing what I thought would cause me to survive. But they were not well-reasoned and not from very good knowledge and were mostly from assumptions and misperceptions. True, they did align me with some of what my parents told me (though I didn't have very deep insight into the basis for them) and I did learn what could be threatening to me and a bit how to cope.
I was powerless and I was dependent, so my viewing point was that of trying to be fed and cared for, so that I would survive and not experience high anxiety. However, I no longer am powerless nor am I dependent nor do I need to be fed or cared for. To the extent I hold on to that, I am holding on to something that is false and outmoded.
Had I been able to apply full adult reasoning from an adult who had sufficient knowledge and wisdom, I would not believe any of those child beliefs.
How do I know when I am in a child belief that is invalid? I feel threatened by the future and by rejection. I am resisting (teenage). I am fighting where no fight is needed. I am applying anger randomly and inappropriately. There is no valid use for any of those. They are primitive left overs.
But I know the Law Of Cause And Effect now, as I no longer believe in the magical thinking characteristic at age 8, and I know that if I feel those fears and emotions above (which are the effect), I can trace them to beliefs of being powerless, dependent, not self-sufficient.
None of those beliefs are true for me now, therefore I can not be the child of prior years. I am some new character with a memory of an old way of being.
A FOOL I AM NOT NOR AM I DUMB AND DUMBER
Since each of the above is untrue, I am not a fool enough to believe them anymore (if I really think about).
My primitive brains send out electrical impulses and bits of "data" from my primitive "thought trees" (neurons, dendrites, etc.) that can be caused randomly, by misperceptions, and/or on the basis of promoting survival in some way. As cavemen, it was true we had to react first and fast before thinking, as we might otherwise get eaten. Since, as when I was a child, these things are no longer valid (that I might get eaten or attacked physically or starve), I need no longer operate off of them. And, being no fool, I use my higher brain to determine if they are untrue and should not be operated upon (see Managing Your Thoughts).
So, using the logic of the Law Of Cause And Effect, if I have extreme emotions of such things as anger or rage, ongoing anxiety or panic, feeling threatened, despair and there is no tiger to be seen (no real, tangible danger), I am reacting as if I was a pre-child, a totally dumb brain.
That is definitely not me, if I really think about it.
SO THAT CLEARLY LEAVES ME BEING...
So, the only thing I am left with is that the me of now is the higher thinking brain (consciousness and awareness). But it's actually not the brain itself but the abilities I access in using the brain.
I am the ability to choose and create, at least until I die. Everything else is an attachment to who I am, but nothing else is me.
I am the one who sources (causes, creates) my life.
Some people may prefer to expand this beyond what is actually true. I can use the ability I have to create and add some meaning to that which is actually just attached. It is your choice. If you don't like the idea of just being an experiencing machine, then you could add some mystical spirit to it and have both be part of you. Choose whatever works for you, but the truth is a better choice to use.
It is true that I have physical supporting units and some knowledge and beliefs acquired in my past, but I am not them, since I have them. In order to have something, there must be a separate I to have something, therefore I can't be it. I am not them. They are only flesh and blood, with recordings imbedded in them.
The child no longer exists, the teenage mind has since added its judgment capability.
It is through the thinking brain that I experience life, that I am able to create experiences in life and to create what I want. This is the ME that I am, for I would not have a ME as an adult, if I were still just those earlier forms of life.
Make sense? (Email me if you think you can prove anything different.)
THE MOST IMPORTANT COMMITMENT OF YOUR LIFE
From all my studies and from all the wrestling with the details of my life and of those who I contribute to, there is one overlying commitment that is the most important, and when it is made, all of the problems and struggles seem to melt away.
The commitment is to be who I really am.
Now that does sound idioticly simple and meaningless.
But it is the whole ballgame, the whole of what makes life work.
Of course, you must clearly know and then state who you are, in order to be able to commit to choosing to be that way instead of the way you are used to being.
I am an "adult" capable of thinking and reasoning and experiencing and doing.
I have a set of files (recordings in my brain) that contain old actions, feelings, pictures, etc. It is I who have them, not they which have me! They are not permanent.
I have a body that supplies energy for my thinking and doing. Even it changes totally every 7 years, per the scientists. So even it is not permanent during my life. It simply recreates from the old patterns and functions as well as it can, though I can influence it to a degree. I accept that limitation.
However, having a prefrontal cortex designed for this function, I am totally in charge of running the show with regard to the files I choose to use. Pretending otherwise is what gets us into trouble.
If I choose the file system and the procedures and ways of being that are related to the overall way of being in the role of being a child, then my life does not work well, as there are so many errors in that system. It is a racket I can hold onto, or I can recognize the crisis that I have lived in and choose to not continue it.
But, most people will protest, "I am not being a child, though I do have an inner child" (which is not true, incidently).
However, in the law of cause and effect, if there is an effect then there is a cause and we can trace our way back along the set path from one to the other (in either direction).
If you are experiencing struggle and "bad" feelings in your life, then you are operating from things that aren't true, as things that are true do not cause suffering and struggle.
(Be sure to fully know how suffering and struggle is created.)
VIEWING POINT 2
Written earlier and also true, with alot more explanation.
LET'S LOOK AT WHO I AM, REALLY
I am THE SOURCE. That's it. (Source also means "cause", as I cause things to happen or cause my beliefs or cause my emotions. I have the choice of what to do and what not to do, therefore I am responsible for where I am and what happens to me as I run into phenomena out there that I didn't create myself. ) I am the Creator of my world and all my experiences. I am the Experiencer. I am the Awareness, the observer, the one who is conscious.
I have always been The Source/Creator/Experiencer/Awareness.
Everything else is just something I attached to myself, like barnacles to a ship. The barnacles aren't the ship and surely the ship doesn't consider the barnacles as part of the ship. Yet we seem to fail to realize the equivalent.
If you look at this logically, this is what you'd say:
If you are THE ONE who thinks, you, then, can't logically also be your thinking! Correct?
If you are THE ONE who does something, you are not that something, you are not that action, you are the one who acts.
If you caused something or created something, you cannot be those somethings! Therefore, you've got to be separate from what you've caused!!!!!
Talents Attachments
Ways of Being Material items
SOURCE Viewpoints
Assumptions Feelings
Beliefs Achievements
Data (correct and incorrect)
None of the things around you are you. And none are permanently attached to you.
You do not need any of those to survive, as you are now powerful and capable enough to survive - and, though this often takes some convincing, you are able to learn to and to actually produce happiness and to not buy into the thinking that makes people unhappy.
I AM NOT MY BELIEFS
I have beliefs, therefore I am not my beliefs. I have created stories, therefore they are not me.
Therefore, it makes no sense to identify with my beliefs or viewpoints, for both of those are merely "taken on".
It certainly makes no sense to defend them as if they were part of me. If we are offended or defending, then we have attached ourselves to there as if they were a survival issue - which we know is a complete fiction!!!
Since I am not my beliefs but the creator of my beliefs or at least he who believes them, then the choice betwee the following two is obvious;
I now choose to spend energy on only one of these:
Defending my beliefs or my pride
Creating more workable beliefs
THERE IS NOTHING TO FIX
Since my beliefs are not me, and since they determine what I do, period, then I am also not my actions, as I am the one who merely does them.
Since I have all the basic capabilities plus the ability to choose, I am ok and there is nothing to fix. I have sufficient capabilities to live life well - and I need not be as good as or better than others, as I am already sufficient. Yes, there are things to learn that will create more and better desired results, but the basic mechanism and given abilities are great as they are.
I can see my blindspots once they are revealed to me, but they are not me. They are just something to learn from. I have the ability to see the fakeness of my fears.
I am as I am. If I want to get more of what I want, then I'll need to be on a trip of discovery and install more empowering beliefs. Note that the underlying machinery is more than adequate and that I am only using that machinery to develop better beliefs that work - but there is nothing to fix as far as the basic me is concerned.
I already have enough and am enough, unless I make up that that isn't true. I have the ability to produce enough to meet my basic needs (and I need not set any artificial "needs" for "more").
I am merely a basic being. I have the ability to think, I am intelligent, I have the ability to eat and walk and do many physical things. I have the ability to learn.
I am without limit. (This is a "relative" phrase, not a literal one since we have time and physical limits. But we are not even close to expanding to fill all the possibilities that we have the ability to achieve. It's like we occupy a small corner of a huge box that we can access much more of if we choose to.)
I AM NOT MY BODY
And I can sure choose to manage it to carry me forward. It is only my vehicle. It does not determine me; I determine to a great degree how well it carries out the purpose of being my vehicle for life.
I AM NOT MY PAST
My past is what got me here. I started with basic abilities, luckily, and I learned what there was to learn and made the best conclusions I could at the time so I could not have followed some theoretical "should" path. My past is now only a concept. I am not a concept, as I am a thinking and doing being in the here and now, experiencing life as well as I can at the current limits of my awareness. I can choose to increase that awareness and enhance life so that in the future I can experience life at an even higher level of being.
I CREATE MY WAY OF BEING, NEWLY IN EVERY MOMENT
I have the choice to be any way I want to be to achieve whatever feeling or goal I want. I am no fixed way of being and I am not who I was as a child or who I used to be at all. I am only he who chooses, the creator, the source.
I am simply what I choose and say I am in the moment. I create that way of being and it is not fixed. It is gone in a moment and replaced by what I am in the next moment. I am no particular way. I am just the creator of it all, choosing what and who to be in the moment.
