The importance of Self-Discovery?

I am a relatively small throng of the masses, however I shall be happy to provide an answer , which, of course , will only be valid for me. Now, , go ahead, ask a question.and I shall not be similarly oblique as your question. (of which I detected none).


Sorry, how rude of me. Welcome to A2K.

Note: This question has been discussed at length here recently in these 2 threads: What are you? & Who are you, Really?
http://www.able2know.com/forums/about9775.html
http://www.able2know.com/forums/about24926.html

Having said that, maybe we've all had time to morph and/or change our dream/illusion of who we are into something different by now.

I hear you re: we must look beyond our circumstance and situation to answer "Who are we?"

Yet, where do you draw the line? For example, I happen to be in this human body that has 2 legs, 2 arms, a brain, etc. But that isn't really me, is it? Thats just a situation I happen to be in.

What I'm getting at is our "situation" does have a bit to do with who we are at this given moment. How much of that situation is real, and how much we "create for ourselves" is a further question.

We are in this movie. Some of it I can strip off: ie, perhaps my family history doesn't really matter in regards to who I am. The movie part about the human body, though, seems more difficult to strip off. We're very much stuck in these bodies for now (unless one believes in astral projection, etc.). We're very much stuck in these bodies. Yet, are we these bodies?

Are these bodies we inhabit even remotely connected to who we actually are?

If not, are we free floaters in a space of sorts?

It seems very clear to me that we are not our bodies. This part has always bothered me: We are not our bodies, Yet most of us spend most of our waking hours doing things to take care of these bodies: work to pay rent/mortgage, buy food, wash clothes, clean house, clean body, etc., etc. Something seems very inefficient about that.

Part of the deal is obviously that for some reason we are here to experience having a human body. Yet...that all seems somehow so backwards.

Like, our brains, whatever you might call our "souls" are probably capable of so much more. Yet, we are forced to spend most of our time here doing mundane things like pay the mortgage/rent and put food on the table. Strange.

Are most of us missing something very, very big in this journey of life? Or, are the mundane necessary survival type tasks an integral part of the entire lesson....are those tasks actually the big thing?

I speak for the masses. We are what we eat! We are indestructible.

I am nothing, absolutely nothing. The ground of being is emptiness and I am that.

A bell is heard because I am not.

My absence allows for your presence, and mine for that matter, that is, as a percept(s), which you and I are not.

as is everything, we are of the stars;

we coallesce from elemental matter, and being 'sentient', we struggle to justify our total impotence in the task of discrediting nothingness.

[stars, to dark matter; dust, to infinity!]

We are the entity that wishes to strive, survive, and succeed in a hostile universe and not succumb to our own lethal errors. The question we have to ask ourselves is "Do we feel lucky?"

Sorry! couldn't come up with any super psychological or metaphysical realities that would in any way clarify the matter. I'm sure some of the others would be happy to oblige.

There are two primordial questions, of course. WHO am I? and WHAT am I? The first concerns personal and social identity, it's the self that existentialism tells us we may or must create. The other is the philosophical or mystical concern with one's essential nature. To the mystics one's essential nature is NOT the ego, the subjective sense of "I."
Thanks to Extra Medium I am able to recover a statement of mine from a past thread:

"Alikimir's thesis refers to one's SOCIAL IDENTITY, the public side of one's image. One's PRIVATE IDENTITY may differ completely. There are so many problems with both versions of the self. As someone has noted here, if some people perceive you to be X and others Y, and still others Z, and if X,Y,and Z are mutually incompatible, where is the reality? On the other hand, most people develop their self-perception and self-esteem as a function of their sense of how others see them (the so-called looking glass theory of the self, Cooley). My conclusion is that it's all a matter of problematical constructions of the self, by one's self and by many others. I think I'll just hire a press agent.
The mystical orientation holds that it's all illusory, that one is in reality The Universe, or a moving expression of Ultimate Reality, but he, inevitabaly, defines himself only with reference to socially or culturally constructed ideas and values."

I have no idea of what you speak, and that is good , for it leaves room in my brain for all sorts of useless stuff.
Like fishing.

If asked "Who are you?" would you say a fisherman or a farmerman, or...neither?

I'd love to go fishing with you, Farmerman, but as you note, my brain is too stuffed with stuff.

I like the answers so far....Next Question
Many believe in a greater being to be the creator of everything, according to the Christian, Muslim and Hebrew faiths they believe that we are created in the image of a supreme being. The "I AM, Who I AM".

What caught my attention with the name of God or whatever you would like to call this being is the name used to identify the being. I AM , Who I AM is basically a declaration of complete knowledge of oneself.

Here is my next Question.....this might cause some controversy but hey, who cares....... Explain I AM Who I Am.

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On a long enough timeline all value and all life drops to zero....
The war of the flee is revolution.....

Re: I like the answers so far....Next Question


The first thing that pops to mind is Popeye, of course.

But before we get into all that: Explain your signature line? I understand (though don't agree with) the first line, but the 2nd line (re: flee)?

My name....and my apology
The theory behind the "war of the flea" is basically guerilla warfare... it states if one flea attacks a man nothing happens...but what happens if a million fleas attack this man, it would be impossible to overcome the flea attack.....sorry I made a spelling mistake in my previous quotes...hehehe, don't I feel dumb....My name on the other hand is a furious flee or a furious retreat....Yet another war tactic used by many African soldiers during the Angola War, they use to leave explosive charges on the side of a road, blow the first and last truck of a convoy and basically trap the people in the middle. The normal reaction of the enemy soldiers would be to seek cover on the sides of the roads, which so happen to be full of explosive charges. BOOM!!! we got body parts flying miles in the air. Then the enemy soldiers would begin to advance toward the attackers which would normally only consist of max 5 people. These five people would have a series of trenches leading to their 6 o'clock position which they would use to to fire and cover until all the enemies are dead or a retreat is sounded. Therefor the furious flee is an offensive retreat on an enemy unit. This tactic could take out battalions using only about five people....

Sorry about the spelling error...... here is the way its supposed to be.....

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The war of the flea is revolution.....

PS.
In South-Africa during the apartheid years they used this flea warfare in order to overthrow the gov. In fact they created over 2 million smaller groups "fleas" to attack from all sides. Some being legitimate some not, but all had the same end vision. The war of the flea.....is revolution....

Oh. That makes sense. I read somewhere that it might take less than 5% or so of the population to actually bring down a government. probably using techniques like you describe. That's a pretty small number.

Now, to the question you posed: Explain "I Am Who I Am."

My take on it is Ultimate Reality is what we are all really part of. Stripping away all the illusions, all the games, all the layers we place upon ourselves and others: I Am Who I Am. Thats it.

I Am.

Actually, I believe once one starts qualifying it with "I Think, Therefore I Am, or I Do, Therefore I Am, etc." it detracts from the Ultimate Reality of us actually Being.

Being. Now. I Am. (Yet I Am Not).

Well, then what about transcendental meditation where you silence your thoughts....what happens if you stop thinking do you cease to exist...I practise transcendental meditation and basically you silence your thoughts and just let go, accept everything. But I do not cease to exist......whats your thoughts on that....I would really like to know....

Re: I like the answers so far....Next Question


The phrase "I am who I am" is completely meaningless.
Meaning comes from action, not from 'being'!

[and - Maybe the atheist 'knows' God, the same way a policeman 'knows' a thief.]

FF, I do think that when our thoughts cease, our ego fades, but as soon as we start thinking again it returns.
You do not cease to exist as body, and the illusion of ego continues. The task, as I understand it, is not to disappear but to understand your true nature. What is the nature of this "self" that we cling to, worship, and defend so vigorously? Meditation is a means to answer that question.

Self-discovery is cool, but discovery of the non-self is better.

Ash,