is who am i an irrelevant question?

[Archaic17]

we stand in front of jesus Buddha who ever and our first question is always gonna be... "WHO AM I"

but what we do not realize is that our first question is how ever completely irrelevant to what you should be asking...

 

i sometimes get this impression..

 

is our age old question "who am i" actually irrelevant to what we truly wanna know considering we dont know what that may be...

[Gerard]

You are just a product of your mind and the external environment, something that the mind requires in order to exist.

[Old Man Contradiction]

Ramana Maharshi says if you seek the answer to the question "Who Am I?" dilligently, you will realize nondualism.

 

Every perception must be perceived by you. In this sense, you are not perceivable, because you are always the undefined subject of any perceptible object. So when you remember to ask,"Who Am I?", you will realize that you are not this body, this personality, these beliefs, these feelings, etc.. You realize you are not any thing, and therefor not an individual, and you will lose your self to the bigger nondual picture of being everything and no thing. So I believe the question is relevant, but it can not be answered with a thought.

[nac]

Find out.

[SingaporeGuyHere]

i am.....legend

 

there be zombies running everywhere

Edited October 22, 2009 by SingaporeGuyHere

[Birch]

Who I am is irrelevant because it's always the case. Who i am (lower case) is very relevant IMO because if you miss out on defining the answer to the latter, you (lower case) may miss out on many things that may make a positive difference. If you discover your I and then act as an i in negative terms I'd be pretty surprised. "Positive" and "negative" are ?

[steve]

we stand in front of jesus Buddha who ever and our first question is always gonna be... "WHO AM I"

but what we do not realize is that our first question is how ever completely irrelevant to what you should be asking...

 

i sometimes get this impression..

 

is our age old question "who am i" actually irrelevant to what we truly wanna know considering we dont know what that may be...

What is it that we should be asking?

[33865_1494798762]

Edited October 23, 2009 by Guest

[Encephalon]

If you want to ask this question philosophically, there is no limit to what you can wrestle with.

 

The subject matter of the self also has a clinical side that's pretty uncomplicated and keeps a lot of confusion and speculation at bay. Buddhist psychology, modern psychology, and postmodernism all recognize the separate and independent self for the illusion that it is and are busy trying various ways of getting us to see the connectedness and interdependency of the world, but there isn't enough collective imagination for that kind of vision to catch on yet.

 

I think this is where the genius of eastern thought is found; by creating an identity that has the imaginitive power to recognize the ecological connections that create the spiritual ones. Systems theory says the same thing. Cognition, the process of knowing, is identical with the processes of life at all levels of living systems.

 

However an enlightened identity would be defined, it would have to include this. In my opinion, Buddhism is uniquely suited for the "Head Trip" part of the journey, but the Taoists really anchor the whole business in the physical self. In fact, getting physically grounded is about as close as yer gonna get as far as getting a separate, isolated, independent and eternal identity. They don't exist.

 

Embrace Horse Now!

Edited October 23, 2009 by Blasto

[Marblehead]

is our age old question "who am i" actually irrelevant to what we truly wanna know considering we dont know what that may be...

 

I never really spent much time on the question "Who am I?". But I have spent a lot of time asking "How do I really feel about this?" and questions like that.

 

I was born a human body with a very simple brain. I am still a body but I like to think that my brain is a little more developed now.

 

So it seems to me that the body is of prime interest. Therefore I use my brain to make the best use of my body. When the body dies the brain also dies. That's life and death in a nutshell. What we do and the people we effect during the time between birth and death seem to me to be what will, in the end, describe who we were.

 

Peace & Love!

[varazslo]

Ramana Maharshi says if you seek the answer to the question "Who Am I?" dilligently, you will realize nondualism.

 

Every perception must be perceived by you. In this sense, you are not perceivable, because you are always the undefined subject of any perceptible object. So when you remember to ask,"Who Am I?", you will realize that you are not this body, this personality, these beliefs, these feelings, etc.. You realize you are not any thing, and therefor not an individual, and you will lose your self to the bigger nondual picture of being everything and no thing. So I believe the question is relevant, but it can not be answered with a thought.

 

I met one of the rare awakend ones of Ramana's line (Ganga, Papaji's wife) and she said don't make it a practice! Ask the question only when you are really well, or really down in pain, and then you much more likely to stay with the answer. The "who am I" is not a mantra, nor a psychological practice, as many made it to be. It is for rare occasions, meant to be the final question leading to freedom.

[EagleShen]

It's not the question that's the problem, it's expecting an answer that your rational mind can understand that's the irrelevant bit, it's a powerful contemplation with infinite depth.

[33865_1494798762]