Yesterday's post was rooted in a philosophical domain. The post, although was a conceptual idea, has the potential to raise an inner enquiry about what is the meaning of 'I'?
That brings me to enquire, where is my consciousness? Is the 'I' defined by my body or my mind. Well, the answer to that question is both yes and no.
The first answer is, as we all know, quite straightforward and easy to comprehend. But, when we look deeply enough, we can see order, a pattern at play. As discussed in yesterday's post, if the matter can neither be created nor destroyed but simply can transform its form, then we have existed since the beginning of time and will cease to exist with the end of time. Likewise, our mind too is not just the information that we gather but also the evolutionary memory that we hold within. A newly born baby instinctively knows how to suckle to have her mother's milk. An ape senses a threat in the wild. Birds intuitively sense the shifting of winds, the change in the seasons. There are countless such examples. That proves that our mind is not only the information that we gather but is also evolutionary. In fact, there are many more layers to the nature of our memory.
Physiologically speaking, we are not just one species, but we, within us, host colonies of different bacterias and microorganisms. Many are born and many disintegrate every day. When I refer to 'I', am I including them in me? When I say, my country, my language, my community, my school, my family or my body, am I identifying the 'I' in all of them?
The purpose of asking all these questions is simple. To find where is that 'I'. Is it in everything that we identify with? Or, is it neither in my body nor my mind? Can I be definitively be defined as an entity? Or, is the 'I' boundless?
It's not an intellectual question but rather an experiential one. One must empty themselves to experience the true nature of 'I'.
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