Who Are We? Let’s Start With Who We’re Not
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
“Remember who we truly are.” WTH does that mean? Many new-agers use this phrase, including me. Whenever I do I ask myself, does anyone know what that means. It’s one of those statements that people make and no one questions it. They just nod their head. Sometimes I see their eyes getting glossy and I’m sure they must be thinking - Yeah - Okay - Whatever. I know what I mean when I use it so let’s see if I can explain it. I’ll start with what we are not and see if the explanation emerges from there.
The mind AKA the ego needs definitions. It works through comparison and labels and needs to put concepts in a box. The ego needs to define who we are. Define a self-image. Define self worth. The ego has the need to constantly be fed. Whether it is to diminish or enhance the image it doesn’t matter. It only needs the blank filled in. I am (fill in the blank). We’ll start with the easy one:
We are not our things - We love to use things to define who we are. Starting with my toys, then my car, my house, etc. The ego loves things because it’s easy to define self using what things we have compared to other people. Evita from Evolving Beings wrote a post this week about David Hoffman, a documentary filmmaker, who just lost all his “things” in a fire. He chose to look at the positive of the event without getting all messed up at the loss of his treasures. Evita discusses the concept about us not being our things.
“Can’t take it with us” is a truism that we all know and describes the place that things hold in our true identity. The things we have or don’t have are definitely not who we truly are.
We are not what we do - I am a doctor, lawyer, Indian chief. Our education, Our societal “status. The ego needs these labels to makes sense of who we are. I am smart or I am stupid or I am rich or poor. These labels change over time. They are not with us from birth to death therefore how can they be who we truly are. Once again, they are just the box that our mind likes to put us in to give us the illusion of self. Defining our self-worth by designating what we do to who we are. Anything that changes with time cannot be who we are.
We are not our roles - I am a father, mother, husband, wife. I am black, I am Canadian. I am Jewish. I am a Christian I am a victim. These identifications are merely roles. Our mind can attach to these roles and we can believe that they are who we are. Aren’t they just more examples of food for the ego to put us into a form?
We are not our minds - Many like to identify our self with our thoughts. The mind uses the content of our life to define who we are. It uses our past “story,” and it uses what I have mentioned to form the sense of self. It uses our past beliefs to determine who we are. Lots of people have great minds but does that make them who they are? Is that all we are? Are they better human beings because of their minds? Can we think our way through life? Our mind is a great tool for interpreting information. That’s what it is - a tool. Not who we are.
We are not our bodies - When we look in the mirror what do we see? The mind uses the body to form an identity. We are either male or female. Fat or thin. Beautiful or ugly. The physical image we see in the mirror can often be confused with who we are. Many people tie their sense of self worth with the outward appearance of their body, both to enhance or diminish their sense of who they are and their place in society. Society in general does a great job of perpetrating that illusion. Of course these aspects change over time so if we think that we are our body then when that beauty or strength is lost we can also lose our sense of self. This happens to many who believe their outward appearance is who they are. That can’t be who we are.
Our body consists of water and carbon. How can a blob of these elements be who we are. The ritual of dressing up the body at a funeral for all to take one last look at the person makes me laugh. Can that be the person’s true self in that coffin?
My mother passed in 2001. She had lung cancer and had quit chemo. She was basically waiting to die. Her breathing was very labored because of her condition. I was on my way back from Vancouver to be with her when she transitioned. My sister described what happened moments before she died. She said my mother took one deep breath and after that her breathing became even and unimpeded.
I knew that at the moment she took that deep breath was when her true self left her body. Her eternal self moved on.
That’s a clue to the answer of who we truly are.
If we are not our things or what we do or our roles in society or our minds or our bodies then we must be the observer of all these things. Shut off your mind for a minute and feel. Can you feel the core of your being? Can you feel the life force running through your body? Can you stand back and observe that your mind is thinking. That awareness is your true self. Like someone who had an out of body experience or near death give witness to this awareness. 
So many names for it. Divine self, god self, higher self, soul. It has no form. When you peel away all the layers it’s what is left at the core.
Your true self has no fear. It is eternal. It has no needs. It has no feelings of separation. It has no limitations or walls. It is your awareness of right now. Not your past. Not your future. It has the inner peace that we all crave because it knows without needing to understand how it knows. It’s what comes to the forefront in times like the death of a loved one or a time of emotional upheaval when the mind steps aside and allows your true self to be in control. When anything that you have identified with as self is lost, like wealth or a job or like David, his things. These times are your opportunity to see your true self. To become aware that you are not those things.
When you open up and see who you really are you are experiencing the awakening I so often talk about. You are recognizing your true self. Once you know who you are you will never feel unworthy or imperfect. You will not be driven or defined by ego. You will be the observer of your human life story. You gain the ability to detach yourself from it and see it for what it truly is. A game of life and you get to play it for a while until you return to your formless self. Only now when we remember who we truly are we can go from doing to be-ing.
Like the story of Moses when he asked God what name should I say when they ask me who you are. His answer was,
I Am That I Am
It can also be said, I will be that I will be. That’s what I mean when I say “true self.” That’s who we are. We are be-ings. We are spiritual be-ings. Our true self is a piece of God.
Formless … Limitless … Eternal
I Am (no blank to fill)
Related posts
Higher Self - Channelling - New Age Words Demystified
My sole intention is to nudge others awake. To help them recognize the changes they are experiencing. To help as many as I can in their search for answers to what is happening to them right now. There is no point “singing to the choir” and having nice warm, fuzzy conversations with others who have the same perspective.
Sure it may be easier, but does it help anyone? Strokes the ego maybe. Were not supposed to have egos. Visiting new age forums is nice once in a while. I find that a lot of “spiritually enlightened” people just love to hear themselves go on and on describing all these concepts and wrapping them with terms that sound good. To me, this is what gets new-agers a bad wrap in so-called “normal” society, whatever that is these days.
I feel for new people who are just beginning to ask the questions of what life is about and hoping there’s more to it because this dialogue can only serve to confuse them and possibly make them discount it as mumbo jumbo. (I use “mumbo jumbo” a lot. I must like the sound. Kinda like “google”)
We need to be inclusive and not make out like we know something others don’t. We are all in this together.
Sure this stuff is hard to put into plain talk sometimes. Everyone has different ways of defining or explaining these new age terms. If a person is not open to receive this info and pre-judges it as craziness then it is not the time for them. My posts are for the people that have cracked open the door to see what’s inside.
Higher Self - Middle Self - Lower Self - How Many People Am I?
This one get used a lot. Higher self. It’s like a person is broken into pieces. No it’s not schizophrenia. May sound like it. Lots of native cultures and ancient cultures talk about the different aspects of self that govern different actions and responses. There really is only one self. Another way to describe this is the thinking mind or ego (lower self) and your intuition (higher self) The thinking mind is what we are all accustomed to using. Many have the belief that the mind is all there is. The brain or mind controls everything. Whatever we say or do is from direct command of the mind. Is there another factor that determines our actions?
If you asked a woman about intuition most would say that it is real. Guys, if pressed, would probably agree. Have you ever been in a situation where you did or said something that afterward you thought “Why did i say that or why did I do that? I don’t know what I was thinking.” Or how about being in a situation where you needed to pull someone from a fire or help an accident victim. What happens to the mind? It is not in control. You act on automatic. No thinking.
That is your higher self controlling your actions. Your logical mind is not deciding what to do, it’s your intuition. It’s your spirit. I call it your “god self.” It’s what we all have. It’s what we all use and just don’t recognize it as that. When you use feel or intuition to make a decision on an action that is your higher self running the ship. In times of heightened emotion like fear or love or anger is when our higher selves usually takes over from the mind. That’s where the term “lost my mind” comes from.
People who have truly awakened to the concept that we are spiritual beings experiencing a human lifetime will then harmonize these pieces of self into one. Not by discounting the mind (ego) but to use it as the beautiful tool that it was designed to be, with the understanding that we are not pieces of self with one being more important or higher or lower than the other.
That’s all these terms describing self are. Nothing mysterious. We use all aspects of our self every day. Mind - conscious -sub conscious - lower self - ego. God-self. Buddhists call it the Buddha within. Native Americans call it the higher self. Mind body spirit. Another new age term. It’s all the same thing. Are you enlightened now? Ok so how about this one.
Channelling - Not Your Dead Uncle
No it’s not some people sitting in a circle holding hands speaking to their dead uncle. Channelling is also an everyday, everybody occurrence. New agers love to use this one to really spook the people who might be checking out what this talk of a great shift is all about. A lot say they channel angelic entities. My view is that there are channelling themselves but they don’t have the confidence or feel that people will think the information is not valid if it comes from them.
Another way to describe channelling is speaking from the heart. Open, honest communication without filtering through the brain. The mind can hold a person back from saying things from the fear of being judged as weird or crazy.
The times when we channel are always connected to emotion. Same as the example of the higher self when we are passionate about a subject or in a traumatic situation or even at times of the death of a loved one, Anytime when we are stirred inside we can channel. What it feels like is that the words just come flowing out. No breaks. No hesitations. No thinking. Just our true self expressing our emotions or beliefs. If you listen to someone who is talking at these times you can hear the difference in the sound of their voice. I know I can feel when someone is speaking from their heart. That’s channelling.
So-called channelers have merely mastered the ability to take their thinking, logical mind out of the process. It can be achieved by deep breathing. When someone is breathing deeply their consciousness is on the breath. Try it. Try to think about things when you are intentionally breathing deeply. Your full attention is on your breathing. Then without the mind at rest the words can flow freely. This is just a learned process. My main point is that we all do it. The difference is that it happens for most only at times of high emotion.
Channelling is not just talking. People channel when they are doing things they are passionate about. Artists. Singers. Writers. Poets. Even athletes when they are in the “zone.” They are not thinking they are just letting it flow out. I wrote a post about Paul Potts, the winner of Britain’s Got Talent last year. Paul Potts was channelling. He is such a shy guy with no self-confidence that if he didn’t channel his god-self than the sounds that came out of him would have not been possible. Of course no one would call it channelling (except me) but that is what channelling is. Free, open, unobstructed flow of words or actions done from the heart not the head.
When I blasted awake in 2000, I remember it was non stop channelling for me. From the time I woke up in the morning to the time I went to bed I could be pouring out concepts of love, compassion, unity, beauty, god, perfection while with my mind I was thinking about things I had to get at the grocery store. It was a weird feeling but also an awesome one. After about 6 months it slowed down but not till after almost everyone I had known had written me off as crazy. That was okay because I wasn’t the same person they had known anyway.
That’s two of the most used and misunderstood terms in new age lingo. I don’t know if these explanations brought them down to easier to relate to concepts or not. I was going to get into the word “dimensions” but this post is long enough.
So now everyone go and channel your higher self.
Wooo! Sounds spooky huh?
Photos courtesy of FeelFreeTravel
Lee Carroll from Kryon.com - defintion of channelling
Related posts
Subscribe by email
Recent Posts
- Change Is Finally Here - No Not Obama
- It’s 10/10/10 - Time For A Change
- Is The Universe Aligning For An Obama Win?
- Science Studying Spirit - Out-Of-Body Experiences
- “Healing The Rift” Between Science And Spirituality
- Science And Spirituality Joining In The Search For God
- Do You Believe In Yourself? Don’t Ask Me
- Transition Of The Soul - A Death Story
Sponsors
Community
