How Will I Know What "I" Am
Ever since we realized that life isn’t lived solely through materialism and that we need to establish a balance between the material and the spiritual, we have turned toward certain spiritual goals. One of the most commonly heard phrases is “being yourself.” But what does it mean to be yourself?
Many different fields and schools of thought offer their unique interpretations on this matter. Yet, it’s one of those states that, even if you read about it or listen to explanations, it’s not enough. You understand it, but at the same time, you don’t. Who am I? What is this thing I call "I"? What will happen when I am truly myself? How can I become myself? These questions continuously arise in our minds.
Our first step should be to bring this question down from the mental level to deeper layers.
The mind is a fast mechanism that believes it can find the answers to every question. It is so fast that it deceives itself, because within its speed, we lose something crucial: Wholeness. Since we try to manage all our investments and daily activities through the mind, we mistakenly consider the mind to be the only authority.
And as we define ourselves through our minds, we become trapped in our thoughts. I once read a beautiful quote on a poster: "Don’t believe everything you think."
So, are belief and thought two different things? If I am not what I think, then what am I? Am I what I believe?
In Taoism, we divide the centers of energy into three:
The abdomen, the energy center of the physical body; the chest, the energy center of emotions; and the third eye, the energy center of the mind. While "I" is created through the interaction of these three centers, we tend to reduce ourselves to the mind today, leaving out a significant portion of the body.
In doing so, I skip over a large part of myself.
Can I truly be myself if my emotions and physicality are not included in this "I"?
Can you hold onto your thoughts? Can you prove their existence? And even if you can prove their existence, can you follow every thought? No.
Your thoughts need support from below — from your abdomen and your chest.
Rather than believing that thoughts create emotions, we now know that emotions create thoughts. One emotion leads to another thought, which then creates another emotion. But at the core lies a single emotion. Before we had the capacity for analytical thinking, when we were babies, we were only feeling.
When I stop boxing myself into ideas and instead begin to perceive how my body feels, what state my emotions are in, and how my mind observes this, then I will know what this thing called "I" is. Sometimes I’ll find it, then lose it again.
But I’ll know that I haven’t really lost it; the mind will occasionally obscure it, and then I’ll part the veil. I will open myself to my emotions and my body. And in doing so, light will enter within me.
And I will remember who I am.