Who Am I ? Vedanta Pure Consciousness Universe kabbalah

U • ni • verse (yoo’ ne vurs):
One song; the totality of all the things that exist.

According to Vedanta, there are only five reasons why humans suffer. The first is not knowing who we are. The second is identifying with our ego or self-image. The third is clinging to that which is transient and unreal. The fourth is recoiling in fear of that which is transient and unreal. And the fifth is the fear of death.

Vedanta also says that the five causes of suffering are all contained in the first cause — not knowing who we are. If we can answer this one basic question, Who am I? we may find the answer to all other related questions like, Where did I come from? What is the meaning and purpose of my life? Where do I go when I die?

Now, if someone were to ask, ‟Who are you?” your response would probably be “Oh, my name is so-and-so. I’m an American, or I am Japanese, or I am the president of this company. All these answers refer to your self-image or to an object outside your self: a name, a place, a circumstance. This process of identifying with your self-image or the objects of your experience is called object referral.

You may also identify with your body and say ‟This is my body. This bag of flesh and bones is who I am.” But then the question is, What is the body, and why call it yours? The body that you call yours, is really the raw material of the universe: recycled earth, water, and air. But so is the tree outside your window. Why call the body yours when you do not call the stars, the moon, or the tree outside your window yours? Of course your body seems nearer to you, but this assumes that you know where the “I am” that you think you are is physically located.

Many people somehow feel that the “I” they call themselves, the skin-encapsulated awareness, is located somewhere in their head. Other people think it’s located somewhere behind the heart or solar plexus. But no scientific experiment has ever found a center of awareness in any one location in space or time.

An interesting insight that comes to us from both Vedic Science and the Jewish Kabbalah is that the center of our awareness is the center of all space and time. It is at once everywhere and nowhere. But let’s assume for a moment that indeed your awareness is located where you are physically sitting. If this universe has infinite dimensions - and physicists assure us that it does - then infinity extends in all directions from where you are.

You are in the center of the universe, but so am I because infinity extends in all directions from where I am. Infinity also extends in all directions from a peasant in China, a dog in Siberia, and a tree in Africa. The truth is, I am here, but I am also everywhere else because here is there from every other point in space. You are there, but you are also everywhere else because there is everywhere, or nowhere specifically.

Who Am I Continued.... Page-2