Introduction
Ask yourself: “Who am I?” Only by deeply exploring this question will you find the truth. — Ramana Maharshi
It is mid-afternoon. I am 12 years old, lying on my back on my bed, vaguely looking at the ceiling. My mother suddenly comes in and asks: “Are you sick?” When I say “No,” she says: “Then what are you doing?” My response, without any hesitation: “I am thinking.”
Looking back, I realize it was one of the first times I had begun to think about life in a deeply reflective way. But what exactly is this mysterious thing we call reflective thinking? What does it mean that we can reflect on our lives, our actions, our decisions? And what is the capacity for self-awareness that allows us to be conscious of ourselves as distinct entities, separate from others and our environment? In a sense, this book began when I started to notice that I could reflect. What follows is the culmination of more than fifty years of reflection and thought concerning what being aware of myself as a separate being suggests about who I am and what life is about.
Consciousness
Among the many mysteries of life, perhaps the greatest of all is that consciousness exists. Without consciousness there would be no science, no art, no religion, no friendship, no true romance, no questions to answer, no life memories, no self-awareness, and no modern technology (at least as we usually think about these things). So how did we come to be conscious, aware of our existence? Did we create it, or was it there from the beginning? How did we come to think of ourselves as separate from the world in which we are embedded? No one knows. Oh, there are theories. In fact, for thousands of years the greatest minds in history have grappled with this question, producing speculations ranging from the religious, philosophical, scientific, psychological … to the absurd.
For instance, there are modern theories that speculate that consciousness does not exist. A strange argument, that. For anyone who makes it—who questions the existence of consciousness—is using consciousness to create an argument rejecting its existence.
Skeptico: What does that mean?
(Let me introduce you here to an old friend who often asks questions and sometimes challenges what I am writing. I call him Skeptico, and he is often found in dialogue with Wisdom Seeker.)
Wisdom Seeker: To question whether or not consciousness exists requires someone being conscious of existing and who thinks there are other conscious beings who exist and can hear and understand the argument. If a person is not conscious, how would he or she formulate an argument? If you do not believe there were other conscious beings to understand your argument, why would you take the time to formulate one?
Leaving aside these absurd theories, one eternally intriguing question is: What does it mean to “be conscious?” Although this question has been debated for thousands of years, no answers have arisen upon which the majority of people can agree. What is more, we do not seem to be making much progress toward an answer. In fact, there is probably more disagreement today about what consciousness is than there has ever been.
Will we ever understand consciousness? It is hard to say. Will the answer come from modern research into the activities of the physical brain? Maybe, but as consciousness research scholar David Chalmers says, “It may be possible to know all the physical facts about the world and still not know about consciousness.”[i] What we do know is that researching the physical brain has, so far, failed to find answers to the core questions and led only to wildly differing opinions (and to the frustrated response of a few researchers who say that since our mechanical instruments can’t find consciousness, it must not exist).
The hopes stirred by brain research with regard to consciousness are similar to the hopes fueled a hundred years ago by the incredible success in physics. Then, the idea became fashionable that with its awesome powers, physics would provide an answer to all the riddles of the universe, including consciousness. But such was not to be the case. Rather, the tables were turned, for the deeper physics went in its exploration of the material world, the more mysterious the world became and the more consciousness escaped its grasp. Gradually, many physicists came to believe that consciousness would not be explained by physics, because consciousness was the very source of the material world. Nobel Prize-winning physicist Max Planck, for instance, commented:
I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.[ii]
Many others joined Planck in this view. According to Nobel Laureate Eugene Wigner: “It is not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness.”[iii] And Sir James Jeans, thermodynamicist and astronomer, observed quite pithily the direction many physicists were going: “The stream of knowledge is heading toward a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine.”[iv]
This theme, that consciousness gives rise to, lies behind, and is necessary for the physical world to exist, became a powerful idea among many physicists in the twentieth century. British astrophysicist Arthur Eddington reflected this view in Science and the Unseen World, saying that he had come to believe that more was necessary to explain the world than what was being discovered in physics, and that he and many of his colleagues were turning to the one place “where more might become known,” to the “starting point,” which was “human consciousness.” Eddington felt consciousness was the crucial place to look for a deeper understanding, for the world is made of “mind stuff.”[v] He was joined in this conclusion by the great mathematical physicist Roger Penrose, who stated emphatically that in the continuing development of physics, “I am arguing for some kind of active role for consciousness, and indeed a powerful one.”[vi] Nobel-winning biologist George Wald put the matter succinctly: “Mind, rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of life, has existed always.” It is “the source … of physical reality.”[vii]
Identity
The purpose of this book, though, is not to focus on the many differing opinions about consciousness or the conflicts between science and theology concerning it. (See my book Consciousness and Memory for a discussion of those issues.) Rather, the goal here is to explore Ramana’s question about identity: Who Am I?
The issue of identity, however, is thoroughly wrapped up in the question of consciousness. The thought that I am conscious of existing—that I am aware of myself as an individual being—brings forward another mystery: What is this “I” of which I am aware? What is this thing called “myself,” or “David,” or “me?”
There are many different ways I can think about who I am: as my body; as part of my family, tribe, community, or nation; as the role I play or have played in society (writer, entrepreneur, investor, workshop leader, business executive); as a rebel; as a seeker after wisdom; as my ailments, either physical or psychological; as my possibilities; as a failure; as a difference-maker; as a loving person, and on and on. For most of us, our identity shifts a number of times and in various ways as we go about the process of living, and it even shifts from moment to moment as we wrestle with questions such as: “Where am I going?” Or perhaps, “Where would I like to go?” “Who would I like to be?” “Who is the real me, deep down?” “What is the most complete understanding of myself?”
These questions are always circling around when we reflect, so wise teachers have turned them into tools for edification, as exemplified by Ramana Maharshi suggesting that those who came to him for guidance simply ask, over and over: “Who am I?” Ramana’s radical point is that by pursuing this one question to its ultimate conclusion we will be able to discover not only who we are, but also to discover the mysteries of existence.
Plotinus, the great Neoplatonist of the third century CE, was saying virtually the same thing as Ramana in asking us to discover our real nature when he said, “Withdraw into yourself and look.” The words of Mencius, the best-known successor to Confucius, are an even earlier hint in the same direction: “Who knows his own nature, knows heaven.”[viii] The great Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart, seems to be saying the same in this passage: “To get at the core of God at his greatest, one must first get into the core of himself … for no one can know God who has not first known himself.”[ix]
This may also be what Jesus was suggesting when, in Luke 17:21, he said: “The kingdom of God is within you.” Socrates was certainly making a similar point when he insisted that it was not only crucial to “know thyself,” but that “an unexamined life is not worth living.” And the modern Sufi teacher, Hazrat Inayat Khan (who was instrumental in bringing Sufism to America), seemed to be mining the same vein when he spoke these enigmatic words: “I searched and searched for God but only found myself. So I searched and searched for myself and I found God.”[x]
These quotes, and many similar ones from wisdom figures through the ages, make clear that exploring the nature of identity has been at the heart of the human search since the dawn of history. Although this inquiry has not provided definitive answers for most people, the questioning itself has shaped who we are, how we think, and how we live. Perhaps, in fact, this is the primary reason for such questioning. Perhaps the point is not intellectual answers but an ever-deepening experience of what it means to be conscious and alive, and, ultimately, to provide a glimpse of what lies beyond the individual self and individual identity. The poet Rainer Maria Rilke suggested as much when he advised a young man to “have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and … try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language.” In the end, according to Rilke, it was through living the questions fully that one might gradually, “without even noticing it,” live into the answers.[xi]
And Beyond
Given the centrality of consciousness and identity to the human experience, it is not surprising that both are considered vitally important in religious and spiritual traditions. In Hinduism, consciousness is the starting point, for it is seen as giving rise to the material world and jnana yoga, the path of wisdom or consciousness, is a primary path for opening into liberation. Through jnana yoga, the seeker has a chance to discover the truth beyond name and form. In Buddhism, the perceived world is often characterized as illusory—with awareness being the most valuable tool with which to discover ultimate truth. Therefore, cultivating awareness is the most skillful means available to “wake up” to what really is and who we really are.
Changing or expanding one’s consciousness has always been a central feature of Christianity. Many have spoken and written about developing Christ Consciousness. And consider the meaning of the critically important word repentance, which has a crucial place in the message that both Jesus and Paul delivered. Metanoia, the Greek word most frequently translated as “repentance” in the New Testament, does not carry the connotations of being sorrowful or having regret that are often attached to repentance in modern times. Rather, metanoia means to change one’s mind or change one’s consciousness. The message to “repent,” therefore, originally meant “to think differently” after an experience or insight, to step into a different (and larger) frame of mind. The Apostle Paul was very focused on this: “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus”[xii]—which I understand to mean that those who follow the way of Jesus must attempt to expand into the state of consciousness that Jesus exemplified.
In light of these thoughts, it is little wonder that the wisdom traditions of the world suggest that the exploration of identity and of consciousness are two of the best ways to arrive at an understanding of life and living. They say that by asking: “From whence did such a mysterious thing as existence come?” and “How is my personal consciousness related to the larger reality within which I find myself?” we have the possibility of joining Thoreau in his quest: “To drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience.”[xiii]
This, then, is the prologue, the beginning of a journey through consciousness and identity, of who we are and what life is about. The following pages are the culmination of reflections starting more than sixty years ago—as I was gazing at the ceiling rather than doing chores or playing games or studying. I could choose other figural moments for my personal starting point, some much earlier, but right now, I pick that day as the day I became aware of entering into a conscious, individual human life.
Thought Experiment – When did you first become conscious?
What is the earliest moment you can remember of being conscious of yourself, of being aware that you were an independent and separate being who had the power to make choices and create an independent life?
[ii] J. W. N. Sullivan, “Interview with Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck,” Series of Interviews with Leading Men of Science, no. 6, The Observer, January 25, 1931.
[iii] Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner, Quantum Enigma: Physcis Encounters Consciousness (Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2011), 237.
[iv] James Jeans, The Mysterious Universe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 139. First edition 1930.
[v] Arthur Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1928), 276
[vi] Roger Penrose, The Emperor’s New Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 446
[vii] Wald, George, “Life and Mind in the Universe,” International Journal of Quantum Chemistry, vol. 26, Issue Supplement 11, March 12/15, 1984, Abstract.
[viii] Mencius quoted in Rodney Leon Taylor and Howard Yuen Fung Choy in The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Confucianism: A-M, from the definition Chin ch’i hsin (Fully Realize the Heart-Mind), 81.
[ix] Raymond B. Blankney, Meister Eckhart (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1941), 146.
[xi] Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, trans. M. D Herter Norton (New York: W. W. Norton and Co.), 27. This is the fourth letter from Rainer Maria Rilke to Franz Xaver Kappus in Worpswede, Germany on July 16, 1903.
[xii] Philippians 2:5 (King James Version).
[xiii] Henry David Thoreau, Walden (New York: A Signet Classic/New American Library, 1960),