Who am I

This is I think the most important question that we all ask but never get a straight answer. Potentially the reason for that is that the question itself is not fully correct. My brother and I discussed this for a while and came to an interesting conclusion. Let me take you through that discussion.

Lets start with defining "I" first. If I was shown a picture of my childhood and asked who is that - I would say its me. But that child in the picture is very different from the current me in all aspects (mind, body, emotions etc) then I would say "it was me". Almost everything about the 5 yr old me and current me is different except something we call "I" or "me". So you see the question should be "what is I" and not "who am I"

Now further inquiring into what is I - may be its the memory, but people with amnesia don't loose the "I". Reading about it seems the enlightened call it consciousness. Its something that is not physical but sort of like energy, it can only be experienced (perhaps easily during meditation).

But Buddha also says there is no "I", perhaps he actually means no separate "I". Sort of like sunshine that's everywhere - when comes into my room it doesn't become my sunshine, even though it lights my room. So the consciousness that is everywhere lights my body but its not my consciousness its the same consciousness that lights all things. As we saw previously that "I" is not the body; and consciousness is not mine, so there is no "I" as we think of it. There is observation but there is no separate observer. But this is just conceptual knowledge we need to go beyond it as mentioned in advita (no two) vendanta (veda - knowledge, anta - beyond) and also told by Buddha.