'Who am I?' - An irrelevant question

‘Who am I?’ is an irrelevant question. Lots of people, including me, have wasted loads of time trying to answer it. Now I have come to realise what we were really doing. We were looking for a black cat in a dark room that was not there. It does not even matter if we were blind or not. Do not believe anybody who claims to have found the answer, or worse, wants to help you find the answer. He is either delusional or trying to fool you. Why are we so obsessed with finding the answer to that irrelevant question? Why do we need to be some thing?  

‘I’ comes from ego. It is our ego that wants us to be something - not just ‘something’, but something that does not die. 

If someones answer to that question ‘Who am I?’ is ‘body’, ego will be quick to reject it as body is not permanent. Then you find thousand reasons to justify why you are not your body. The most common justification is, 

‘You have a hand, but that is your hand and not you. You have a face, but that is also not you. All your body is an accumulation of the food you eat. So you are not your body. So, you must be something else.’ 

No matter how convincing that sounds, if you spent some time thinking about it, you will realise that it is BL - a bullshit logic. Not being your body is not a guarantee that you are something else that is permanent. Our brain is configured in a way that it wants to associate everything with something. Truth is, you do not have to be anything.

There are probably easier ways of proving that you are not your body. A simple thought experiment will prove it. If all your memories were transplanted to another body with no other memory then that body will become you. You are what you remember about yourself. Your memories are not your body.  By the way, memory transplant is not fiction anymore. Memories have been successfully transferred in rats. So, if you are not your body, then are you your memories, your mind?

If someones answer to that question ‘Who am I?’ is ‘mind’, ego will be quick to reject it as mind is not permanent. Then you find thousand reasons to justify why you are not your mind. You are born with a blank slate. Your accumulate memories with experience and they die with you, just like your body. Memories are ever changing. If you are your memories, do you die if you loose all your memories in an accident? You definitely do not. So, if you are neither your body nor your mind, then what are you?

What about ‘soul’? Soul is the most abused word, a word that should not even exist. But it does, only because our ego does. When you cannot explain something with logic, you fill in the blanks with fiction. It also gives you hope that you future life might be better than your present. If someone tries to question the assumption behind ’soul', it is easy to shut them up by saying that the truth is much larger than what our tiny brain can comprehend. Yes, off course. All our five senses with which we perceive the world is limited, hence our knowledge is limited. We, indeed, can never know everything. But it makes no sense to me to invent something unexplainable to explain the unexplainable. What is even more amazing is that soul is defined as 'energy' to make it sound scientific. Everything is energy - true. Energy can neither be created nor be destroyed - true. So, soul is indestructible- bingo. No, its BL.

Soul fits all the bills. It is neither your body nor your mind. It is something that does not die. Your ego loves it and soul sells. You jump with joy at the slightest hint of its existence. There are thousands of articles in Google and hundreds of books written on soul and past life experiences. People earn a lot of money doing Past Life Regression therapies. Truth be told, there is no scientific evidence of soul yet. If there was, it would have been in your science text books by now, and someone would have got a Nobel prize for proving it. Genetic memory theory might have a faint possibility of being true, but that has nothing to do with soul. Number of living things has increased over the years. Does that mean new souls are being created everyday? If souls are created, the they are destroyed as well. Then soul is not energy, but another meaningless temporary form like our body and mind. But then comes the twisted logic about your brain and things it cannot comprehend. How can you argue with someone in the domain of unknown?

Now we know why we are obsessed with the question 'Who am I?'. Because it satisfies our ego. Gives meaning to our otherwise meaningless life. Soul was born out of our ego to be 'something' instead of 'nothing'. But still, it is an irrelevant question. It does not matter whether you consider yourself as body, mind, energy, or even selfish genes. What ever be your definition of 'you', it is temporary.

If Big Bang Theory is correct then energy began its existence at big bang. Where ever there was energy, there was space. The whole space is our universe. The internal changes of energy within our universe is time. There is no time without change in space. If space stops changing, which means the clock stops moving, the sun freezes burning, your body stops degrading, your neurons stops firing, etc, then there is no time. Any small change anywhere in space, and there is time. The internal changes of energy, like waves or currents in the ocean, create temporary features like the solar system, our planet, us and even our ego. None is permanent. None is important. So, ditch the ego and ditch your soul. Stop asking ‘Who am I?’. 

You are insignificant, and so is everything else. There is no purpose for your existence. The more important question is how are you in your infinitesimally small moment of existence. Are you happy? Are you satisfied? If you are…you really do not care! If you are not, then do something about it rather than trying to find a stupid answer to an irrelevant question. Do not let others make money by selling you 'hope'. It was rightly said in the TV series Prison Break, 'Hope is for people who do not already live in grace'.