#onneness

I have frequently asked myself this question, never really knowing how to answer it. The closest I get is by identifying myself with a feeling, a sensation of ‘me-ness.’ During meditation, the same question arose, only now in a different way, leading me to gain a whole new conception of what I might be and what I might not be.

I didn’t ask myself who I was, but I asked, ‘when can I call something me?’. When does something belong to me, when is something a part of me? I realized almost immediately that everything by which I have gained my sense of identity came from my senses. As Scottish philosopher David Hume says, ideas are copies of sense-data. Meaning that we can only have an idea of something we have experienced through the senses. So, my whole idea of I had to have come from experience given by my senses. Having come through memories, feelings, perceptions in this moment of my environment, of my body, my thoughts. The only manner by which I have ever been able to fathom the idea of ‘I’ of ‘me’ has been through experience. In this sense, I was everything. However, I could also retain the sensation of me-ness by stripping away attributes.

So I thought, would I be myself without my fingers? My hand? My arm? My body? Am I still myself without perception? I came to see that I could think of no single thing which really made me, me… I had lived my whole life having had a strong conception of what ‘I’ meant without ever really knowing its true meaning. Now, this sensation slowly started fading away. Was I everything? Or was I nothing? Is there even an ‘I’ to begin with? The question still lingers to this moment, what I do know is that I fundamentally have no idea of what ‘I’ truly means.

Often times we go through life full-heartedly believing that we know something. Be it who we truly are, the proper direction for politics, or what the best brand of diapers is. It makes sense that we do so otherwise we would have to doubt every step moving forward. There is not enough time for us to research every little thing in utmost detail lest we want to lead what people would call a normal life. However, we can be wrong in believing in something, or we might discover we never really knew what we believed in the first place, but, realizing either of these outcomes has its payoff.

The Greek philosopher Socrates was famous for leading people into a state of aporia; an irresolvable internal contradiction or logical disjunction in a text, argument, or theory. He was a master in leading people’s beliefs into contradictions. In this manner, he traveled the country and state confusing people, under the accusation of both this and deteriorating the youth he was sentenced to death. You might think justly so, yet Socrates’ method had its function. By being brought into a state of confusion concerning our belief systems, we are excited to seek farther, to delve deeper into confines of knowledge, and to hopefully find truth.