Finding out who you REALLY are

[garentee]

I have been living my life un consciously for most of my time here. I have never really taken the time to figure out who I REALLY am. This is an interesting road with many twists and turns and I am interested in hearing from others who have done this. It occurs to me that most of us do NOT do this...

[Jarrod]

When you say who you really are, are you talking about internal values composition sort of thing or more a experiential understanding of 'who' you really are?

[dezzo]

List everything that you really, really desire, I mean EVERYTHING from the most material to the most spiritual. Then ask youself "What is the quality that I am getting out of all of these?" Look at the quality of your desires, for example is it "the feeling of being alive" that is common to all of your desires, is it "freedom" is it "love", is it "oneness", what is it? Whatever this quality is, it's you. It's who you truly are. It's not necessarily the desires themselves that you want, but the quality you get from them. And you can choose to FEEL that quality right now, you can CHOOSE to feel the feeling of obtaining all of those desires right now. So what you have to do is rest in that quality, rest yourself in that core and then give the world that feeling from that core. Your purpose in life is to realize that you ARE your desires and you must give that as a gift to the world in your own way. And the challenge is to give your true gift through your fears. You have to rest on the edge of giving your true gift through the density of your fears. Go very slowly.

I hope that helps.

Deniz

[speakindoodles]

I think watching the documentry "What the Bleep Do We Know!?" and "The Secret" can help you out and gain what you want out of life.

[The Cloud]

You're never figure out who you REALLY are, because it can't be figured. You can only be who you really are, you can't describe who that is.

If you want to know about your beliefs and thoughts, then that is a rather interesting endeavor. Be wary not to let it consume you, because you'll never totally fix yourself so that your beliefs and thoughts are perfect. This I say from experience.

However, you can repair dysfunctional beliefs to a degree. If that's what you want to do, then I recommend that you start writing your thoughts down. Pay particular attention to the things you find difficult to write down, as those are the things that you should focus on the most. If there is something in you that you don't want to acknowledge, you can bet that it's something that you should know about. Asking the question of "Why do I feel this way about that?" is a good start. From there, it's pretty much following your gut feeling.

Edit: You are not your beliefs, thoughts, and feelings. These are things that happen to you, and that you can affect, just like anything external to your body. The reason I got so wrapped up in fixing my beliefs was that I thought they were me, and that I was something that could be made better through fixing. But they weren't, and eventually I realized that a faulty belief can be dismissed if it comes up, rather than having to fix it. So go nuts, but don't become a nut

[garentee]

Originally Posted by speakindoodles

I think watching the documentry "What the Bleep Do We Know!?" and "The Secret" can help you out and gain what you want out of life.

It is not so much what I want out of life, but who I am in this life.. I guess the real bent is to be able to know others.. I believe that in order to know others you may need to know yourself. At this point in time it is just theoretical questioning because I am not sure if I actually need to do this. I literally woke up this morning and thought about it and thought I would see what others here had to say.

[garentee]

To the Cloud
A lot of what you suggested are things that I already do. that said though, your perspective makes a lot of sense. I guess along with many other things I have been saying lately I know I am doing the right things and I am fixing that which needs fixed for continued success in life. thanks G

[Evan]

Pay attention to what you notice in passing. What stands out for you at the moment. What grips you - you don't why it just does. And what interests do you have that others find inexplicable. These are all worthwhile hints to follow to your self.

One structured exercise is laddering. It can be done positively or negatively - you can do both of course. Pick some things you like. Start with the first one. Ask yourself why you like it. Take that answer and ask why you like that. Do this until you get to something like: just because I do, or, because that's just me. If you like you can also do it with dislikes. Then look at all the answers and put them together into one slogan or image or quality. It sounds simple and it is but I have found the results can be profound.

[Dan.Linehan]

Watch yourself from a completely external perspective. See how you interact with people with the sound turned off. What is your typical day like? That's who you are.

[Rose of Cairo]

Originally Posted by dezzo

And the challenge is to give your true gift through your fears. You have to rest on the edge of giving your true gift through the density of your fears. Go very slowly.

Deniz, I found your post very interesting! What do you mean exactly with giving this gift "through your fears"? Is it about doing what you fear, or what do you mean?

Thank you.

[dezzo]

Hey Rose of Cairo,

Thanks.

I think a good way to understand this is to read about the great saints and heroes of our time. You may notice that the ones who gave their deepest gifts actually got killed for it. We live in a funny world like that.

Anyway, don't jump into your fears, just lean towards them. Live on the edge. When you are giving your gifts through your fears, you should be feeling an anguished ecstacy. Anguished becuase of your fears, and estacy becuase you are living as your desires and giving yourself as a gift to the world over and over. You may resort of searching for desires from outside of yourself or from inside of yourself from time to time, but try to stay on BEING your true self, which is all that you desire, and giving your deepest gifts, leaning towards you fears.

If you want more details I'd recommend work by David Deida, specifically his Audio collection Volumes 1, 2 and 3.

Hope that helps.

Deniz

[dezzo]

Originally Posted by garentee

It is not so much what I want out of life, but who I am in this life.. I guess the real bent is to be able to know others.. I believe that in order to know others you may need to know yourself. At this point in time it is just theoretical questioning because I am not sure if I actually need to do this. I literally woke up this morning and thought about it and thought I would see what others here had to say.

I do a lot of theoretical questioning myself and I have found that it's because of the comforts and the feeling of "everything is okay" that stops one from feeling the pain of not knowing. Maybe you really don't need to know this, I don't know. But if you really want to know you are going to have to feel the pain of not knowing ENOUGH to really get the answer you are searching for.

[Rose of Cairo]

Deniz, Thank you. This didn't answer my question. You're still using the expression "through your fears" in your new post, and I still don't know what you mean. I guess my question was basically a linguistic one: when you say "give your true gift through your fears", does it mean "give your true gift despite of the fears that may show up", or does it mean "your true gift is doing exactly what you fear"? English's not my first language, sorry.

I usually jump right into my fears instead of staying on the edge, is that ok too?

[garentee]

Since my original post I have been more and more thinking and reacting in a manner that I feel is more consistent with what I desire. Thus It is just another way to say I am figuring out who I really am. I guess I have been doing this for quite a while but it had come to my conscious self that It was what I wanted to do.

[Tigerlilly]

Originally Posted by garentee

I have been living my life un consciously for most of my time here. I have never really taken the time to figure out who I REALLY am. This is an interesting road with many twists and turns and I am interested in hearing from others who have done this. It occurs to me that most of us do NOT do this...

What I find is that who I REALLY am seems to be in flux all the time, like my real me was a nebulous or liquid shapeless whatever. At least that's the image that I get everytime I try to see what is at the chore of my being.

I post on a topic on here and a few days later how I think and feel about the subject is changed already. I could as well state, I like tea and all the rest of life is up to discussion, and then I'd still run chances that I might not like tea one day anymore.

Being so much changing all the time, how can one say, this is who I really am?

[Grophrane]

This is a very simple phenomenon.

You are that which you have always been, and that you will always be.
Your center was born into this world. And when you were born, there were only the center. As you gathered information and experiences, you were taught to believe you have to become somebody, a teacher, a politician, a lawyer. anything. Then when you grow up, you will say, 'I am a lawyer'.

The zen people have deviced a very interesting method. It's called Koans.
You go on inquiring inside yourself. Who am i? Who am i?

And you watch the answers, sometimes you will say, i am a teacher, i am a husband, i am a man, i am a woman, i am a scientist, i am god, i am nobody, i am emptiness, i am me. Whatever the answer, you have to reject it.

DO this for as long as possible, atleast 30 minutes a day just sit silently in
Zazen. Watching your thoughts untill they calm down a bit. Do a breathing technique or something for 5-10 mins. Then just calm down, watch your thoughts. Then start inquiring Who am i? Who am i?. And don't chant it.
Just say it whenever the need arises, whenever a thought enters reject it and say who am i?. For example. Sitting, waiting, then a thought about something. You say who am i? Some suggestion pops up, You are a husband! Deny it.

You are not born into this world as a husband, or as a wife. nobody is born as a truck driver or a lawyer!

You can also use 'What is my original face'. The face i had before i was born and the face i will have after i die. What is my original face?.
The same procedure, you have to deny all answers. Wether it's god or emptiness or anything.

Only when the question itself has disappeared, on it's own accord. And only absolute void is left. Absolute silence! No thought, no emotion, no sentiment, nothing at all. Then you can see what you really are. It's important to note that whatever thoughts you may have are not important. It's thoughts, thoughts are not part of you. You have gotten thoughts from parents and teachers. They have created your thoughts, and the way you think. You were not born with thoughts, you will die and thoughts will disappear. In fact, everything except you will disappear when you die.

A death meditation is very useful aswell. Lie down and feel yourself dying, becoming numb, detach yourself from the body. Then feel yourself slowly burning on a funeral pyre, untill every inch of your body is gone. And notice you're watching yourself burning on the pyre. THen the body can't be you. And you're watching the thoughts, then the thoughts can't be you.

There are more complex death meditations, just google around a bit


Remember to notice the progress. Remember to notice all the thoughts, remember you are not the thoughts. Always when doing these meditations, remember you're beyond thoughts and beyond death. You were, before you were born. You will be after you die. This has nothing to do with philosophy, this is a fact. Once you know yourself, you will know you have always been there. Man has a circumference. And a center. On the circumference, the trivial persists. You were born as a center. You gathered a circumference. The center can be referred to as you, as the soul or whatever you want to call it. But remember. No matter what, if you draw a line from the circumference, you WILL reach teh center some day or other. Don't go digging different holes. Dig in the same hole, go deeper and deeper. Then one day you will reach the center. All your thoughts will be gone, all your i am this and that will be gone. All desires and foolish trivial things will be gone. And you are thrown to yourself. Only this way you can know come to know who you really are. There is no other possibility.

[coLLege kid07]

Originally Posted by Grophrane

This is a very simple phenomenon.

You are that which you have always been, and that you will always be.
Your center was born into this world. And when you were born, there were only the center. As you gathered information and experiences, you were taught to believe you have to become somebody, a teacher, a politician, a lawyer. anything. Then when you grow up, you will say, 'I am a lawyer'.

The zen people have deviced a very interesting method. It's called Koans.
You go on inquiring inside yourself. Who am i? Who am i?

And you watch the answers, sometimes you will say, i am a teacher, i am a husband, i am a man, i am a woman, i am a scientist, i am god, i am nobody, i am emptiness, i am me. Whatever the answer, you have to reject it.

DO this for as long as possible, atleast 30 minutes a day just sit silently in
Zazen. Watching your thoughts untill they calm down a bit. Do a breathing technique or something for 5-10 mins. Then just calm down, watch your thoughts. Then start inquiring Who am i? Who am i?. And don't chant it.
Just say it whenever the need arises, whenever a thought enters reject it and say who am i?. For example. Sitting, waiting, then a thought about something. You say who am i? Some suggestion pops up, You are a husband! Deny it.

You are not born into this world as a husband, or as a wife. nobody is born as a truck driver or a lawyer!

You can also use 'What is my original face'. The face i had before i was born and the face i will have after i die. What is my original face?.
The same procedure, you have to deny all answers. Wether it's god or emptiness or anything.

Only when the question itself has disappeared, on it's own accord. And only absolute void is left. Absolute silence! No thought, no emotion, no sentiment, nothing at all. Then you can see what you really are. It's important to note that whatever thoughts you may have are not important. It's thoughts, thoughts are not part of you. You have gotten thoughts from parents and teachers. They have created your thoughts, and the way you think. You were not born with thoughts, you will die and thoughts will disappear. In fact, everything except you will disappear when you die.

A death meditation is very useful aswell. Lie down and feel yourself dying, becoming numb, detach yourself from the body. Then feel yourself slowly burning on a funeral pyre, untill every inch of your body is gone. And notice you're watching yourself burning on the pyre. THen the body can't be you. And you're watching the thoughts, then the thoughts can't be you.

There are more complex death meditations, just google around a bit


Remember to notice the progress. Remember to notice all the thoughts, remember you are not the thoughts. Always when doing these meditations, remember you're beyond thoughts and beyond death. You were, before you were born. You will be after you die. This has nothing to do with philosophy, this is a fact. Once you know yourself, you will know you have always been there. Man has a circumference. And a center. On the circumference, the trivial persists. You were born as a center. You gathered a circumference. The center can be referred to as you, as the soul or whatever you want to call it. But remember. No matter what, if you draw a line from the circumference, you WILL reach teh center some day or other. Don't go digging different holes. Dig in the same hole, go deeper and deeper. Then one day you will reach the center. All your thoughts will be gone, all your i am this and that will be gone. All desires and foolish trivial things will be gone. And you are thrown to yourself. Only this way you can know come to know who you really are. There is no other possibility.

ehh I think you're are taking the unnatural approach to finding yourself. If you really want to find yourself you don't have to die...you just have to work at it and make room in yourself for it to happen.

And about riding yourself of desires...why would you want to do that? You'll just end up sitting around and doing nothing.

[garentee]

Originally Posted by Grophrane

This is a very simple phenomenon.

You are that which you have always been, and that you will always be.
Your center was born into this world. And when you were born, there were only the center. As you gathered information and experiences, you were taught to believe you have to become somebody, a teacher, a politician, a lawyer. anything. Then when you grow up, you will say, 'I am a lawyer'.

The zen people have deviced a very interesting method. It's called Koans.
You go on inquiring inside yourself. Who am i? Who am i?

And you watch the answers, sometimes you will say, i am a teacher, i am a husband, i am a man, i am a woman, i am a scientist, i am god, i am nobody, i am emptiness, i am me. Whatever the answer, you have to reject it.

DO this for as long as possible, atleast 30 minutes a day just sit silently in
Zazen. Watching your thoughts untill they calm down a bit. Do a breathing technique or something for 5-10 mins. Then just calm down, watch your thoughts. Then start inquiring Who am i? Who am i?. And don't chant it.
Just say it whenever the need arises, whenever a thought enters reject it and say who am i?. For example. Sitting, waiting, then a thought about something. You say who am i? Some suggestion pops up, You are a husband! Deny it.

You are not born into this world as a husband, or as a wife. nobody is born as a truck driver or a lawyer!

You can also use 'What is my original face'. The face i had before i was born and the face i will have after i die. What is my original face?.
The same procedure, you have to deny all answers. Wether it's god or emptiness or anything.

Only when the question itself has disappeared, on it's own accord. And only absolute void is left. Absolute silence! No thought, no emotion, no sentiment, nothing at all. Then you can see what you really are. It's important to note that whatever thoughts you may have are not important. It's thoughts, thoughts are not part of you. You have gotten thoughts from parents and teachers. They have created your thoughts, and the way you think. You were not born with thoughts, you will die and thoughts will disappear. In fact, everything except you will disappear when you die.

A death meditation is very useful aswell. Lie down and feel yourself dying, becoming numb, detach yourself from the body. Then feel yourself slowly burning on a funeral pyre, untill every inch of your body is gone. And notice you're watching yourself burning on the pyre. THen the body can't be you. And you're watching the thoughts, then the thoughts can't be you.

There are more complex death meditations, just google around a bit


Remember to notice the progress. Remember to notice all the thoughts, remember you are not the thoughts. Always when doing these meditations, remember you're beyond thoughts and beyond death. You were, before you were born. You will be after you die. This has nothing to do with philosophy, this is a fact. Once you know yourself, you will know you have always been there. Man has a circumference. And a center. On the circumference, the trivial persists. You were born as a center. You gathered a circumference. The center can be referred to as you, as the soul or whatever you want to call it. But remember. No matter what, if you draw a line from the circumference, you WILL reach teh center some day or other. Don't go digging different holes. Dig in the same hole, go deeper and deeper. Then one day you will reach the center. All your thoughts will be gone, all your i am this and that will be gone. All desires and foolish trivial things will be gone. And you are thrown to yourself. Only this way you can know come to know who you really are. There is no other possibility.

I really am not looking at that aspect of it..... Thats all fine and wel but I am trying to find the parts of me that are important and find what makes me... ME. That which you suggest there is a wee bit more metaphysical than I had wished to get.
I really liked what tigerlilly had to say. I find that I am comfortable with who I am when I love who I am and how I am on any particular day. I guess I am trying to Look at life from a different perspective. I really like the different perspectives here though, some just do not necessarily work for me right at this point, in the future? Maybe. G

[dezzo]

Originally Posted by Rose of Cairo

Deniz, Thank you. This didn't answer my question. You're still using the expression "through your fears" in your new post, and I still don't know what you mean. I guess my question was basically a linguistic one: when you say "give your true gift through your fears", does it mean "give your true gift despite of the fears that may show up", or does it mean "your true gift is doing exactly what you fear"? English's not my first language, sorry.

I usually jump right into my fears instead of staying on the edge, is that ok too?

Oh okay, I meant giving despite the fears that may show up. I guess doing what you fear is also great from time to time. I think you get it quite well

[jfrancis]

You said you have lived your life mostly unconsciously. Perhaps a lot of this will become clearer as you take steps towards being more conscious. How can we know anything about ourselves if we are walking around half-asleep?
There seem to be a couple of different ways of seeing this: my 'true self' is something I need to whittle down to see the shape of - like a delicate bird carved out of a gnarled branch. There is definitely something to that, and it is useful to pursue that, but I do not think anyone should put too much stock in being all about 'one thing.' Even if it is an awesome thing like 'oneness.' We don't have choose to be either x or y. Sometimes we can be both. Maybe it can be seen more like common threads that run through your inner core. I tend to think that the simple answer doesn't tell the whole story, and what we are really about deserves some serious story telling - being awake and taking into account all of those twists and turns on that interesting road. Take the tea example again (my apologies to the analogy that I might be abusing here). It's not enough to say "I like tea." or "I don't like tea." That doesn't tell your tea-story. That might go something like "I fell in love with tea when I had my first pot of earl grey, and I drank it every day until I had that bad batch of oolong at my Aunt Cindy's. Now I can't look at the stuff, but I imagine if the right cuppa came along on a rainy day, all that might change..." That's a long answer and it might not make you fun at parties, but maybe it's worth whittling it down to some kind of truth you can know about yourself and your relationships with hot beverages, or your Aunt Cindy
Who you are at any given moment is a moving target: it is the sum of all of those past experiences (good and bad,) how you feel right now, PLUS those seeds lying in wait of what you can become. Which is to say, you are greater than the sum of those parts.
I don't know, I am definitely not an expert here - it's all just a theory.

[Tigerlilly]

Originally Posted by jfrancis

Who you are at any given moment is a moving target: it is the sum of all of those past experiences (good and bad,) how you feel right now, PLUS those seeds lying in wait of what you can become. Which is to say, you are greater than the sum of those parts.

Just yesterday I thought of this thread when getting to know each other I underwent the same old routine of "What do you do? What do you like?" etc..., and I sat there sharing all these trivia about my life and at the same time I was thinking, is this me? Is this what I'm all about? An odd assortment of information, a bundle of thoughts and likes & dislikes and actions past & present? Am I just a sum of those parts? And it felt wrong, it even felt weird trying to get to know someone through amassing all these trivial facts.

I find it hard to express, but all the trivia to gather about people is just a manifestation of what they expressed at some point in the past, like a very complex shell of a being. It's a product of its existence but not the living thing itself.

[mercuryrising]

I think who you are is self-defining. In other words, you are whoever or whatever you say you are. Maybe I'm wrong, but this seems the most empowered way to go about it. What you do or what you have is just an expression of who you think you are. Generally, I think people question who they are when they are unhappy with one or the other.