Have you ever really sat down and ask yourself, who am I? And if you did, how far you went in order to see who you are?
In my quest for understanding who am I, I reached the Atman, which is the Hindu concept of the Self, and the christian concept of Spirit. I had two weeks of awareness of this Atman and my entire life improved 1000 times, then slowly I started again forgeting who am I and the awareness of the Atman was lost. The Atman shared with me a baggage of knowledge, answering me question after question, things that the ancient wrote thousands years ago. I was astonished to see that what I was told it is real and not the result of some childish imagination.
It is a journey within.
Funny, I'm going through this now. I never thought I would since I don't have spiritual background or anything like that to compare my experiences to. I read a lot of experiences and listen to them but that's not quite the same as identifying with them and nonetheless experiencing them myself. Then I came to a kind of understanding that each person gets to that state differently. There doesn't need to be an enlightened and/or mystic experience but it can be gradual and very "boring" to get there. I think
that is where I am. It would take time to kind of get rid of that "needing to be somewhere" type of feeling. Though, I think that's my goal and its possible.
On that note, I'm kind of back and forth with associating myself as an/with an identity (a soul) or following the Dharma and that I'm not an identity but subject to change through action after action that, in my understanding, affects my past, present, and future (if there is such a thing in time. I beginning not to thing so). That means things like values and such really wouldn't define me as a person. So, that's hard to grapple with if I went that direction. That "who" kind of becomes change rather than a static being. On the other hand, it is kind of confusing because Dharma, you tend to reach a certain state of being rather than destination so understanding how the two mix or differ is something I wish I had some guidance to gain some perspective.
I just did it backwards, really. Death, to me, means uncertainty/release/non-attachment/end. Getting to that point I follow my values and mind my behavior. Things like writing, being in nature, art, etc help with vitality so I have enough energy to get to that point of awareness. However, hopefully, I don't expect it since every time I expect something (or plan or create a goal) something goes off. Some people call it god teaching them a lesson, some call it things that were based on past and present actions, I just say life.
I haven't answered the question yet. Don't know if I want to since identity is changing and will go at death. So, identity at the end becomes really nothing. An uncertainty. I know this sounds theological, but I've been thinking about this recently. Don't know why, though.
