Who am I?

Whether a spiritual quest or any quest, the focus is always on the goal, on the issue, isn't it?

The goal of spiritual bliss, of Enlightenment, of awakening, of reaching God, or….

The issue of how to resolve the misery of living.

Rather than the issue, or the goal, we rarely wonder just who is it, that seeks spiritual bliss or Enlightenment or God?

Just who is it that is in misery?

Who is it, that is in the quest?

Who is this "seeker"?

The focus always is on the issue or the goal and the debate on the effectiveness of various means, schools of thought, philosophical streams, Guru X, or Y, Master P or Q, etc etc to achieve the issue, to reach the goal.

Would not this focus, be like wondering whether the water of the mirage-lake in the desert, is  hot or cold?

And debating how to measure that temperature ?

What is the existential reality of the self-seeker?

What is the existential reality of the identity which you have assumed yourself to be?

What is its Truth?

Who am I?

Before stepping into that, what is existential Reality?

What is Truth?

Existential Reality or Truth would be "that" which needs no "other", depends on no "other", for it's existence.

It stands completed in itself.

Now let's look at the typical icons of identity which are normally assumed for oneself.

-A name

-A conglomeration of professional knowledge, skills, etc ( I am manager in a multinational company, or I am a waitress at the local deli, etc)

-A wife, a husband, a son, a father, a mother, a daughter, a respected member of the neighborhood society, a citizen of a country

-A woman, a man

-A human being in contrast to an animal or a snail.

-An entity holding some profound realizations, values, convictions, spiritual understandings, a spiritual seeker

-A human organism, which is alive, with a sense of volition, free will, to do or not to do etc, etc.

Are these not the typical icons, with which we paint our self-identity?

Look at any of these icons.

None of them can exist, on its own.

Imagine yourself as the sole survivor of a global catastrophe.

Except you, nothing else, nobody else has survived.

You are wandering about, with nobody else in sight, nothing else in sight.

Without an "other", does your name have any meaning, any relevance?

Without an "other", do your vocational knowledge, your skills in the waitressing business, your spiritual work that you are engaged in, have any meaning, any relevance?

Without an "other", do the assumed identities, of a wife, of a mother, of a daughter, of a respected (or non-respected) member of society, whatever, have any meaning, any relevance?

Without an "other", does your "femaleness", have any meaning, any relevance?

Without an "other", do any of the convictions, values, conclusions, realizations, satoris, spiritual understandings that you hold on to, (for they define yourself to you), do any of that, have any meaning, any relevance?

Without an "other", do your conviction about being a human organism, with free will, have any meaning, any relevance?

Without an "other", how would you even be convinced that you have survived the global catastrophe and are in fact "alive"?

Without an "other", does "life" and "death", these convictions, which run you, have they any meaning, any relevance?

Ergo, can any of these be the reality of your existence?

Define the truth of your existence?

How do you know that you actually exist?

Because, you are right now sitting in front of a PC screen, reading some strange signs on the screen?

That you eat, take a shit in the morning, go to work, make love, relate to people, see other people alive, or dying, etc etc

All this could be happening in a dream.

In a dream, you are alive, you eat, you do this or that, you have profound discussions, you are fearful you make love, you do cruel acts, you do profound acts.

And in the dream, you do not know, you are dreaming.

If another dreamed-up character walked up to you in the dream, or sent you a dream-message through the dreamed Internet connection, indicating that you are a dreamed-up character, you will laugh, be upset, not believe, and if your anger is sufficient, maybe even nail him to a cross, or burn her up.

While you are dreaming, it is so real to you, that many a time, you break into cold sweat, you cry out, you shout, you laugh, you cry, you have wet dreams, all while 

sound asleep.

Isn't it so?

So what gives you the firm conviction that you are not a dreamed up-character in the dream of a tsetse fly and you will go poof, when the fly wakes up, from its 10 second sleep?

Time?

Have you never dreamt where an entire life-time of 89-90 years flashed by, in its minutest details, in a dream time of couple of hours?

If you have not, know that, such has been a case with many  people.

Centuries back, the Tao Master Chuang Tzu had posed the same question....

If Chuang Tzu can dream, it's become a butterfly flitting from flower to flower, why is it not possible that it is the butterfly dreaming that it is Chuang Tzu holding spiritual discourses.

So, who are you?

Ought not, this premise be clearly established before proceeding on any quest by this entity?