:twocents:
I exist in the knowing and doing. The knowing as I would use the word here would include perception and feeling, in addition to thought.
There is no “I” that exists in isolation from what is “not-I”. Our being is self-other in nature.
The knowing, consciousness, awareness, perception, emotion and so forth are what give light to the known.
I terms of ourselves, we create an image of who we are from our connection with what we understand as other. Elements of consciousness are identified and related, forming a self-image in the context of the larger world in which we participate. Mom, dad, brother, sis, others and me. The sense of who I am, the me I know is formed from what is mirrored back to me, a hodgepodge of “good boy”, 'bad boy", “smart lad”, 'idiot", quite a long list of qualities reflecting relationships over many years. Another aspect of self-image has to do with identification. Philosophically, the person out there has a brain, so I must have one too that governs what I experience and do. In a different vein, someone may personify the qualities I admire, and I try to be like them. Conversely, seeing negative qualities in another, would likely lead me to behave differently. Last but definitely not least is that we construct understandings of who and what we are through our sharing of ideas, as we are doing here.
What we are is in the form of a triad, the mystery of self existing in relation to the mystery of what is other.
You and I know there is a self because I am not you. When I stub my toe, the cells that are banged up and release molecules, the cells in my leg and spinal cord and in my brain shape the experience of pain that only I can know and you can only imagine.
The I is not elusive, it is in fact more real than any thoughts about it. Some people believe that the unfathomable “I”, that which does and knows, is in fact one, at the core of each and every one of us. Brahman is Atman according to Hinduism. This is easy to buy if you simply meditate, each of us a manifestation of the one unknowable knower, the supreme identity. But, love teaches us something quite amazing. The beloved is unique, albeit an expression of one humanity. An individual soul existing in time and space as the unity of spirit-body, relating to what is other, is a fundamental reality of our nature.
The structure of the knowing is shaped in accordance to our physical and psychological nature. The totality of our being is held within a spiritual structure whose Ground is God Himself. If one pursues love, one realizes that we move in an ocean of compassion that gives us existence. As we give ourselves over to the Divine, we commune with the one Love from which this wonder comes into being.
