Questions about You

You are behind everything, just watching.  That is your true home. Take everything else away and you're still here, aware that everything is gone. But take the center of awareness away, and there is nothing.
Michael Singer, from the untethered soul, page 29 


I am going to play Socrates, for a minute, and ask you some questions.  Actually, I want you to ask yourself these questions.


Where are you? 

If I asked you that question at a party, you would probably give me a geographical answer and tell me where you are on the map or more specifically where you are at this moment in time. If  you asked me that question  right now, I would be inclined to answer:   "I am sitting on a computer chair in my office, in front of the computer." Is that where we really are?

That is not the answer I am looking for.  In fact, I am not looking for any answer at all.  I just want you to ponder the question like I have been pondering. I am being very rhetorical. :)

Where the heck are you?

Are you in this world?  Some would say you may be in this world, but you are not of this world.  What does that mean? And some would say you are not in this world, this world is in you. That 'this world' is just  an internal perception and interpretation based on what your five senses pull into you.  Do you believe that?

Where are you?

Are you in the external dance of form going on all around you or in some geographically mapped out spot on the globe?  Are you trapped in between distinct  border lines be they geographical, cultural  or societal?

Are you on earth?  Are you confined in a body weighed down by gravity , on a rotating planet in some galaxy in this infinite universe?

Are you in  those thoughts that are constantly going on in your mind?  Are you in those emotions that knock you down and pull you up? 


Are you in the opinion of other people?  Are you in the story you created about yourself?

Can you be found outside or inside?  And what is inside and outside?  Inside what? The body? The mind?  The heart?


When are you?

That sounds like a strange question, I know but think about it.  Are you now? Are you an "I am"...or are you an "I was" or "I will be?"

Are you a composite of your past, history.  When someone asks you about yourself, do you begin to tell them about all the things that led up to the moment they are asking the questions. "I was born in Cleveland and moved to Canada in 1982 after I graduated from university.  I began working at the peat moss plant and staid there for five years before accepting a starring role in a film I accidently got discovered for.  It was a flop so I then moved to Seattle where I met and married my husband. So here I am"  Are you all about the past. 

Maybe you are in the future.  Maybe the  you you want to be is who you focus on.  "I am not where I want to be yet but when I finish my degree, or publish that book, or meet the right person I will be."

Have you ever answered that question with "I am now."  Probably not and if you did you probably never got invited back to that party, but think about the possibility behind that answer.


What are you?

Are you defining yourself by what you do when I ask that question?  Are you a nurse, doctor, teacher, carpenter or plumber? Are you defining yourself by your hobbies that you actively pursue..."I am a runner. I am a writer.  I am an artist."  Again if you define yourself by what you do, what are you when you can no longer do?  Do you cease to be?  Are you a human being or a human doing?

Have you ever answered a question about yourself as "I am a spirit having a human experience"...how weird does that feel?  How right does that feel?

Why are you?

That's a pretty deep one but we would probably assume, if asked that question, that the person would want to know why we were there at that moment doing what we were doing.  "Oh I was invited by so and so, you?" We may ask ourselves why am I the way I am?  Why am I always making people upset?  Why is my life such a mess? Why me? " Even these internally directed questions are not what I am asking.

"Why are you?" Leave it at that.

How are you?

Are you well? Unwell? Happy or sad? Peaceful or stressed?

How you are now at this moment, is it something that is constant and unchanging?  Or is it a quality of experience that will fluctuate for you  that will come and go?

Are you this defined  quality of experience? Are you how you perceive and think about the world, others, self?  Are you how you perceive, think, feel or behave in general?   Are you based on a "how"? Can you be?

The thing is, we cannot answer any of those questions until we know who we are.


Who are you?

When you answer this last  question, please  don't give  your name, your age, your body colour, shape or size. (Well don't give me anything really...lol...suppose to be a rhetorical question, remember?)  Don't give me your occupational role, your familial role or the role you play in society.  Definitely don't give me an opinionated version of yourself based on what others told you are or what you have come to believe you are in terms of judgement.  Don't tell me you are a "nice person" or a "flawed" person.  Don't tell me you are good or bad, ugly or pretty, successful or struggling, healthy or unwell..  These things, I know, are not who you are. 

Who are you beyond all these things?

If you went to the court house right now and changed your name or your address...would "you" still be the same person you were before you made that change?  If you dropped ten pounds or got so much sun exposure your once white skin turned brown...are you still the same person?  Are you different person than the one  who  looked in the mirror when you were ten years old? Are you the same person who was registering for the courses that would take you to your chosen profession so many years ago? Are you the same person who was feeling good before that other person said that terrible thing to you that made you doubt yourself and feel bad? Are "you" changing like  the things around you are?

Do you come and go through life like that?

Or could  you be something that never changes and that was always there even though the things around you changed, came and went? Are you a different "being" every moment or is there a continual flow of your being from one "perceived" moment to the next?

Can you be confined to a specific time, place, label, role or image?  Can you be in the past and future? Can you be limited by what you can do or how you feel?

Could you be more than your thoughts, feelings and the things going on around you? If you stopped thinking, if you stopped feeling and the flower in front of you that you were admiring suddenly fell over so you couldn't see it any more...do you stop being?

Is it possible...that you are something deeper than what those  party questioners  would expect you to answer as you mingle around the room?  Is it possible that who you really are is beyond place, time, labels or activities? Beyond thought, feeling and perception?

Could you be nameless, timeless, changeless...always present, always watching, always there?

Hmmm! Just offering some questions to ask yourself. You  may not be able to answer right away nor are you expected to...but how life changing those answers will be when they do come.

It all begins with asking about "you".

All is well in my world.

Michael Singer ( 2007) the untethered soul. New Harbinger