What are you really sure of?

What are you really sure of?

Some years ago on one of my meditation camps we were encouraged to select a person in the crowd, sit with him/her, and continue to dialogue with the other just one question, “ Who are you?” 

As you began answering the question, the same question would be repeated, ‘who are you?’ and so on.  It soon became obvious to me, that all the answers I provided were more around, ‘What I am?’ than to ‘who I was’. I could describe a name, a role in an organization, adjectives to describe relationships with other people, some values I held very dear to me. As the same question repeated itself on and on, I began to experience myself conjecture opinions about myself: beliefs I held about myself. But sadly, these were just beliefs: I doubted deeply whether they were true. Like when I once replied, “I am part of the deep consciousness”, was that something I knew, or believed in. What was I really sure of?

Ouspensky wrote, “Our aim is to become one, to have one permanent "I". But in the beginning work means to become more and more divided. You must realize how far you are from being one, and only when you know all these fractions of yourself can work begin on one or some principal "I"s around which unity can be built. It would be wrong understanding to unify all the things you find in yourself now. The new "I" is something you do not know at present; it grows from something you can trust. At first, in separating false personality from you, try to divide yourself into what you can call reliable and what you find unreliable”.

Ramana Maharishi avered, The thought ‘who am I?’ will destroy all other thoughts, and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre, it will itself in the end get destroyed. Then, there will arise Self-realization.

So remember, whenever someone asks you, Who are you? Do you end up answering what you believe you are?

Can we really be sure of anything?