The Me That I Am Not
The seeker of my inner self is me. The me that I am not. One thing I have learned on the journey of Darrell’s search for Self is that I am not my body, nor am I the me that rules the body. The body is transient, while that which I am is eternal. I am twia, and I try to see the world through twia rather than through me because the eternal view of twia is that of oneness while the world view of me is one of separation. Being twia, I prefer the oneness of reality over the illusion of separation.
The me that I am not has a world view of survival because it sees itself separated from others, alone and afraid. These others are always outside of itself whether they are friend or foe. Friends are used to maintain existence. Foes are foils to vie with in establishing where the me that I am not fits into its culture. The boundary between friend and foe can be obscure. It is a blurry reflection of fears I hold about the world and my place in it. Above all, me must survive and fears the body’s death, because the me that is Darrell dies with the body into oblivion. That is why I am neither me, nor my body. My true Self, or twia, is eternal.
The fears that drive survival help to create the culture in which my body functions as Darrell. Such cultures range from families and clans to states and nations. One purpose of cultures is group protection. The ethos of each culture fortifies the group against the fears that threaten its existence. My culture gives me meaning and protection. The me I am not is embedded in its culture as a body that struggles to preserve beliefs given to Darrell since birth.
A culture’s world view relies on common agreements, but these agreements are under constant challenges. A progressive group constantly changes its practices to reflect its growing body of knowledge. Being open to change, it never knows what will come next to challenge old assumptions put in place for survival. The me that I am not wants surety that it will be safe from its fears. It cannot tolerate too many drastic changes before rebelling. But neither does it benefit from stagnation. If it does not change, it will be buried with its archaic beliefs. Conflicts may arise in groups when advancing knowledge challenges old ways, dividing members into splinter groups, some of which survive while others do not. As an existing world view collapses under the weight of new knowledge, survival is the ultimate issue for me joining a reformed group.
A culture creates its own world. It is both a societal world and an individual world because we do not live alone yet we feel separate. We cherish our own sense of self in the culture that shapes it. The combination of culture and self fuses into a world view that becomes our life. Many of us are certain that something is missing in this life and we search to find it. It seems that just beyond the me of the body there might be a better us. That image of a better possibility varies widely as we strive to attain what we feel we lack. Ultimately, we want to feel fulfilled and whole, which is difficult in this world of separation, so we search for that Self which seems to be missing.
We need others as we grow and develop both in our culture and on our spiritual journey. We seek relationships for acceptance, approval, comfort, encouragement, etc. Relationships offer support and form our relative standing in society. They prove to us the beliefs we hold about ourselves. Familial and social interactions give us identity. We become what we believe we are as seen through these networks. What we think we are is very much determined by culture’s imprint on the tabula rasa brought into play at birth, but the tablet can be written on anew anytime we choose to exchange old thoughts about ourselves and the world for new ones. We can change our world by changing the thoughts we have held ingrained up until now.
Choose your thoughts wisely. They create your world view. The me that lives in the world exists in its own self-image. It views the world through its perception of how things should be according to its beliefs. The me of the body cannot be separated totally from its cultural upbringing, but it can change its perspective. Concerted efforts to change thoughts about what I am change my beliefs. Those changes in beliefs can change my view of the world. My world is what I make it to be through thought, belief, and action. When I change my thoughts about what I am, my world changes, which makes answers to What am I? crucial to my world view.
The me that I am not struggles to fulfill itself because it has no meaning beyond the bookends of birth and death. The body is a mass of atoms, protoplasm, and bone that has no meaning of its own outside of what it finds in its culture. Its future is oblivion, so the me that feels the body’s joys and sufferings searches for a truth beyond death, which I believe is in twia and oneness. As Darrell, I am reassured in knowing twia and the oneness of reality as my true nature. It gives comfort to the me that I am not and comes from a lifetime of exchanging old thoughts for new.