The Elusive “I”
Try to do the following exercise (normally I summarize these but this one quoting directly):
All you have to do is this: identify yourself.
I don’t mean stand up and say your name. I mean catch hold of that which is you, rather than just the thing that you do or experience. To do this, focus your attention on yourself. Try to locate in your own consciousness the “I” that is you, the person who is feeling hot or cold, thinking your thoughts, hearing the sounds around you and so on. I’m not asking you to locate your feelings, sensations, and thoughts, but the person, the self, who is having them.
It should be easy. After all, what is more certain in this world than you exist? Even if everything around you is a dream or an illusion, you must exist to have the dream, to do the hallucinating. So if you turn your mind inwards and try to become aware only of yourself, it should not take long to find it. Go on. Have a go.
Any luck?
Admit it. You failed. You tried to look for the one thing that you always thought was there and found nothing. Does this mean you don’t exist?
Let’s clear up what exactly it is you found. The moment you became aware of anything it would be something specific: a thought, a feeling, a sensation, a sound, a smell, etc. In no case would you have been aware of yourself as such. You can describe the experiences you had but no the “you” that had them.
You may protest that how could you not be aware that it was you that was having these experiences. For example, you are looking at the computer screen in front of you, and it is true that you are aware of the computer and not you. However, in another sense, you are aware that it is you seeing the computer. It is impossible to detach yourself from the experience. This is why there is no special awareness of the “I”, only awareness of what you are aware of.
Then the problem remains that this “I” is a nothing. It is like the point of view from which a landscape is painted. In one sense, the point of view cannot be removed from the painting for it is a painting from a particular perspective and without this perspective the painting would be what it is. However, this point of view is not revealed in the painting. For all we know, it could be a grassy knoll, a parked car, or even a concrete office block.
The “I” which has experiences can be seen in exactly the same way. It is true that when looking at something I am aware of the visual experience, and that it is an experience from a certain point of view. However, there is nothing about the nature of that point of view that is revealed by the experience. Thus, the “I” is still nothing – a contentless centre around which experiences flutter like butterflies.
So what is the self? The answer is that it is nothing more than the sum of all the experiences that are connected together by virtue of sharing this one point of view. The self is not a thing and is certainly not knowable to itself. We exist, but we lack a constant core of being, a single self that endures over time, which we so often assume, wrongly, makes us the individuals we are.