Who are you? (a question about self)

A man once asked me a very simple question "who are you?". And without thinking i answered with my name. "no... no... that's your name, i'm not asking for your name, i asked who are you?" Hearing that my mind stopped for awhile, i was thinking, who am i without my name. What if my parents give me another man instead, what if i'm born as a girl, will i be the same?

It's been many years since that event, i have forgoten about that event, about that question for so long. Until i started to take interest in exploring human mind. I remembered learning a little about an approach called ego state therapy from trainer named Antonius Arif. In the class i was awed by the fact that people are formed by many personality and every personality are formed by the information that the person get from the time they were born until now.

So our 'self' are simply the combination of many personality that we have, we probably have personality like 'a good husband', 'a good teacher', 'honest man. and some of our negative personality maybe something like 'easyt to get angry', 'control freak' and many other personalities combined together becoming what we call as 'self'.

And after learning that, a question come into my mind "who am i, without my personalities?". If self are combination of all those personalities, and those personalities comes from all information that get inside our subsconscious and stay there as a habit. Who am i without all those information? Who are you?

In buddhism, there are a concept called anatta or no-self. It means that there are no such thing as self. It also means that what we see, what we hear, and everything that we have are not ours therefore there is not our self. Self are created when we cling on those we hear, see and have. For example if we cling to our name, than we created a self.

"You must empty your minds of opinions, then you will see. Our practice goes beyond cleverness and beyond stupidity. If you think;"I am clever, I am wealthy, I am important, I understand all about Buddhism."; You cover up the truth of anatta or no-self. All you will see is self, I, mine. But Buddhism is letting go of self. Voidness, Emptiness, Nibbana." (Ajahn Chah)

Who are you? a simple question yet very hard to understand. Self as we have now are result of all information that goes to our subsconsious. I myself think that there is no such thing as 'true self'. However it just a conclusion that comes from my study in human mind and buddhism concept. How about your's? who are you?

Windalfin Culmen CH
Consultant hypnotist

Posted in: English Post, Inspirasi