Probably two of the most commonly asked existential questions are "Who am I?" and "What am I here for?" For some e.g. those who do not believe in any divine source or purpose, these are non-questions that can't have any meaningful answers. Because there is no inherent meaning in or for life there is no point in asking these kinds of questions. Others who aren't so sure are certainly interested in the questions although not necessarily any more certain of the answers. After all, a life with meaning and purpose must be better proposition, you would think than one without.
While the subject of the questions ("Who am I?" and "What am I here for?") remain as "I", then some would argue that the questions will continue to remain unanswerable. So why is that? Why should the subject of the questions i.e. “I”, be the determiner of the outcome? Perhaps the answer(s) lies somewhere and somehow in the concept of the self!
An interesting consideration which happens all the time for me, a poor typist. I typed the letter i in the lower case instead of in the upper case I and it looked "wrong" and out of place. It prompted me to do a bit of research. Here is the outcome...
i made a mistake; i started with i in the lower case, or did i make a mistake. Interestingly, the letter i is the only letter and word that is always written with a capital letter. No wonder we struggle with the concept of identity! What might change if we decided to not write i only in the capital form I? Maybe we are both i and I, at the same time! And the word identity is also very interesting because the historical meaning is best preserved in its derivative 'identical - the same'. Maybe we are all one and the same! However when you look up the term using a dictionary, you read the following "the individual characteristics by which a thing or person is recognised or known." In other words identity is usually defined as a way of distinguishing one thing/me from another/you. Is that dual or not? So what might a non-dual lens reveal? It would probably show that there is no distinction between one thing/me from another thing/you. i/I suspect that we would be very happy to accept the I, knowing that it is replaceable with an i! Perhaps the later understanding of "that which distinguishes one from the other" is a result of the more recent development of the executive "ego", which means I in Latin, or is it i? i don't know! Interestingly, there is no word for i/I in indigenous language; so I am told! Why is that?
While the subject of the questions ("Who am I?" and "What am I here for?") remain as "I", then some would argue that the questions will continue to remain unanswerable. So why is that? Why should the subject of the questions i.e. “I”, be the determiner of the outcome? Perhaps the answer(s) lies somewhere and somehow in the concept of the self!
An interesting consideration which happens all the time for me, a poor typist. I typed the letter i in the lower case instead of in the upper case I and it looked "wrong" and out of place. It prompted me to do a bit of research. Here is the outcome...
i made a mistake; i started with i in the lower case, or did i make a mistake. Interestingly, the letter i is the only letter and word that is always written with a capital letter. No wonder we struggle with the concept of identity! What might change if we decided to not write i only in the capital form I? Maybe we are both i and I, at the same time! And the word identity is also very interesting because the historical meaning is best preserved in its derivative 'identical - the same'. Maybe we are all one and the same! However when you look up the term using a dictionary, you read the following "the individual characteristics by which a thing or person is recognised or known." In other words identity is usually defined as a way of distinguishing one thing/me from another/you. Is that dual or not? So what might a non-dual lens reveal? It would probably show that there is no distinction between one thing/me from another thing/you. i/I suspect that we would be very happy to accept the I, knowing that it is replaceable with an i! Perhaps the later understanding of "that which distinguishes one from the other" is a result of the more recent development of the executive "ego", which means I in Latin, or is it i? i don't know! Interestingly, there is no word for i/I in indigenous language; so I am told! Why is that?
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