In this essay we are not joining the fray surrounding Creationism vs. Evolution but instead transcending both to a more profound reality in search of a true human identity. Who am I? is certainly a question that has entered the minds of most human beings at one time or another in their lives. From the moment some 10,000 years ago when a member of the genus Homo + sapiens (from the Latin sapere, to be wise) went down to a nearby stream for his morning agua fresca, until today, there have been momentous changes in self-awareness but none more-so than that leap in consciousness.
Homo sapiens’ self-congratulatory self-label is perhaps premature depending on how we define “wise.” But certainly, for our purposes we have to rank “conscious” above “wise” as an attribute that will empower humankind to create a sustainable culture, something that all our wisdom has thus far failed to do.
That first modern man seeing his/her reflection in the water had an “aha” insight—”That’s me!” This self-awareness was, of course, only relative awareness and in truth, that reflected body, like the reflection itself, was an illusion. This same illusion remains a major barrier in the human quest to learn to distinguish reality from illusion. Neither wisdom nor the ability to reason has been sufficient to free Homo sapiens from delusional self-destruction.
Only mystics have been able to apprehend that “me” is not “me” because we are not our bodies. The senses that have long defined reality for the inquiring mind and have provided the information that forms the basis of empirical reality are unable to apprehend Simple Reality. Are we saying that there are two realities? No! There is an apparent reality that is ephemeral and is not what it appears to be and there is an unchangeable reality beyond what our senses can apprehend.
We must abandon the world of “reflections” and all sensual phenomena as well as the conventional wisdom of the intellect and welcome the Great Insight. I am not my body, mind or emotions. Instead, “I am THAT.” I am one with all of Creation, pure indestructible energy.
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Find a much more in-depth discussion in books by Roy Charles Henry.
