A Feb/March Supplement: Exploring The Question Who Am I ?
So much of our present work is the uncovering the answer to this key question. HIK Mar 8 Bowl of Saki quotes may help us here.
False Identification Problem: “The ego has two sides: the first one is the one we know, and the next one we must discover. The side we know is the false ego which makes us say, ‘I’. What is it in us that we call ‘I’? We say, ‘This is my body, my mind, these are my thoughts, my feelings, my impressions, this is my position in life.’ We identify our self with all that concerns us and the sum total of all these we call ‘I’. In the light of truth this conception is false, it is a false identity.” Hazrat Inayat Khan Bowl of Saki Mar 8
I Am The Witness That Sees: “By reasoning with oneself and by trying to study oneself analytically it is possible to get nearer to the true knowledge of one’s being. If we consider that every part that constitutes our being has its own name — the hand, the foot, every part of our being has a different name, quality and purpose, and even a separate form — what is it then in man which says ‘I’ and identifies itself with what it sees? It is not our head, hand or foot which says ‘I’ nor is it the brain. It is something that we cannot point out which identifies itself with all these different parts and says ‘I’ and mine and knows itself to be the person who sees. This in itself is ignorance, and it is this which the Hindus have called avidya.“
Three Types of Mureeds: Adding to this above framework is Ghassan Manasra recently speaking of the three types of mureeds. “There are those that think they know and do not know ~ Those that know they do not know. ~ And there are those that do not know and don’t know they do not know. ” These are not merely types of mureeds but they are the mode of learning each mureed is attached to.
With the Bowl of Saki quotes our minds have a tendency to think we know something. Along the lines, I need to have less ego, less attachment to my point of view, have a wider perspective and so forth. But then comes the kicker the 3rd type of Mureed, “She knows nothing and doesn’t know she do not Know“. This is a mystery. And of course, the same mystery is pointed to in the Bowl of Saki quotes but the mind doesn’t have as good a chance of commandeering the viewpoint to one of knowing something. Yes it is confusing.
So where does this leave us. Are we not the blind men touching the elephant and each having a view point of that knows what the elephant is. “Oh, I don’t know I just wish I also didn’t know I did not know.” Shams 😉
As we try to interpret this, at first it may seem that a collection of odd incongruencies, just a trick of words that do not make any sense at all. But is not the nature of this in-between between knowing and not knowing to not make sense. It as Ghassan says, ‘The Mysterious“. And remember Shahabuddin’s warning that we are so used to learning within the framework of duality in which we think our way to ‘an answer’ and that we can’t seem to escape this approach to learning.
I have a cute little joke that applies here, a tourist asks a cabbie how do you get to so and so. The cab driver stops and carefully, deeply thinks. And with an almost perplexed look he says, “You Can’t Get There From Here“.
And thus ends our inquiry in this supplement for the answer in the realm of being not knowing and it is unwordable. But we certainly we give thanks to Hazrat Inayat Khan and Ghassan Manasra for helping us take in the fragrance that is Truth.
What does this mean? What does this perception lead to? What can we do or be to help uncover ‘Who I Am?’. In recently we always seem to begin with — First: I accept that it is real, that it is an actuality. Secondly: What does this acceptance open up to me in terms of the Vibratory Realm, actual feelings, actual experiences in a realm that is ‘a Mystery‘ and is both ‘Unknowable and Unwordable‘. How are we to be in such a strange realm ? What are we to be?
We Are One 