Who am I?

Each of us gets hit by lightning at a particular point in life; quite often in middle age, sometimes in our youth and sometimes much later. But once we get hit, life is never the same again. This tumultous experience of getting hit by lightning is simply us discovering life’s most important question : who am I?

The path to finding the answer to this question of “Who am I?” is elegantly presented in ancient Indian knowledge. In fact, Indic (ancient Indian) knowledge offers a suite of different paths to answer this question, allowing us the freedom to chose the path that best suits us

But in order to select the path that works for us, it is important to understand how Indic Wisdom thinks about the notion of “I” (The “I” in Who am I)

Indic Wisdom says that each human being is not just one “I”, but a composite of three different “I”s:

• the Today’s I
• the Innate I
• the Eternal I

Lets explore this a bit more

The Today’s I refers to who I am today. Who we are today is the sum total of all the experiences we have had in this life, overlaid on what we carry from the past (in the Indic canon, what we carry from before this current life form is called Karmic inheritance; in modern science, it would be referred to as genetics). So, as a child when we got approvingly patted on the head by an adult for something we did or did not do, that particular experience goes deep into our being and becomes part of our Today’s I. Similarly, when we have a deep conflict with a partner or at work, that too goes into the making of our Today’s I

But Today’s I is only one of three Is. The Innate I is the second one & arguably a much more profoundly important “I”. According to Indic Knowledge, each Being (human or otherwise) is born with a set of uniquely innate qualities. These qualities do not change over our lifetime & define who we innately are - the Innate I. For instance, many of us may be born with the quality of Curiosity. Even if our life journey eventually does not allow for the play of curiosity (unfortunately true for many modern lives), that innate quality of curiosity remains deep in us, sublimated perhaps, but never absent. Another quality we might be born with is physical strength. Once again, the experience of life might not allow us to mainfest that quality in an obvious way, but that quality remains innnately in us. Each of us might be aware of at least one such deeply innate quality in ourselves

According to Indic Knowledge, this Innate I, a unique & particular combination of qualities that each of us innately has, is influenced by multiple factors. The most of important of these factors are:

• Our elemental composition; each of us has the five basic elements (space, air, fire, water, & earth) in a specific proportion, uniquely different from everyone else
• Pattern of our energy flows. According to Indic Knowledge, the whole cosmos or reality is simply a gigantic dance of energy & each human or non-human being has a particular individual & innate pattern of energy flows (that we are born with) as a tiny part of the larger dance of energy
• Cosmic influence; the pattern of the great cosmos at the exact time of our birth has a role in determining some of the innate qualities that each individual is composed of

As we can see from the above discussion, Today’s I can (& does) change during the course of our life. On the other hand, the Innate I does not change during the course of our lifetime but can change over more than one lifetime

Which brings us to the last : the Eternal I. According to Indic knowledge, the Eternal I is “quality-less” & continues as the same over multiple lifetimes. This “I” is often described in ancient texts as “the observer”; the “I” that is able to witness the goings-on of Today’s I or even of the Innate I

Which brings us back to the question we started with : Who am I?

In order to truly understand who we are, we should go on a journey that unlocks each of these 3 views of oneself