I was sitting in an Ayurvedic doctor’s office with sinusitis and a light fever. The doctor was an interesting sight. 70 years old but with hair dyed bright orange with kind eyes. He took my pulse and other readings and then he asked me a question no other doctor has. He asked me “Do you know who you are?” Unfortunately, that question is harder to answer than any other. Because I thought I knew who I was. But I didn’t. And that’s why I’m here.
But that may be getting a little too ahead of ourselves. So I’d like to start from the beginning. We may not have time for a lengthy discussion, but I promise you it will be found in any book you pick up on the spiritual path. There are as many ways of trying to explain who we are as there are teachers who have attempted it. But they generally fall into the same pattern. So here is how it usually goes.
Who are you?
Well, I’m David Longhini.
Hmmm…. so you are this “David Longhini”? If you change your name or get married or are called “Dave” are you still the same person?
Well, I guess you are right, David Longhini is simply a label I call myself. I’m David, the entrepreneur who grew up in Dansville, NY, and went to school at Buffalo. I have had a series of jobs and enjoy traveling and …. etc.
Ahh…. so… you are this history and biography? Were you less of who you are before those things happened? Would you have been someone else if you had made different choices? And who are you when you change in the future?
Okay, you’re right, that is simply a history of places I have been, things I have done, and preferences I have. Then *looks down and gestures at my body* this is who I am.
Right… now things are interesting, you are your body? But your body has completely changed itself in the last 7 years. Are you no longer you? Are you a different you than when you were smaller? Will you be a different you when you’re older?
You got me, that’s simply my body, it’s not me. But then I guess I am the personality, the thoughts, and the emotions that I experience within. Those are the things that make me who I am.
Ummm…. but if those things are you, what about when those things change? Your personality changes, your thoughts come and go, and emotions are experienced then fly away. Do you disappear when the thoughts disappear? Are you not you if you’re not experiencing emotions?
Well now, I guess you have me there. Those are simply things that I am experiencing or patterns that I have developed. They can’t be me. They are things that I have. Then yes, if none of those things are me, there’s only one thing left. I am behind all of those things. I am the watcher who looks out and experiences.
Well…. now you’re getting somewhere.
END STORY
Now, if that story in itself is a struggle for you to understand, you are not alone. You are in the company of everyone who has ever begun on the spiritual path. But if that story seems like the point, you have not yet begun to fight. The next story is beyond the story. The harder path.
Because… that’s not where the story ends. That’s where the story begins. Even if it took hundreds of hours of yoga, ages sitting on a cushion meditating, or many psychedelic trips into the depths of your mind to experience, it’s only the start. Because once you know you are the watcher, the real questions begin. Questions like:
What is the watcher?
How did we come to watch?
Why are we watching?
Who is everyone else?
What is me vs. not me? If anything at all.
What is real and not real? What does that even mean?
What are we capable of? How do we become capable of it?
What else is out there that we are not watching?
… and these are the questions I’m working to know. This is what the doctor was asking me that day in the office. These are the paths to and beyond non-attachment to things we struggle to imagine, let alone accept. This is the depth of the spiritual journey that takes lifetimes of letting go. This is why a man who can’t touch his toes is sitting at a yoga teacher training in northern India. But that’s the path I’m trying to walk. Will you join me?
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