I kind of like to think of the brain as a computer. Regardless of individual chemical or physical hardware differences, all human brains are running the same operating system. And that operating system hasn’t changed much in the last 200,000 years, even though our lifestyles and environment have changed dramatically!
Per the human operating system design, from the age of about 18 months, we seem to be wired to form a sense of identity; a “Me” that is separate from the world. In this external world, a brain runs its program and begins to chop up Life Arising into objects and experiences, with all of them in relation to this “Me”. Once language begins to develop, so too does the voice of the internal Narrator. Because this Narrator is always referring back to “Me” whenever it speaks, we innocently mistake this voice to be who we actually are and not just a biological operating system running. With this language explosion and the continuous conditioning of the solidification of “Me,” we naturally, and without effort, change, grow, develop, and absorb beliefs to flesh out the story of “Me".
By the time we have grown into adults, “Me” has become completely conceptually concretized, so much, in fact, that the fundamental sense of “Me-ness” is not even a question; it is believed to be the simplest of truths. Of course there is a someone who controls my body; I’m right here! There is no question that “I” am right here. Just look at me!
Yes, all right.
But, consider this:
Are YOU a body? What if something happens that completely changes the look and feel of your body to the point that you are unrecognizable, even to yourself. Are you no longer YOU because the body is so different? Even if you are spared any sort of ill health or disfigurement, is an ever-changing mass of cells all that is YOU?
Have you ever devoted any time to ACTUALLY find a solid, separate self inside that body (presuming you believe YOU are inside the body), or have you simply taken for granted that there is one because thought constantly references it…?
I invite you to look.
Right now.
No, really.
Deliberately turn the light of your attention to every nook and cranny of the body and see what’s ACTUALLY there. Be ruthlessly empirical. Assume nothing. Just see what’s there.
Did you do it? It’s not something to be done later. Now is the time…
If you didn’t take up my invitation, I’m not going to spoil the surprise, because there is no substitute for direct, experiential looking. But I’ll leave you with this:
What if “I” is simply a conceptual product of language? What if it is only a label that a human operating system’s Narrator uses to refer to a collection of experiences that are simply arising as the movement of Life itself?
What would that mean for YOU…?