Who Am I? The Self Inquiry Process

(Photo credit)
Since I read Ramana Maharshi, I’ve been meditating more on the question of “Who am I?” in his style. His answer is “The Self, which is identical to the Source and God”. However, memorizing someone else’s answer does no good — I need to know for myself.

Here is my personal report of this self-inquiry.

The premise

First, I understand that I am always I am. There is never a moment when I am not who I am, never was, never will be. I may pretend to be someone, but it’s impossible for me to be not me. This is not spiritual — it’s a basic logic.

So from there, I assume who I am is something constant, something that doesn’t come and go.

The problem of neti-neti

Some nondualism teachers use “neti-neti” approach to explore who I am. Neti-neti means “not this, not this”. It’s a way to explore who I am by identifying who I am not.

I see a fundamental issue here. Neti-neti is a form of inductive reasoning and therefore has the same issue of induction. Just because it is true that I am not A, B, C (or D, and E) doesn’t mean I am something that is beyond A, B, C, D, and E. I may be F.

I agree with nondualism teachers that I am not my thoughts, not my mind, not my feelings, not my history and personality that was formed by the history, not my body. Typically, at this point, the nondualism says, “But there is this awareness that is aware of all these. So you are awareness.”

To this I wonder: Ah, but what about the soul and the Higher Self?

Perhaps because the idea of a soul was nonexistent in Asia, where nondualism started, they don’t check if I am a soul / Higher Self.

Awareness is the nature of the soul

In my understanding, awareness and the soul / Higher Self are the same. Awareness is the nature of the soul. Souls come to this world to experience, to be aware.

So my conclusion is really not different from their teaching (although personally, as the Akashic Record Reader, the minor difference of perspective is important).

As I wrote in my first article of “Who Am I?”, there is really no individuality at the Higher Self level. The individual soul is as real as the individual body — and just as illusionary. (If you are wondering the difference between the soul and the Higher Self, please check the linked article. When the distinction doesn’t matter, I use the words interchangeably.)

I am essentially my Higher Self exploring this strange and interesting world using an avatar called Akemi’s soul in Akemi’s body. It’s like playing a virtual reality simulation game.

The answer to “Who am I?”

I’ve seen many answers to this questions such as:

• I am energy taking the form of my body.
• I am a higher dimensional being.
• I am the extension of God’s love.

Well, to me, these (and more) just sound like mental constructs. They certainly sound nice, or even noble, but what do they really mean?

When I contemplate this question “Who am I?”, my honest answer is “I don’t know.” I sense I am here. Here is me. But I cannot explain who I am just as I cannot see the back of my own eye. I don’t know who I am — I just exist here. Well, let’s find out what I am like by experiencing various things in this world, shall we?

You want to know the meaning of life?

And that’s the meaning of life, meaning of existing as physical being here. I don’t know who I am. I just am. Well, that’s okay, but why not engage in a game to get to know myself by experiencing so many things?

Here is a passage I wrote for myself:

I am what is looking at the world through Akemi’s eyes (for now, at least), feeling in Akemi’s body, thinking with Akemi’s poopoo little brain. Akemi really doesn’t exist in the way she thinks she does — that’s just her belief, her ego’s belief.

When I look through Akemi’s eyes and see, say, a tree, I recognize it — hey, that tree feels familiar. I know that tree. In fact, I was that tree before (if you believe in linear time). So this is how that tree looks like from Akemi’s viewpoint!

I guess people are the same way, too. We play the game of the offender and the offended, the lover and the beloved, the stranger and another stranger, to see how it all feels. For the sake of awareness.

At this point, a strange thought came up in me: Does the Higher Self even care about me?

To this, the answer was:

Well, I am more Akemi than Akemi (that is, Akemi as Akemi thinks she is, as a limited and separate entity). I mean, of course I care for Akemi — by that you mean, Akemi’s body, right?

But then, if Akemi’s ego insists on acting out in a certain way, I (Higher Self) play along with it to see and experience what happens. I am all for experiencing. I am awareness.

All experiences are great. Even what people call bad experiences are great in the same way watching a play of tragedy (like Hamlet) is great.

And nothing is “same old.” I can only experience the present. Nothing is ordinary — I have no standard to judge things against. Everything is interesting. I love everything.

And experiencing doesn’t have to be about running around to do more. The “I” seem to like just watching the sky, for instance.

The awareness and the body

I think the Higher Self / awareness is more closely connected to the body than to the mind because the body is our tool to experience. The Higher Self is not interested in the commentaries of the mind — that is like indirect, secondhand experiences. So the feelings (both the emotions and the kinesthetic kinds) are more directly connected to the Higher Self than thoughts, memories, and beliefs.

In the end, it doesn’t matter what we call it. I’ve been using the word “Higher Self” because this was the term that was often used in the corner of the world I used to be familiar with, but because I never talk about “lower self”, I might just call it “Self” (as opposed to self, which is an illusionary reflection of Self). You might call it spirit, awareness, the “I am” or A to Z. (Um, yes, I imitated Jesus, who said, “I am the alpha and the omega.” He didn’t mean he alone is such — each and every “I” am the alpha and the omega.)

What do you think? Have you read Ramana Maharshi or other nondualism teachings? What is your heartfelt response to the question, “Who am I?”

Soul’s Purpose For Incarnation

“If our essence is the soul, or the spirit, why did we bother to incarnate in the physical body?” As spirit, there was no pain, no fear, no suffering, and certainly no death, right? Didn’t we know we were better off staying in the spirit world rather than coming to this world?

In other words: What is the purpose and meaning of life?

I’ve written a detailed post on life purpose, and that post is still good, but let me reiterate the issue from a new angle because this is a big, important issue. (photo credit)

Soul’s purpose to enjoy

Yep, this is the main thing. We wanted to enjoy this physical world. We wanted to feel the love and abundance, our power to create and manifest, in this tangible world. Your life purpose is to enjoy this physical world.

Are you disappointed? Does “enjoyment” sound unimportant or petty? Were you expecting something holier?

Then let me ask you, what is more holier than enjoying, which is synonymous to praising and appreciating the creation (whether you see the creator as God or yourself)? If you think enjoyment is something worthless, you may be caught up with the “Value must come from sacrifice” and “We are no good and we must suppress ourselves” myth.

But, you may say, this world is full of horrible things. We don’t get to enjoy much.

Well, I’m writing another post to show you that perception is misled.   (It’s published now here.)  All the things in this world are good. But even if we accept there are bad things in life, does that decrease your enjoyment? If you believe in bad things, you enjoy the good things even more, don’t you?

If not, it’s probably you not allowing yourself to enjoy — it’s not the bad things preventing you from enjoyment.

And by saying “Our soul’s purpose is to enjoy this life,” I don’t mean we should all spend the rest of our lives lying on the beach. Lying on the beach is enjoyable some of the time, or all the time for some of the people, but not all the time for all of us. I, for one, will be completely bored after a week or so. (Yes, I actually prefer the cool Oregon weather, and most of the time, I like typing up my articles rather than doing nothing.)

Okay, so enjoyment. How do we really enjoy living then?

Soul’s purpose to express itself

By fully expressing our unique gifts and strengths. You enjoy yourself and your life most when you are fully yourself.  Your life purpose is to be the authentic YOU.

If you try to become someone that you are not, your effort is wasted and you feel bad about yourself. Even if you get money or people’s attention this way, you just feel like a fake and you don’t get to enjoy them really. This is the mistaken way to enjoy “love and abundance.”

To really enjoy love and abundance, we first need to love ourselves completely and unconditionally, and to see the abundant and supportive nature of the universe.

We, each one of us, have unique gifts, and the gifts get even better as we go through our unique life experiences. Recognizing our gifts and figuring out how to express them is one of the most important work you do in your life.

So we can say our soul’s purpose is to express ourselves in an authentic way. Which brings true enjoyment.

Soul’s purpose to learn and to help others learn

When we incarnate, we receive the “veil” that make it difficult to know ourselves. It’s a way to enjoy this life game more. It adds the fun of discovery.

So, to get to the place we fully express ourselves and enjoy this life, there are learnings to do. This is often called learning the “life lessons”. Learning the life lessons is part of the soul’s purpose.

I don’t see this learning process goes on indefinitely, however. With Ascension, many souls are completing the “this is the life lessons, here is a plan to learn them in this world, let’s work on this program” style learning.

Sometimes, we volunteer to help others learn. Our souls are so generous! I’ve seen these souls in my Akashic Record Reading — they’ve been relaxing in the spirit world for eons of time, and then decide to come over. Apparently, there is no big reason they “need to” incarnate, but they volunteer to be here.

How specific your soul’s purpose can be

Some people want to be told something like, “Your life purpose is to go to Africa to save the starving children.” And they are afraid they’d “fail” in life if they don’t do it. Well, in order to do it, they need to know what their specific life purpose is, so they go to psychics for readings.

This is a very poor way to use a psychic. Because, if the psychic (and their spirit guides) is a good one who respects free will, they see the problem of telling clients their specific life purpose. We are not order takers and we define our specific path of life. There are many ways you can express yourself and therefore contribute to the world. Choosing which way you want to take is up to your free will.

For instance, if you are told that your life purpose is indeed to go to Africa to save the starving children, would you do it? Well, you’d better, right? And if you fail to do so, you live feeling bad, fearing the judgment? Do you really think the loving God, who is the very one who gave you free will, would do something like this?

So let go of the idea that there is a life purpose statement hidden somewhere in the sky. Also let go of the idea God is a mean superintendent tracking your progress against the life purpose plan. And while you are at it, let go of your friends in the spiritual circle who make you feel bad because you are not contributing enough money, time, etc for greater causes.

Instead open up and enjoy your life. Be yourself. Praise the miracle of life and create more miracles yourself.

Living Your Life Purpose

Do you know your life purpose? Are you living your life purpose? How are you making progress in fulfilling your life purpose?

So many of us are waking up to realize we do have purpose in our life, that life is not some random accident but we came here for certain reasons. But many are also frustrated because, as much as we sense we have life purpose, we cannot figure out what it is.

I know the frustration of not knowing the purpose of my life

I certainly know that frustration – I lived in it for years. In my early years, I thought I could find my purpose in higher education. I studied hard and was admitted to one of the most prestigious universities in Japan. Boy, it disappointed me. There was also a time in my life when I thought I could find my purpose in a relationship. Nope. And I did my share of corporate life in America.

Since I left my corporate job last year and put my full attention in my spiritual development, I now feel I have a better perspective on this issue of life purpose. I have the sense of direction that I am making a progress in my life purpose, and this gives me calming satisfaction.

In fact, this was the very reason I started this blog. I want to help you live your purpose. (And if that involves starting a business – which is not necessarily the case but sometimes is, I want to help you in that effort, too) Yet I realize I haven’t written a core post on what life purpose is, so here it is.

General and individual life purpose

In the most generalized level, we all come to live in the physical life form for one common purpose: to experience life in this physical world and to learn and grow through the experience. Steve Pavlina puts it this way in his recent interview with Hunter Nuttall:

“. . . So if consciousness is the only potential common element to this life and the afterlife, then we get the greatest possible long-term gains by developing our consciousness in this life. And what’s really fascinating is that by focusing on the development of your consciousness now, you’ll enjoy an incredible life while you’re here. You’ll lose your fear of death because you’ll know you’re doing the very best you can to prepare for it. And once you lose your fear of death, you’ll live much more fully in the here and now.

For starters you’ll be less timid about taking risks such as quitting your job to start a new business. After all, if you accept that you’re going to die, how you can be afraid of minor stumbling blocks like going broke? Those things are just part of the expansion of your consciousness.

Consciousness develops through expansion, through exposure to new experiences . . . We’re here to have the greatest growth experience – the greatest adventure – any conscious being could ever wish for. . . You’re here to develop yourself as a conscious being.”

So true. I would like to add to this, that there is a reason why each of us are unique. In addition to the big general purpose, each of us have more specific purpose, or set of purposes. Knowing the big purpose is helpful, but I think it’s also helpful to get more personal.

Expression of your uniqueness is one of your life purpose

Have you ever stopped and thought why each of us are different? Our uniqueness is a gift for for ourselves and to the whole world.

Large part of our unique strengths (and challenges) come from our soul origins. Each of our soul (what Steve calls consciousness) has origins. Is this surprising to you? If our soul can survive the death of this lifetime, it has survived many previous lifetimes. Go all the way back when it first incarnated in the physical body on Earth. Where was it before?

For many people, life is meant to be simply lived. There is nothing wrong about this – these people are the salt of the Earth. Their souls know only this Earth, and in the early stage of development.

If you are reading Steve Pavlina or this blog, however, you are probably not one of them. Deep down, you know you have higher aspiration and more specific purpose for your life (or for your many lives). Your soul originated in other sources to make certain contributions to this Earth.

Soul group and life purpose

The origin of the soul (sometimes called soul family) defines your soul level gifts. And you wanted to incarnate on this Earth so that you could make your contribution with your gifts. This is your group level life purpose.

When you express your wonderful soul gifts, when you offer your gifts to improve this Earth, you are fulfilling your life purpose. You are also growing spiritually yourself.

For example, some of my Akashic Record Reading clients’ souls come from outer space (the exact location is not identified at this time) and have firsthand expertise in the blueprints of this Earth and our souls – they really know how things were originally planned to work. Some know this into technical details. Because there have been many corruptions in the blueprint codes, they came to work on the restoration of the blueprints. They are working on the soul level to correct the negativity with their great technical abilities.

On the physical level, they may be working as engineers or program managers. Or economic analysts or medical researchers or even philosophers. These are all different ways they utilize their soul gifts, their analytical and well-organized thinking capabilities, and they are restoring the original blueprints. (I haven’t read his Akashic Records, so I’m not 100% sure, but I think Eckhart Tolle, author of A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (Oprah’s Book Club, Selection 61), belongs to this group. See how meticulously he works on the technical accuracy and perfection.)

Another example is Dr. Eric Pearl of the Reconnection. He is considered to be a Pleiadian. (In this case, we know the location of his home.) Pleiadians are here to bring changes (and entertain us along the way).

Souls also take trainings, like taking college majors, that further define their gifts and purposes. I’ll write about this into details later in another post – this itself is a huge topic.

If you are interested in learning more about various soul groups (soul families), there is a book called Soul Mastery: Accessing the Gifts of Your Soul. It doesn’t include several soul groups somehow, and it doesn’t explain the critical steps to identify and straighten up the energetic issues prior to reading the Akashic Records (sometimes, the “book” may have the wrong cover, etc.), but it’s an interesting read.

Life purpose and life lessons

Each individual soul chooses a set of life lessons prior to incarnation. Dr. Brian Weiss’ Many Lives, Many Masters explains this important issue. So working on the life lessons you yourself chose before incarnation is part of the life purpose. This is your life purpose that is specific to this lifetime.

By the way, this is another thing I check in my Akashic Record Reading, and it is such a joy when the client says something like, “I knew this! This XXXXX has meant so much in my life! So I’ve been learning this all my life.”

Then there are some additional purposes, such as healing the energetic wounds you still suffer from previous lives. Along the way, we intend to fulfill some soul agreements we made with other souls.

Your life purpose is NOT a must-do list given by someone else

I hope you are not getting overwhelmed. It is essential to realize that living your life purpose is more about being than doing. I know it looks like we have to do so many things. But our soul’s expansion does not correlate to the quantity of experiences. We can learn so much and make huge progress in our life lesson from one experience. And expressing your soul gifts is more about offering that special energetic quality through your existence than doing something with it.

Your life purpose is definitely NOT an order from heaven that says, “You must do this, or else.” (True divinity doesn’t use this kind of fear tactics.) You, your soul, chose your own life purpose. Let me summarize:

• You chose your origination and training, and you came here to offer your special energetic qualities.
• You chose to come to life each time you incarnated to experience this physical world and to grow and evolve.
• You chose your own life lessons for this lifetime.

Look, aren’t you a beautiful soul? So ambitious and so generous. You chose all these with joyous expectations – otherwise, you didn’t have to incarnate.

How do you feel about life purpose? Do you have a sense of direction that you are living your life purpose? (Photo by Kjell)

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