Are You “No One,” or Not?

Q: I absolutely understand that there is no one here to do anything, and no one to realize anything. And so I guess there’s nothing I can do, and yet I’m still suffering. Then I’m told there is no one here to be suffering! I’m very frustrated.

A: Aren’t you forgetting something in all this? YOU! You are, and you know that you are.

You have read in Advaita and looked into the idea that there is “no one.” “No one,” if misconstrued, can imply “no experience.” And yet that is not the case, is it? Are you experiencing right now? Are you having a conscious experience? Of course. And yet Advaita seems to be telling us that there is not supposed to be any “self-center” to feel anything like that. So we go into some kind of existential denial and paint ourselves into a corner.

How do we get out of the dilemma? Just look at what is here. The sense “I am” is here. We are not trying to deny that. What we are trying to do is sort out what “I am” is and what it is not.

What we read, and what we figure out mentally, says that there is “no one,” meaning, no separate entity – no person. But if you forgot all you ever learned or read, you would say “I know that I am.”  And so this is the “one” that we are looking into – this sense of “I am.”

You are an intelligent person, and it was not difficult for you to intellectually understand that there cannot possibly be a separate entity. But the problem comes when we get stuck on what we grasped mentally, and try to follow further along that same road – hoping it will lead us to some final truth or “dropping away” – rather than stick with our own experience. And our own experience indeed includes a sense of “I,” which feels like “one.”

Forget all about “there is no one.” Just forget it. Your mind will make something of this that it's not. What do you sense for yourself? What do you discover?

You know that you are. You know that you are aware. Can you deny that you are? Can you deny that you are aware? This is where you start, and you never lose sight of that, because it is the only thing you know for sure, right now, without ever having read or heard a single line of philosophy or spirituality.

It sounds like you are in denial of what your own experience is. To say “no one is here” sounds like you are trying to pretend a feeling of oblivion. Don’t pretend. Can you deny that you are having a conscious experience? Look at what is real. You are. And then, from there, find out what that means – what part of that is false, and what part of that is true.

“I am.” You are. Some ideas arise within that thought “I am” saying that you are small and limited, suffering, seeking, etc. When looked into, it is seen that those ideas are based on false assumptions.

What about “I am” is not based on any assumption? Just the pure fact of beingness. Just transparent being, right now. Clear, calm, still, empty of all phenomena. The experience of being.

You know this being right now. So the “I am no one” things works fine, until you realize you're throwing out the baby with the bathwater. You are no one, but you ARE. You sense and feel it. You know it. So don’t deny that, because it will only foster confusion when your experience doesn’t match the belief.

It is true, of course, that there is no separate entity. There is no controller. There is no person. But does this mean there is “no one”? There is “One,” and it is One with a capital “O.” One without a second. And that One is You.

Return to this knowing. Here you are. Not as a limited being, not as an actor among the ever-changing phenomena. But here you are. Being. Right here, now, always.

Transparent. Lucid. Boundless. And this is what you know as “I am” right now. “I am” does not imply a self-center. Not a person, and not “no one,” but this: “I am.”