What is a Person, Anyway?

From an early age, the inquisitive girl realized that there was nothing personal.  Therefore, she could not “take” things personally.  She had began to understand that people were programmed how to act and how to speak and what to laugh at.   According to their thoughts, they created beliefs about the world.

 

She could see thoughts come and go like bubbles, as if they were objects.  She could day-dream and see thoughts just as one could imagine faces in the clouds.  She understood that imagination was everything and that everything was created from imagination: image-making.

 

Way back when she had been in kindergarten, she had imagined that there was a telescope with which she was being watched by her parents, even though she was living in the United States and they were in Asia sometimes.  There was no doubt in her “mind” that this was actually true. She knew that there was no distance except in thought.  And no space, either.  When she would ride in a car, she would imagine that she was still, not moving, while the world passed by – the windshield became a theater, and she was the audience!

 

From a very early age she developed a witness perspective which became the observer of her in the world, but especially of herself.  One day, when she was older and almost an adult, she heard a guru say that becoming the witness was a special spiritual practice; this resonated with what she already knew and had been doing for such a long time.

 

It also seemed that if one did not witness, then it was  like being in a trance – the trance of believing that one was only the sum total of their thoughts and experiences.  She fine-tuned this art of witnessing to the degree that she observed closely every aspect of her daily actions.  So fine was this tuning-in, that she would be able to anticipate when a particular thought would enter into her awareness, and she would even laugh out loud when repetitive thoughts would appear as clouds of learned reactions.  From this vantage, she came to know that she was the indwelling consciousness that was always present: it was always first on the scene!  She had become the conscious observer.

 

She came to know that there was this “person” who seemed to be born and reborn whenever there was a thought, and that this person claimed the center stage.  This big-headed person’s name was “I.”  She came to know that this I-person was actually a collection of thoughts, and that the I-person was the one who other people reacted to.

 

People who were defined by their thoughts were reacting to everyone else’s thoughts.  She used to laugh at this funny show.  But then, it wasn’t always funny.  Because as she continued to view life and the world in this way as she became an adult, she realized that it was because of these reactions that wars and violence occurred.  People defended their thoughts as if the thoughts were who they were! 

 

Whenever she became involved in a clash of ideas, she would implore the other person just to try not to take it personally, or, to try to forget about personal problems and get on with the subject at hand.  Sadly, she was always surprised at how identified people were with their collection of thoughts, that they would rather defend than let go of these I-thoughts.

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This is an excerpt from a booklet I wrote.  If you would like to read the entire story,  click this link:  The Last Question