Who am I?

“Body”, “Consciousness” and “Mind” are all different answers to the question of “Who am I?”, but these different answers all have unintended consequences. How do we know that there is an after life if we are just a physical body that decays after we die? When is a baby a human and is birth control really wrong? These are but a few tough questions to answer, but they all stem from one consistent problem and that is that we just don’t know what we really are. If we conclude that we have a soul, then we can conclude that there is an afterlife. If we know that a baby becomes human at their first breath, then we can conclude that abortion is okay. But in both cases we have no real proof to prove that we are a soul, nor do we have proof that a human starts to live at their first breath. Because we have yet to come up with a consistent answer to this question and because this answer solves other emotionally charged issues, then it is imperative that we all have a common understanding of who we are before we even try to answer any of these questions.

Guidelines on how we know we have the answer

To start, we have come up with two guidelines that, if met, will guarantee that we have an answer of who we are and they are:

• We must have complete control over who we are

• We are only one thing (Chooser) and not a multiple of something (Choices)

The first guideline is that we must have complete control over who we are. The reason is that we cannot be something we cannot control because something else is controlling that thing. This implies that you have found who you really are once you have realized that you have 100% control of that something. For example, I cannot control you 100% of the time and because of this, I know that I am not you.

Given the first guideline that we control 100% of what we are, we can then use this guideline to formulate another guideline.  To explain this next guideline, I want you to pick a number between 1 and 6.  
Now that you have picked this number I want to ask you who has more control over what number was picked.  Was it the choices (1 to 6) or the chooser (You)?

Obviously it was You, the chooser.

Since we know that control defines who we are and since choice is a form of control, we can conclude that the chooser has more control over the outcome then the choices.  Thus we must be the chooser and not the choices.

So the second guideline is that we are one thing (Chooser) and not a multiple of something (Choices).

To summarize, we will know that we have the right answer to who we are when we meet these two guidelines:

- We have complete control over who we are
- We are only one thing (Chooser) and not a multiple of something (Choices)

Now that we have these two guidelines, lets go through some possible answers that might explain who we are.

Am I my body?

To answer this, ask yourself “Can I stop my heart from beating?” or “Can you stop your body from fighting disease?” or “Can you stop your toe nails from growing?”. Without physically stopping your body from doing what it naturally does, it will do things in the best interest of the body without any direction from you. Therefore, since you cannot fully control the body that you have, you cannot be your body.

Am I the objects and people that are around me?

To answer this question, ask yourself if the computer you are using right now defines everything that you are as a person. What about your bed, phone, car, house, pillow, clock etc. etc.? What about your friends, family, co-workers, wife, husband, children, etc. etc.? Individually each element that I listed cannot define who you are, as you are more complex or completely different from each of the elements. However, similarities within each of the elements will arise to help better explain who you are.

So if I am not the objects and people that are in my life, but instead I am what is reflected in all of the objects and people in my life, then I must ask how do I get the objects and people in my life that are a reflection of me? Aren’t they through my actions?

Am I my actions?

In order to be your actions, you would have to be defined by them. So does the act of reading this website define everything that is you? I know that is not the case. The reason is that you do multiple actions in a day, so we can conclude that you are correct by stating that we cannot be our actions, as this violates the second guideline of not being multiples of something.

Another thing to ponder is how do you act. Doesn’t something happen before you act? If so what?

Am I my emotions?

Can you be defined as who you are by the word “anger”? What about the word “sadness”? You may be one of these emotions at times, but you are not one of these emotions all the time. Since you have multiple types of emotions that you can have over the course of a year and because you can’t be multiple of something, then you can’t be your emotions.

Here is something else to ponder. Can you be angry without knowing what you are angry at? Can you be sad without knowing what you are sad about? Then aren’t emotions caused by something? If so what?

Am I my thoughts?

After reading the title above, the thought that probably comes to your mind would probably be “Am I my thought?” or “What are they talking about?”. Now does that thought define everything that is you? Is the essence of who you are rolled up into this one thought? I think not. It would be safer to state that you are the culmination of all of your thoughts. However, I cannot be multiple pieces of something, as I am only one thing.

The chooser.

Also, we all have thoughts that are unconscious in nature that we don’t control at all, like moving your hand off of a burning stove, breathing or other habitual patterns that we have learned. Since we don’t control those thoughts and because I cannot be multiple thoughts, then I cannot be thought.

But what controls my thoughts?

To answer this question, we need to classify thoughts. Some thoughts control things like your heart, your immune system and your nervous system. Other thoughts give you an indication that something is affecting your body, like pain, hunger and sleepiness. The last kind of thoughts are about your choices and what your perceptions are.

When we separate these thoughts into different categories, we can assume where certain thoughts come from. For instance, we can state that thoughts that control your heart are coming from your body and not from you.

Another classification would be things like pain, hunger and sleepiness, which are an indication from our body to tell “something” that the body needs attention. This would be similar to seeing the gas light turn on in a car. Although the signal is one thought, the thoughts that happen after this signal do not come from your body, but instead come from something else. For instance, if your body says it is hungry, then there is a thought process on where to eat, who to eat with, how are you going to get there, etc.

The last classification of thoughts are around choices and perceptions about reality, which do not come from your body.

They come from you.

So what am I?

You are the controller of these conscious thoughts. We know this because you can change your perspective on life. You can change your choices in life. The thing that dictates change in your life is you, which is done by changing your thoughts about life, which change your actions, your emotions, and your results. As the controller of conscious thought, you control these thoughts, which meets guideline one and you are one “thing”, which meets guidelines two.

As the controller of thought, you are one entity that has full control over the thoughts that in turn creates your world.

What about people who can’t think consciously because of brain damage?

To answer this question, you need a different perspective. Assume that you are a deer who lives in the forest. Within this forest is a road that has multiple different cars that go by. From a deer’s perspective, there is no way to know that there is someone in that car controlling it and instead they will think that a car is a living being.

Now from our perspective, if the driver wanted to signal left, but the tail light was out, would we state that the driver can no longer signal left because they want too or would it be safer to say that it is the car that has the problem? We’d say the car has the problem, because the driver wants to turn left, but there is no way to do so unless the driver fixes the car. Once the car is fixed, then you will see that the driver will signal left.

If the car was your body and the driver was you, then we can state that if there is damage to the body, you won’t act the way you want too because your body is broken. It doesn’t mean that you don’t want to do what you want, but you just can’t do it. Therefore, if we remove the physical elements that help to create conscious thought, then this does not mean that we do not want to think consciously. Instead it means we just can’t physically think consciously.

What does this mean for my life?

The idea that you are the controller of thought has some amazing consequences and they are:

• You are not your body, so you don’t have to be judged by the way it looks.
• You are not your results, so you don’t have to feel judged that you don’t have enough.
• You are not your actions, so you don’t have to be shy
• You are not your emotions, so you can cry if you want too
• You are not your thoughts, so thinking differently then others isn’t wrong

These are just a few of the endless benefits that happen when you realize who you are. As you go through the site, you will see how this concept of being the controller of thought helps you to become who you want to be.

Summary

Using the two guidelines of being in control of who we are and being the chooser and not the choices, we can conclude that we are not our bodies, results, actions, emotions or thoughts. Instead we are the controller of thought. These thoughts that we control are conscious thoughts that allow us to think of a variety of different thoughts.