âYouâre not who you think you are. You are the one who is thinking.â â Michael A. Singer
Who are you? This seems like a simple question, but itâs actually the deepest question a human being can ask. Most people answer with their name, their job, their roles, their beliefs, or their personality traits. But Singer asks us to look more closelyâare any of these things really you?
If you were asked who you are and you couldnât answer with anything externalâno name, no occupation, no relationships, no historyâwhat would you say? This inquiry is not philosophical wordplay; itâs a doorway to discovering your true nature.
The most obvious answer to âWho am I?â is âI am this body.â But look more closely. You say âmy bodyâ as if you own it, as if it belongs to you. Who is the âmeâ that has the body? Your body changes constantlyâevery cell is replaced over timeâyet you remain. You were a child, a teenager, and now an adult, but something continuous observes all these changes.
When you look at your hand, there is a subject (you) observing an object (the hand). This means you cannot be the hand. The same logic applies to every part of your bodyâyou can observe it, which means you are the observer, not the observed.
Anything you can observe cannot be you. You are the observer, not the observed. This simple principle, when truly understood, revolutionizes your sense of self.
If youâre not the body, perhaps you are your thoughts? But weâve already seen that you can observe your thoughts. They come and go, but you remain. Thoughts arise without your choosing themâwho is it that notices when a thought appears?
Your thoughts change constantly based on mood, circumstance, and random associations. But the awareness in which thoughts appear doesnât change. Itâs always there, always watching, always knowing that thoughts are happening.
You donât have to believe every thought that arises. You donât have to follow every mental tangent. Thoughts are events that happen within you, like clouds passing through the sky. You are the sky, not the clouds.
Emotions feel very personal, very âme.â When youâre angry, it feels like you are angry. But notice: you can observe emotions arising. You can feel fear coming up and watch it intensify or subside. Who is watching?
Emotions pass through you. They arise, peak, and dissolve. You say âIâm having a feelingâ or âThis emotion is passing through meââthe language itself reveals that emotions are experiences you have, not what you are.
Imagine you are the screen in a movie theater. All kinds of images appear on youâhappy scenes, scary scenes, dramatic scenes. But the screen itself is never affected. It doesnât become happy or scared. It simply allows all images to appear. You are like that screenâthe unchanging witness of all experiences.
Singer offers a simple but profound exercise: notice that in every experience, there is something being experienced (the object) and something doing the experiencing (the subject). You are always the subject.
You see a treeâyou are the seer, not the tree. You feel sadnessâyou are the one feeling, not the sadness itself. You think a thoughtâyou are aware of the thought, not the thought. No matter what arises in experience, you are always that which is aware of it.
Singer introduces the concept of the âseat of consciousnessââthe place from which you observe everything. This seat is not a physical location but a point of awareness. From this seat, you watch thoughts, emotions, sensations, and the entire world go by.
Most people are so identified with whatâs happening in their consciousness that they never notice they are sitting in this seat. Theyâre lost in the movie instead of realizing theyâre the one watching it.
You are not your thoughts, emotions, or body. You are the awareness in which all of these appear.