The Illusion of “I”
A man once sat before a wise elder, carrying a question that had followed him for years through loss, change, and quiet disappointment. It was not curiosity that brought him there, but weariness.
“Why am I what I am?” he asked.
The elder smiled, not with amusement, but with recognition. As if he had heard the question many times, and yet knew that for the one asking, it was entirely new.
“You are what you are,” the elder replied softly, “because you do not yet understand what you are.”
The man frowned. “I don’t understand.”
The elder leaned closer. His voice was calm, like wind moving through an open window.
“What you think you are,” he said, “you are not. What you do not think you are, you are.”
The words did not land in the man’s mind. They passed through it. He felt them instead, like a pause in breathing, like standing at the edge of something vast. Still, he pressed on, asking for clarity.
“All your life,” the elder said, “you have mistaken the costume for the one wearing it. You arrived in a body you did not choose, in a place you did not select, with a language, a history, a story handed to you. And from these pieces, you built a name and a story, and called it ‘me.’”
He let the silence speak.
“Had you been born elsewhere; your beliefs would be different. Your fears would wear other faces. Your name would change. And still, you would defend it all as yourself. How can what changes so easily be who you truly are?”
The man lowered his eyes. Something within him softened.
“This identity you protect,” the elder continued, “is like a castle made of sand. One wave, loss, change, accident, illness, time itself, and it collapses. This is where suffering is born: not from life, but from mistaking the sand for the self.”
The man whispered, “Then who am I?”
The elder smiled again. “Not the body. Not the mind. Not the story. Not the role you were given or you selected. Beneath all of it is something still. Spacious. Unwounded. Perfect. Eternal. Unlimited. Not a belief to hold, but a presence to rest in.”
The man felt the world grow quiet. Not empty, clear. The castle in his mind did not fall. It simply loosened.
The elder continued, "What you think you are can crumble and pass away. What you truly are has never needed creating, defending, or proving, only remembering. The essence of who you are, like a lotus, is found beneath the layers."
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Author: Maurice "Mao" Correa
Website: pathtoone.com
Blog for Articles: pathtooneblog.blogspot.com
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