ME- So Nick tell us a little bit about yourself; who are you?
Nick- “Who are you”... Now there’s a question. I ask my self that everyday. “Who are you”, the big question... I used to think I knew. I think a lot of people think they know. but do they really? or is that person who they think they are really just a projection of what everyone else tells us we are? y’know? like most people, you ask them that question; “Who are you?”, and you’ll probably get an answer like “My name’s Tim, I’m 42 years old and I’m a mechanic” y’know? but wait a minute there Tim; I didn’t ask you your name, age or occupation. No; the question I asked was “Who are you?”. y’see all we know of who we are learned things, thinks that other people have taught us that we are. look I’ll tell you now what you wanted to hear; I’m Nick Jones, I’m 35 years old, I’m a, what you’d probably call “Hobo”, I’m a British single white male, I’m a smoker, drinker, I’ve no kids, I’ve never been married and I was born in Bristol. Why would you want to know these things unless you’re planning on making presumptions about me y’know. But the question remains doesn’t it? Who am I? I’ve been hard at work on that question now for, let’s see, at least 15 years, and I’m still confused.
Try and think of it this way, when you’re born into this world you’re not one person, you’re two. On the one hand you’re who you were born as, at this point completely natural, untouched, you have a clean mind, no outside information has entered into it. The other person is your consciousness, the grand observer. Now as you grow up that completely untouched mind gets bombarded with outside information, and all this information, it’s like layers, but the true essence of who you really are is at the core, and the more so called knowledge and beliefs you have the longer it’s going to take to get back down to the core. You see we’re searching far to much for the answers in the external world, but the truth is there, within each and every one of us, wether we are young or old, poor or rich, smart or dumb, black or white, male or female, whatever.
My grandmother used to search high and low for her glasses, sometimes for up to 10 or even 20 minutes and then she’d come in the room and say, “has anyone seen my glasses?”. Y’know where they were? Resting on top of her head! Thats a lot like life y’know. It makes me laugh; all these academics, scientists and so called intellectuals; they all think they’re getting closer to the truth y’know? They think that for every new thing that you know you’re one step closer to that ultimate truth, but really they’re just getting further and further away. It’s sad really, cos they’re the ones who want to know the most. y’see every time you know something you limit yourself to that possibility, the world soon becomes very black and white that way. you gotta learn to unlearn what you have learnt. Then you gotta get back in touch with that self you buried with knowledge, he’s still alive under there somewhere, trust me... Now here’s the hard part, that guy you just dug out, introduce yourself, spend some time with him, get to know him. Like any heathy relationship this one is also based on communication so find out what he wants from life, ask him every day, and then give him what he wants, he deserves it. And don’t worry he’s not going to ask you for a brand new sports car or a rolex watch. The true self doesn’t want these things. The word ‘success’ has a very different meaning to him than the one which most people accept.
This new found relationship with your true self will begin to grow, it takes a long time and a lot of effort though, but then again that’s the same as any relationship, people can be married for decades and still not completely know each other. But then again that’s a good thing, if you knew each other totally, you’d get bored. Having that relationship with yourself and other people is what life is all about. Because when you’re learning from the depths of your own or other people’s soul your really learning from the divine truth of the universe. I gotta say though don’t be sad if you think you’ll never get there, to the truth I mean, just head in it’s direction. Life is a lesson in letting go and death is the final exam... let go of your worries and sadness and just enjoy the journey, enjoy getting to know yourself and enjoy getting to know others. There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way... But to come back to your original question; The ‘Ultimate’ question; “Who am I?”... I can only give you the ‘Ultimate’ answer: I don’t know.
