How Do I Know I'm Not My Body?

I woke up this morning and started doing my meditation where I ask myself who am I? I have a body, but I'm not my body. I have thoughts, but I'm not my thoughts. Etc. Then, so who am I? Ending with I am awareness, I am the space in which my body, thoughts, etc., arise.

I thought all of this is good, but how do I know I'm not my body? Maybe I am and all this is just fooling myself. So I began to think how could I know that I'm not really my body. Well, if I were to have my finger cut off, would I be any less of who I am? No, not at all. I would still be me totally. What if I lost my arm. No, I would miss my arm and feel really, really bad, but I'd still be me.

What if I lost both arms and legs? Now I'd feel really shitty, but, yes, I would still be totally me.

What if they could remove all my body except my head, put me on some kind of life support system, would I still be me? Of course, I'd have my thoughts, feelings, etc. I would still be totally me.

Then what if they removed my face, mouth, ears? What if all that was left of me was my brain? Would I still be me. Yeah, but it wouldn't be a lot of fun. What would I do but think?

Okay, what if then they started cutting off pieces of my brain? Well, then I might have trouble thinking about certain things, but I'd still be me. How far would they have to go before I couldn't think at all? And at what point would I not be me?

If I had lost my body and nearly all my brain, I guess losing a little more brain wouldn't matter, I'd still be me. When you put it this way, I really have to say, I'm not my body. I'm something very different from the flesh and bones that carry me around.

If I'm not my body, who am I?

I'm awareness. I'm the space that allows my body, my thoughts, my feelings, emotions, desires, to arise. I'm consciousness.

A New Earth

Reading has always been my preferred mode of learning. And I read a lot. Recently that has changed.

I am desperately trying to learn new recipes for preparing raw meals. I've got about a half dozen cookbooks, but I was getting nowhere until I borrowed a DVD from my daughter Gina. The DVD was a demonstration about making raw food dishes by Alissa Cohen. Something happened to me watching the video. It wasn't just seeing it done, somewhere deeper than my intellect I knew that I could do this. And I did. I'm making raw food dishes all over the place now.

At about the same time this was happening I started watching the online classes that Ekhart Tolle and Oprah have been doing on Tolle's new book, A New Earth. Now, I've read his first book, The Power of Now, about six times, one page at a sitting, slowly, meditatively. It has been an important part of my personal developmental process.

Watching Ekhart and Oprah exchange ideas about the book is having an impact on me far greater than just reading. I'm not sure why. Maybe seeing, like watching the cooking DVD, is bringing the information to a deeper level. Maybe the seeing bypasses the mind and thinking process and gets us at our core selves. Whatever it is, Tolle's teachings are having a much more profound affect on me than his books. If this is the case universally, then the human race is in for an exciting ride in the near future because what Oprah is doing with this live web cast is only just the beginning. As it is, almost anything you want to see is now available on YouTube. And it is only going to get bigger and bigger. Yes, folks, there is a new earth coming.

It is probably no coincidence that I just bought my first webcam for my computer. Now I use Skype to call to my son in New York and Mike in Tortolla. Seeing them live on the screen is so much better than just hearing them. Now using a regular phone seems so...boring. Maybe it will be that way someday with learning. It will be common to involve all of our senses. I think we as a race are evolving past the mind stage, becoming more holistic and using our deeper selves to comprehend new worlds.

By the way, if you are not watching the classes that Oprah has put on line with Ekhart Tolle, you are missing something really important. Don't get left behind. Go to Oprah.com and download the classes there for free. You don't have to have read the book to get a lot out of it. For me, my life has already changed and I've only seen the first two and a half shows. I keep saying to myself, "oh, I get it now." The result is that I am definitely living my daily life now at a more conscious level. Something happens and I go right to being aware of what is happening instead of getting caught up in it. I love it! Makes life a lot more enjoyable.