Who Are You?

“You can’t see your own head. You never get at it. You can’t bite your own teeth or hear your own ears. That which is the knower is never itself the object of knowledge, just as fire doesn’t burn itself.”
​~Alan Watts

This week’s quote is about the true nature of the self. It's strange to think that the one thing in the world you have never truly seen is your own face. Sure, you’ve seen yourself in a mirror, but that isn’t the real you, it’s your reflection. You’ve also seen yourself in photos and videos but, again, that isn’t the same thing as looking directly at yourself.

In the same way, your mind can never fully comprehend its own nature. Your mind is that which perceives reality and, as such, it can never be the object of its own perception. According to Alan Watts, your mind is unable to perceive itself just as the eye can’t see itself and the tongue can’t taste itself. It’s like how your index finger can’t point to itself or how your foot can’t kick itself.

Understanding that "the knower is never itself the object of knowledge" can shift your whole approach to the spiritual path. Now, instead of constantly trying to discover the truth about life, you can simply relax and enjoy the journey, appreciating the beauty of the things that you can perceive and the mystery of the things you cannot.

Ultimately, you come to realize that the self is an illusion- that there is no separation between you and your experience. As David Bohm once said, "There is no thinker apart from thought. Thought creates the illusion of a thinker." Or, as Douglas Harding put it, "There is no experiencer of experience. There is just experience happening, and the thought that someone is experiencing it."

So, let go of the need to figure yourself out. The person you believe yourself to be, the one witnessing your experience, is just another thought in the stream. Your mind creates the illusion of a self that is separate from the thoughts it produces when, in reality, there is no separation, there is just the flow of thoughts.