The Invisible One

The student inquires: “Who makes my mind think?
Who fills my body with vitality?
Who causes my tongue to speak? Who is that
Invisible One who sees through my eyes
And hears through my ears?

The teacher replies: …

“That which makes the tongue speak, but cannot be
Spoken by the tongue, know that as the Self.
This Self is not someone other than you.

“That which makes the mind think, but cannot be
Thought by the mind, that is the Self indeed.
This Self is not someone other than you,

“That which makes the eye see, but cannot be
Seen by the eye, that is the Self indeed.
This Self is not someone other than you.

“That which makes the ear hear, but cannot be
Heard by the ear, that is the Self indeed.
This Self is not someone other than you.

“That which makes you draw breath, but cannot be
Drawn by your breath, that is the Self indeed.
This Self is not someone other than you.”

The Kena Upanishad
Translated by Eknarth Easwaran

The Upanishads are a collection of Vedic texts and contain some of the earliest central concepts of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. More than 200 Upanishads are known; the oldest and most important predate the 6th Century BC and were passed down through oral tradition. The Upanishads discuss the nature of ultimate reality and human salvation.

Who am I? is one of the perennial questions we ask ourselves, and the answer we look for is always ‘someone’ or ‘something’ outside of ourselves. We make God(s) in our own image in an effort to understand and in doing so set up an impenetrable barrier to the understanding we seek.

Who is looking through these eyes which are reading these words? Is it the me or the I?

Sometimes Buddhism, in particular, is criticized for its belief in “emptiness” rather than a “personal” God. No-Thing-ness can feel cold and alien to the ego who seeks salvation and eternal life for itself and so creates a father/mother god and a holy family that it can cajole, pray to and influence.

But when one considers that this No-Thing-ness is the real source of our seeing, hearing, breathing – our very experience of life – what could be more personal, more intimate. This Self is not someone other than our self. I am That.

Douglas Harding, an English philosopher, mystic and spiritual teacher had a simple exercise with seeing that could help to experience this Source (see On Having No Head – Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious.) When you let go of the thinking mind and just ‘see’, the Other leaves the background and become the foreground.