Deejay B.

WHO AM I? by Deejay Bulay (Notes) on Saturday, May 8, 2010 at 12:05pm The day you were born you began a learning process that will continue for the rest of your life. You were, from the beginning, molded by your surroundings, parents, relatives, playmates, by all the general attitudes, ideas, and beliefs you came in contact with. As you grew older those early experiences affected and altered, both consciously and subconsciously, what you felt and did about all the day to day things that went on around you. Each new year of life added to your past, changing the way you viewed every new day, influencing how you reacted to everything from the simplest daily routines to complex events touching you, your family, and the world you lived in. As you grew yet older you interacted with people from different backgrounds with differing ideas about life. You found yourself actively defending, modifying, or abandoning your early beliefs, adapting the various ideas you came in contact with to fit your developing perception of life. Perhaps new ideas were introduced to you by people with dynamic personalities who espoused one philosophy or another. Faced with the challenge of those ideas, you may have tenaciously defended your early beliefs, dismissing unfamiliar concepts with alarming ease by resort to ingenious, if not solid, arguments. On the other hand, you may have completely abandoned your past and adopted new beliefs opposite to those you once cherished. However, like most people, you probably belong to that vast river of humanity which seems to move along in a fairly discernible direction, concerned at any given minute with living that moment in the easiest, most pleasant way possible. If so, you were and are more or less able to blend ideas, feelings, philosophies, desires, and realities to justify what you want to do. Along with the majority of people, you were and are good at sending questions and ideas about the meaning of life and death, as well as thoughts and feelings about what is good and right, deep into the cloudy regions of your mind. Whether we realize it or not, most of us are voluntary prisoners of our minds, unwilling to question who we are and what we believe, happy to simply roll along through life. Most of us will live from birth to death in a world we have fashioned from our past to suit our present. Many will find comfort through unquestioned acceptance of their family's, or even a friend's, religious or philosophical heritage. Yet few will ever stand free from their present beliefs and daily lives to ask what is life about? Who am I? What should I do? What will I do? If there is meaning to life, and a reason for living, those questions must be answered. If there is a true meaning to life, nothing that you do, say, or think will change that truth. What good is it to live your life believing what you are doing is right if your beliefs are false and what you are doing is wrong? It is an understanding of life that we seek, a search for something in life worth living for. If you are to find the meaning of life you must be willing to recognize it if and when you see it. To do so requires you to open your mind and accept whatever you discover, even if it is totally opposite to your experiences, beliefs, and wishes. If you are to understand life you cannot hide in the comfort of daily living, clouding your mind to avoid discomfort. You must not reject what you discover if it does not fit what your life has been, is, and what you want it to be. Since our discussion deals with the purpose of life, if what we are saying is true, your willingness to understand is a willingness to grasp the very reason for your living. If the answers you find are different from those you have molded for yourself, you must decide whether to continue on the path you are on, or go another way on a new path toward a new destination.