Any adult person attempting to redefine their True Identity would first have to question the validity of the following pre-existing and seemingly undeniable premises:

• We are all either of the female or the male gender,
• We are all of a certain race or mixture thereof,
• We are all of a certain culture, nationality and linguistic background and,
• We are all human beings. - On top of that we would also have to question
• All the particularities pertaining to each individual’s physical, emotional and mental attributes.

But there’s really no need to conduct such existential inquiry at the levels or phases outlined above. Once we have understood what our inquiry is all about, the question “Who Am I?” would suffice.

The question “Who Am I?” comprises the following questions:

• Am I my mental attributes? (my intelligence, my memory, my thoughts, my ideas),
• Am I my emotional attributes? (my capacity to feel love or anger, joy or sadness, etc.),
• Am I my physical attributes? (my gender, my physical characteristics, my possessions, my physical abilities) and,
• Am I just a human being? (is there any consciousness transcending the life of my body?)

In this context, the question “Who Am I?” implies having doubts about any existing premises related to our identity. Nothing pertaining to who we might think we are is taken for a fact. Not even whatever may lie at the end of our inquiry is taken for granted. All bets are off. The question “Who Am I?” implies that we don’t even know WHAT we are, for not even our humanity is taken for a defining trait of our identity.

This type of inquiry is called “Self Inquiry,” as it pertains to rediscovering what our Innermost Identity might be. When self-inquirers finally transcend the ideas and perceptions about themselves that form their “identity,” which are the same ideas and perceptions about themselves that form what we usually call the “ego,” and finally get through to the Eternal Source of their Consciousness, which is the same as their Innermost Self, they rediscover who they really are. In fact, they “Become” again who they really are, always were and will always be.

Becoming again that identity which resides beyond all spurious perceptions and notions about ourselves means merging our human awareness into our Innermost Eternal Consciousness. That Innermost Eternal Consciousness is known in Jnana Yoga as the Atman. The substance of the Atman is one and the same with the substance of the Universal Consciousness which is the basis for everything that exists in the Universe. That Universal Consciousness is known in Jnana Yoga as the Self.

To regain Direct Consciousness of our Atman/Self is simply to exist again as, be again conscious of, and rejoice once again in, the most Intimate Universality that each and all existing beings will ever share.

Salaroche