Us
Who We Are
THERE
appear to be few things more certain to us than the existence of our
selves. We might be sceptical about the existence
of the world around
us, but how could we be in doubt about the existence of us? Isn’t
doubt made impossible by the fact that there is somebody who is
doubting something? Who, if not us, would this somebody be?
While
it seems irrefutable that we must exist in some sense, things get a
lot more puzzling once we try to get a better grip of what having a
self actually amounts to.
Three
beliefs about the self are absolutely fundamental for our belief of
who we are. First, we regard ourselves as unchanging and
continuous. This is not to say that we remain forever the same, but
that among all this change there is something that remains constant
and that makes the “me” today the same person I was five years
ago and will be five years in the future.
Second,
we see our self as the unifier that
brings it all together. The world presents itself to us as a
cacophony of sights, sounds, smells, mental images, recollections and
so forth. In the self, these are all integrated and an image of a
single, unified
world emerges.
Finally,
the self is an agent.
It is the thinker of our thoughts and the doer of our deeds. It is
where the representation of the world, unified into one coherent
whole, is used so we can act on this world.
All
of these beliefs appear to be blindingly obvious and as certain as
can be. But as we look at them more closely, they become less and
less self-evident.
It
would seem obvious that we exist continuously from our first moments
in our mother’s womb up to our death. Yet during the time that our
self exists, it undergoes substantial changes in beliefs, abilities,
desires and moods. The happy self of yesterday cannot be exactly the
same as the grief-stricken self of today, for example. But we surely
still have the same self today that we had yesterday.
There
us core belief is that the self is the locus of control. Yet
cognitive science has shown in numerous cases that our mind can
conjure, post hoc, an intention for an action that was not brought
about by us. Our
DNA itself
holds this programming yet scientists cannot quite figure out the
exact mechanisms we operate under.
So,
many of our core beliefs about ourselves do not withstand scrutiny.
This presents a tremendous challenge for our everyday view of
ourselves, as it suggests that in a very fundamental sense we are not
real. Instead, our self is comparable to an illusion — but without
anybody there that experiences the illusion.
Yet
we may have no choice but to endorse these mistaken beliefs. Our
whole way of living relies on the notion that we are pieces of DNA
which make us unchanging, coherent and autonomous individuals. All we
have is the present moment and although the self is an useful
illusion, it may also be a necessary one so that we learn to learn
more in the now.
Being
Present And Ageless DNA
Scientific
studies have suggested that a mind that is present and in the moment
indicates well-being, whereas shifting our energy to the past or
future can lead to unhappiness. A recent UCSF study showed a link
between being present and aging, by looking at a biological measure
of longevity within our DNA.
In
the study,
telomere length, an emerging biomarker for cellular and general
bodily aging, was assessed in association with the tendency to be
present in the moment versus the tendency to mind wander, in research
on 239 healthy, midlife women ranging in age from 50 to 65 years.
Being
present in the moment was defined as an inclination to be focused on
current tasks, while mind wandering was defined as the inclination to
have thoughts about things other than the present or being elsewhere.
Many practitioners of spiritual health tell us not to deny the
problems we are facing, but to also not get lost in them either.
Psychological sciences have shown us that being present brings us
greater alertness and inner security, allowing us to face challenges
more objectively and with greater calm.
According
to the findings, published online in the new Association for
Psychological Science journal Clinical
Psychological Science,
those who reported more mind wandering had shorter telomeres, while
those who reported more presence in the moment, or having a greater
focus and engagement with their current activities, had longer
telomeres, even after adjusting for current stress.The human genome
is packed with at least four million gene switches that reside in
bits of DNA that once were dismissed as “junk” but it turns out
that so-called
junk DNA plays
critical roles in controlling how cells, organs and other tissues
behave. The discovery, considered a major medical and scientific
breakthrough, has enormous implications for human health and
consciousness because many complex diseases appear to be caused by
tiny changes in hundreds of gene switches.
Mindful
meditation interventions, which promote attention on the present with
a compassionate attitude of acceptance, lead to increases in some
aspects of health. Being present and observant in purity without
judgment also means that we have no emotionality surrounding our
observations. Our emotional well being is not placed in the outcomes
of our life’s circumstances, but rather our wellbeing is placed
inwardly and determined by a choice we make to remain calm, focused
and expansive surrounding the multiple possibilities of the
occurrences we are a witness to.
“We
now have evidence for a new type of healing in which DNA can be
influenced and reprogrammed by the way we think without physically
modifying a single gene,” said Professor and geneticist Karina
Mika.“Over
many millennia our minds and physical being have become time machines
programmed to grow old and expire, but it doesn’t have to be that
way,” said Mika. “Being ageless could be as simple as changing
our emotional state and thinking differently,” she concluded.
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The Great Way is not
difficult for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. If you wish to see the truth then hold no opinions for or against anything. To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind. When the deep meaning of things is not understood the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail. |
