Experience of I

I exist and therefore I experience the outside physical world. If I do not exist the world does not exist. But before anyone can jump in to interrupt my sentence as being “subjective” I ‘ll put them the following questions:

1. How do you know a physical thing is separate from you or another thing?
2. What makes you believe that you are not the rock or pebble, dog or tree, or mud or sand or whatever which you think you are not?
3. Does a dead man experience the things which are not him?

To feel that you exist automatically means the following characteristics of “I”

1. ·You are not so many other things.
2. You know what you are not.
3. You have the capacity to “experience” these “so many other things” which for some reason you know you are not. Let me make these statements more clear with some analogies. If there is only one single entity and no other thing, can this single thing experience the world? The answer is very obvious it can’t.

Some may ask why can’t this single entity experience the world. Answer to this lies in the question which implies that there is no world other than the single entity. The single entity is all that exists and all that encompasses and all that is. Imagine a situation where there is nothing but you alone..to the extreme point. To the point where there is no space, no vacuum, no object other than you. In this case, you will not “experience” anything as you are the only thing that exist and you are everything .(like in a bus with capacity of 20 seats if you are the only passenger, then you are not only the only passenger but also everyone who is a passenger in the bus at the time).

The theory of non duality is exactly the non existence of second entity other than you. Here people who read science cannot imagine a situation where there exists nothing. Because to them there is always something like a vacuum or space if there is no “thing”. Advaita says that to feel and experience the world is consciousness or the feeling of “I” (other names include “ego”, identity of self etc). For no reason humans know what they are not. To identify and differentiate all things which you are not with what you are is first characteristic of a living thing.Now, I do not know if animals can experience and see things differently. And it does not matter here since I know at least one thing…I know what I am and what I am not.

What am i? I do not know exactly. But it is easy for me to know what I am not. I simply know (apriori knowledge) that I am not a phone, glass or shoe or shirt or cat or crow or whatever. So my nature (or the nature of I or consciousness or feeling of existence) tells me what I am not but it does not tell me what I am. But for some reason I am interested in experiencing the world that is not me (as told to me by my conscious or to put in better way I told myself ). Or in knowing what other things are (in the domain of modern science).

Then there is another dimension to this theory. If you know what you are not does your body is included among the list of “things which you are not”? Yes I am not the body. People may ask how do you know you are not your body? My answer is “the same way I know that I am not a crow.” But don’t I feel there is some thing different from your body and other things which you are not? Yes, certainly there is a huge difference between my body and other things which I am not. I can feel and experience immediately which touch or affect my body. You pinch me I ‘ll feel the pain of it immediately. But if you pinch my cat I can only think that my cat will feel pain. I can utmost empathize with the feeling another living being when it is pinched or hurt. 

But this is based on my own experience and not based on what other being or thing experiences. This makes me feel that my body is unique to me and my self. It lets me experience the world. Do I exist if the body is destroyed or has become incapacitated in some of its senses? I am not hundred percent certain of the statement I am going to make because I have not experienced death till date. But I feel on death of the body I cease to exist because I no more “experience” the world with my body (senses of the body). 

But does feeling of “I” let you experience the world through body or is it body that lets you experience “I” by feeding you with images and experiences of the world? This question also raises the point if the body is essential for experiencing “I” are you not the body?