1
Who Are You?

1.1 Selves

1.1.1 Upani?adic impersonal selves

There is no single perfect place or time for taking one's initial philosophy steps - starting to be acquainted, let alone friends, with philosophy. But here, now, is an excellent place to begin, by meeting one of the earliest steps ever taken, in the Upani?ads. These were philosophically religious literary writings on ideas from four earlier sacred Vedic texts, grounding what became Hinduism. Religion and philosophy are not always so separate. That is evident in these Upani?ads (the term 'Upani?ad' means 'hidden connection', maybe 'hidden teaching'). All were written in Sanskrit, in northern India, seemingly over several centuries, possibly starting around 700 bce. (By whom? We do not know.) Let us sample a few of their ideas about selves (a beginning focus explained a moment ago in the book's introduction).

What is a self? I am one. You are one. Or so we say. But what do we mean? What should we mean? Can we find self-understanding in the Upani?ads?

In the B?hadara?yaka Upani?ad (Great Forest Upani?ad; the oldest Upani?ad; probably pre-Buddhist), a sage, Yajñavalkya, spoke with his wife, Maitreyi, about selves (4.5.12-13).

It is like this. As the ocean is the point of convergence of all the waters, so the skin is the point of convergence of all sensations of touch; the nostrils, of all odours, the tongue, of all tastes . the mind, of all thoughts; the heart, of all sciences; [and so on; followed by the next paragraph].

It is like this. As a mass of salt has no distinctive core and surface; the whole thing is a single mass of flavor - so indeed, my dear, this self has no distinctive core and surface; the whole thing is a single mass of cognition.

Yajñavalkya seems to have been saying that the self within any one of us is somehow the same within all of us. There is no difference in that respect between my self and yours. Dramatically, this does not mean 'the same in nature'; it means 'the very same self'. My personal self is your personal self, and vice versa. Neither of us has a distinct personal self. It is as if all of us partake in, or share, a self - the same self, a common self. Yajñavalkya says this (4.5.15): 'When . the Whole has become one's very self, then who [= what more specific self] is there for one [= one's self] to see and by what means?'

Does that make sense? Here is one way in which it might. Each of us is different. But is that because each of us has a fully individual self? Or might everyone be the same thing in whatever makes us persons at all? You and I would be one - somehow literally one self. People often say that we are all connected, really or fundamentally the same. Is that the picture here? We would be the same, in a way, by sharing a single universal self. Might we differ only in other details, such as how we look and what we think and feel? How I look is not how you look; yet our different appearances would be superficial: they would not be what makes either of us a self, let alone a distinct self.

Consider these lines from the later Ka?ha Upani?ad (5.9-10):

As the single fire, entering living beings,

adapts its appearance to match that of each;

So the single self within every being,

adapts its appearance to match that of each,

yet remains quite distinct.

As the single wind, entering living beings,

adapts its appearance to match that of each;

So the single self within every being,

adapts its appearance to match that of each,

yet remains quite distinct.

Those analogies extend Yajñavalkya's one about the 'mass of salt'. The 'single wind' (the general power of breathing, I think this means) circulating within each of us 'adapts its appearance to match each of us'. Our two selves would be one self, in that way (these analogies suggest).

Here is a more subtle way to make the point. In the also early Chandogya Upani?ad (5.18.1), Asvapati talked of 'this self here, the one common to all men', and said that, when one knows the self 'as somehow distinct' (as not a single universally shared self), one 'eat[s] food'. What did Asvapati mean? It is explained by this contrast, with which he continued:

when someone venerates [the self] as measuring the size of a span and as beyond all measure [= when one does think of the self as universally shared], he eats food within all the worlds, all the beings, and all the selves.

This seems to be saying that when thinking of one's self in that universal way, as everyone's self at once, one is engaging with the Whole: one 'eats food' among all the selves at once, so to speak; one does this in 'all the worlds', as 'all the beings' at once.

Maybe. I am trying - cautiously - to interpret some ancient writing, asking what may emerge. It feels like something important is being suggested. These Upani?ads are poetic and complex, though. I am focusing on one idea that can arise when reading them. It seems like a philosophical idea. We have begun being philosophical.

1.1.2 Buddhist no-selves

Or might there be no selves? (No I? No you? No one else?)

That question is sparked by another of the world's oldest organised ways of thinking - Buddhism, whose distinctive ideas include the no-self view. Meet King Milinda (he was real - the Greek king Menander) and the sage Nagasena (perhaps not real) in a northern Indian dialogue, The Questions of King Milinda (from around two thousand years ago).

Milinda the king . addressed [the venerable Nagasena] . 'How is your Reverence known, and what, Sir, is your name?'

'I am known as Nagasena, O king, .. But although parents, O king, give such a name as Nagasena, or Surasena, or Virasena, or Sihasena, yet this, Sire, . is only a generally understood term, a designation in common use. For there is no permanent individuality (no soul) involved ..'

Thus Nagasena, almost immediately, imbued an ordinary meeting with a philosophical tone. He acknowledged the name 'Nagasena'. But he denied that a real self was being named. King Milinda responded by paraphrasing Nagasena's thesis and wondering, aloud, whether it is true. 'This Nagasena says there is no permanent individuality (no soul) implied in his name. Is it now even possible to approve him in that [= to agree with him]?' Whereupon Milinda reached for rhetorical questions that, in his view, showed why Nagasena's no-self view cannot be true.

'If, most reverend Nagasena, there be no permanent individuality (no soul) involved ., who is it, pray, who . lives a life of righteousness? Who . devotes himself to meditation? [Moreover, if there is no Nagasena,] we are to think that were a man to kill you there would be no murder.'

Nagasena was being asked, by Milinda, who is doing 'his' meditation if not really him (he who is named 'Nagasena')? What would the imagined action of aggression be, if not murder of Nagasena himself? Milinda persisted with such questioning, trying to locate the person Nagasena:

'your brethren in the Order are in the habit of addressing you as Nagasena. Now what is that Nagasena? Do you mean to say that the hair is Nagasena?'

'I don't say that, great king.'

'Or the hairs on the body, perhaps?'

'Certainly not.'

'Or is it the nails, the teeth, the skin, the flesh, the nerves, the bones, the marrow, the kidneys, the heart, the liver, . or the brain, or any or all of these, that is Nagasena?'

And to each of these he answered no.

Thus, Milinda asked about physical parts of Nagasena. If they are not Nagasena, what is?

'Is it the outward form . that is Nagasena, or the sensations, or the ideas, or the [constituent elements of character], or the consciousness .?'

And to each of these also [Nagasena] answered no.

Milinda was asking whether Nagasena is constituted by a general appearance - an outward form. No? Then what of something 'behind' the appearance, a capacity for thinking or some actual thoughts? Still 'no', said Nagasena.

Hence, Milinda felt that he had asked about all aspects of Nagasena, the 'outward' appearance and the inner mental life. But there is this further possibility.

'Then is it all these ....