Investigating the “What Am I” Question – A User’s Manual by Francis Lucille on How to Effectively Approach This Question by Spiritual Seekers

I (along with my wife) recently enjoyed a beautiful retreat with Francis at his home in Temecula, California in mid-June, with some beautiful weather and equally beautiful spiritually inclined fellow participants. It was a week well spent with a rather relaxed schedule where we just had a meditation or yoga session in the afternoons followed by a talk by Francis in the evening – it was more like a holiday with like-minded people.

The talks by Francis were, as usual, very stimulating and meditative. After listening to him (over the past many years) for several hours, I found the conversation he had on the last day of the retreat with a fellow participant particularly touching. Not because I had never heard him speak about his method of investigating our true nature, but more so because of the compassion and love with which he addressed the issue. It felt to me that he was talking to all sincere spiritual seekers who get stuck on the question of “Who Am I” (which was the question asked by the fellow participant – about the Who Am I investigation). Hence, I thought about writing this blog to possibly reach out to any fellow spiritual seekers who have had a similar question in mind.

The following is a summary of his talk mentioned in bullet points for simplification:

1.     Francis says - The question “Who Am I” is indeed a fundamental question for a spiritual seeker, and probably it should be framed as “What Am I” rather than “Who Am I.”

2.     Many sincere seekers, when following this inquiry, get stuck because they reach a dead end where they seem to head nowhere but still continue asking this question hoping for an “Aha” moment. According to Francis, repeating the question “Who Am I” like a mantra or a japa would not help any further. He suggests that perhaps the question “Who Am I” should come with a user’s manual.

3.     He further suggests a two-step approach to address this issue. The first step is to assess, by our own experience, whether consciousness is independent of the body. If it is, would we rather be consciousness or the body? We all know that we are conscious by experience, and if we ask any human being whether they are conscious, the answer would most likely be affirmative. Hence, we are all 100% positive that we are conscious, but we feel that this consciousness is dependent on the body or is an emergent property of the body.

4.     Francis points out that when someone talks to us, we, as consciousness, listen and understand. It is not the body that listens or understands, but we, as consciousness, listen and understand. We may listen through the body, but the body does not listen. We, as consciousness, listen and understand. So the first step of the investigation is to be 100% certain that if consciousness might be independent of the body, we would rather be consciousness than the body. We are still not claiming that consciousness is independent of the body, but if it might be, we would rather be consciousness and not the body.

5.     The second step is to assess, by our direct experience of being conscious, whether that experience of being conscious tells us in any way that it is dependent on the body. Contrary to what some people might think, we know that we are conscious because of our direct experience of being conscious. Some people might suggest that we know we are conscious because we think, feel, see, or perceive, but we know that we are conscious because of our direct experience. This experience may not last in time or be a phenomenal experience, but we still know we are conscious because of our direct experience. This experience may also correspond to the experience of being, the experience of “I AM” or “I Exist.”

Francis asks, “Does this experience tell us in any way that it has a beginning or an end? Does it tell us that it is localized, dependent on the body, or that it is going to die with the body?” The answer is “NO.” It does not tell us any of those things. The best part about this question is that it is only “we” who can answer this question. Unlike any other question about any phenomenal event, this question cannot be answered by somebody else for us, no matter how educated or intelligent they are. We need to answer this question for ourselves as we experience consciousness directly. Hence, once we ask this question, by direct experience, we can state that the experience of consciousness does not tell us anything. It just tells us that we exist and that we are aware that we exist, i.e., we are conscious. Now we can at least be 100% sure that we are not sure that consciousness is dependent on the body.

6.     This conclusion is not a dead end, according to Francis, as this opens up a hole in the ceiling of the jail that we have been living in – the jail of our body. We are now at least open to the idea that consciousness may be independent of the body, and this is a big step. It is a positive result, as now we don’t know – we are open to the possibility of consciousness being free from the body. We are open to the possibility that this ordinary individual consciousness could be the one universal consciousness that is perceiving the world through individual body-minds.

7.     Now we can start living life with this understanding and with an approach of not being separate. We start living life with the possibility that this consciousness that I am could be the same consciousness of my fellow beings. We start living life with love, understanding, and compassion, and then we see how this universe responds to us. We see how we feel in our hearts when we live with this new possibility, and we are completely open to how this understanding brings peace, love, and happiness into our lives and serendipity and harmony into our relationships.

Thanks to Francis for sharing this approach with such compassion and love with us.

Disclaimer : The above blog is an essay of my understanding about this subject during my retreat with Francis Lucille to the best of my knowledge.