There are many peculiar things about existence that will continue to boggle the minds of the intrigued. One of these is the undeniable and irrefutable truth that existence exists.

Well, of course it exists, you may say. Of course indeed.

It's a fundamental fact that for each of us as individuals, although we may try to deny our own existence, it remains a fact to ourselves. I exist. You will say you exist, but I cannot prove you do, just as you cannot be entirely sure I do. We can only acknowledge with certainty: "I exist."

In Hermetic principles, however, it is argued that everything outside of us is merely an expression of ourselves. So then, the "you" I see from me is merely me being expressed as you.

Therefore, I am because you are and you are because I am.

If what I call “you” is shaped entirely through my own consciousness, then your existence, at least as it appears to me, depends on the fact that I am here to perceive it. Likewise, the very fact that I perceive you at all reflects something about my own awareness. In this sense, our existence is not identical, but intertwined. The observer and the observed define each other in experience.

We are defined not by what we encounter, but by how we interpret it. The meaning we assign to reality carves the shape of our own consciousness. How we perceive the world shapes us, and what we reflect back shapes the world we call “mine.” If perception shapes us, and we shape reality, then what exactly is the “we” at the center of all this?

Who Are We?

It is unfortunate that we most oftentimes cling to our thoughts and form an identity around it. For most of us, it's their own reality. They adopt Descartes philosophy of "I think therefore I am". However thinking is merely oneself tuned into the information field where thoughts reign. And thoughts are impermanent and external and therefore not who are for we remain when thoughts have come and past by.

I have adopted a different philosophy.

I think, therefore I am not. Only when the mind is silent, I AM

To silence the mind completely is to let go of everything that attaches not just to the material, but even the thoughts we mistake for ourselves. To everything external. Getting rid of that we then discover the self, not as something we find in the world, but by what remains when the world no longer defines us.

Thus, the “I AM” isn’t something we create, but something we uncover after removing everything we are not.

So, who are we before everyone told us who we are?