Question:
To InnerPeaceNow.com,
I have watched Alan Watts, Eckhart Tolle and Mooji online. They speak numerously about: there is no doer, no thinker, no knower,etc. What are they talking about? What does it all mean?
I have been checking online and can't find anything about it. These questions eventually directed me to your site and I found I can ask any type of question.
What does it mean? Is everything spontaneous then? Every action isn't calculated or thought about? We are not really doing anything. I am not really doing this as I type out this question? I feel very confused.
Thanks for your time. Don't know if you can help, but I look forward to your reply.
Anon.
Response:
It means that there isn't actually an entity which is sitting inside the head, responsible for all of the actions of the body/mind. Of course a thought could arise such as "I am hungry", so the body goes and gets food, but if you enquire into who it is doing all of it, you will see what they mean.
Try to locate the "doer", the responsible entity for all actions and thoughts. We all speak as if we as egos or individuals do and think stuff, but where exactly does the doer or the thinker live inside?
This is what is meant as "ego" - the belief that there is an individual separate and distinct from life, which does stuff, and who lives inside the body as an object.
We say "I breathe", "I sleep", "I didn't (or did) digest the food very well" - but these actions happen by themselves. All other actions are similar, but we have the sense we have more control over what we do "on the outside".
Hope that helps you, but if you have no sense of what these guys are talking about when you listen to them, then these words may not help. It is not something to think about or deliberate intellectually. There is no end to confusion when you demand that thought give you spiritual answers.
This reminds me of the quote:
'It is the hand that lifts, but you say "I lift". The eyes see but you say, "I see". The nose smells, but you say, "I smell". All this is the power of the Self and yet you say, "I did it". That power belongs to God. Who is this ego arrogating 'I'? He has no place in the palace, but once admitted inside, he overrules the king and affirms his own existence. But after some enquiry, this ego's existence is easily disproved. Then the king once again affirms, "I am Reality." There is one thing about this condition – there is bliss. If there are two, then there is pain. Where there is One, there is bliss.' - Siddharameshwar Maharaj
Thanks for your question,
Adam
Comments for Confused - Who Is The Doer?
(from previous website)
May 13, 2015
who is the doer
by: Jit Biswa
I constantly watch my " constantly running mind" with witnessing presence. I watch my mind without being nonjudgmental to the thoughts. This gives me a sense of being a medium of Consciousness through which things are getting done in my life.
To experience that one has to be very observant of one's mind.