Who are you?
Part 2 of our "What Now?" series.
We left off in our last letter, post-election, talking about a very important idea:
A government is simply the reflection of the average state of consciousness of it’s constituents. Maybe not yours personally, but the average of the collective. Government itself is an effect, not the cause. Change starts with the individual and then works its way up to the governing bodies.
In order to begin to effect change at the individual level, we first have to address four key questions:
Who am I?
What do I stand for?
To what extent am I, individually, doing my part to catalyze change?
And to what extent am I inspiring others to do the same?
This week, we’ll explore the first: Who am I?
I’m not talking about surface-level things like your name, age, gender, marital status, hometown, occupation, etc.
Self-realization is a realization of the true Self.
Aristotle demanded of his society that the first science needs to be the science of self-knowledge or self-discovery. “What is the extent of this thing that we call self? Not just who am I, but what am I? What am I, the knower, the consciousness field that’s having these thoughts, made up of?”
One of the most common mistakes we make in this endeavor is defining ourselves by outside sources.
This can be a tricky one to shake.
Personally, up until about 8 years ago, I had defined myself by various titles and roles over the years:
In middle school, I was an athlete
In high school, I was an honor student
In college, I was a DJ and social chair of a fraternity
In my 20s, I was the manager of Skrillex’s record label
In 2018, I had just landed at LAX from Barcelona and went straight to the club to DJ.
My set went very well.
Afterward, I was standing outside, smoking a joint with two beautiful women.
I thought I was pretty cool.
Then, the creator of the coolest and longest-running party in LA walked up.
My set had piqued his interest.
“Who are you?” he demanded to know, in the way only LA people can.
My identity (and confidence) still defined by externalities, I was instantly flummoxed, as anyone who doesn’t truly know the answer to that question would be.
“My name’s Blaise….uh…I’m the GM of OWSLA, Skrillex’s label?”
How lame.
He saw through my posturing immediately and kind of turned his nose up and left.
Needless to say, I never got booked.
I realized later that he wanted to know what I was about—not who I worked for.
He was assessing the quality of my character, not my resume.
Remember that famous image of Prince’s tour laminate from when he opened for the 1980 Rick James tour? Next to “position” he wrote “star”—that’s the kind of energy my guy was looking for. But I didn’t have it; because how can you believe in yourself if you don’t know yourself?
The core of authentic self-expression is, of course, the “self” part.
When I left the label in 2017 to begin the pursuit of Self-realization, it was a rocky road at first.
For the first time in my life, I had to learn to define myself outside of these social constructs and the perks and status that came with them.
I lost a lot of ‘friends’ when I gave up my ‘important’ post in the music industry and proximity to celebrities.
Sometimes, I felt free, like I was flying.
Other times, I felt forsaken, like I was falling face-first at the full speed of gravity.
Eventually, through many hours spent with my eyes closed, going within, I started to get a picture of who I was inside—my ethics, my principles, my deepest desires for myself and the world, and my values.
Values are very different from beliefs.
As my friend Richard Barrett said—beliefs divide; values unite.
“Beliefs divide; values unite.”
—Richard Barrett, A New Psychology on Human Well-Being
Beliefs: “Abortion is an inalienable right” / “Abortion is murder”
Value: “Human life is precious”
Unfortunately, the business model of modern media relies on polarizing our beliefs and pitting us against one another to drive clicks and capitalize on rage-fueled discourse.
But when we connect to our true Selves inside, we get more familiar with our values—what we stand for.
When we’re firmly rooted in that, we’re unflappable in our sense of identity, and we’re able to engage in productive and meaningful discourse with those who have different opinions than our own.
We’re able to see through the political slants or bias on TV and make up our own minds about what’s true or right to us, regardless of whether that fits into a blue or a red box.
And this is how change happens.
But that’s a topic we’ll continue next week.
Let’s discuss these and other ideas during Collective Effervescence, our online group meditation series, this Sunday December 1 at 12PM ET. Drop in for meditation only (first 30 min) or stay for discussion + Q&A on this and other life topics from the Vedic perspective. Join the WhatsApp group to receive reminders 24 hours before each session, or use the below links to have all upcoming dates automatically sync to your calendar.
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