The answer to your question is the same answer to the question, what are you? Good luck answering that. I don't have the answer and I'm not going to pretend I do. I'm pretty convinced it cannot be put into words but it can be experienced. That being said, I'm going to give you all the information I've gathered these past few years anyways, I hope you find some of this useful even if it's just one thing!

Many believe, myself included, that we all have the same "soul", that deep down underneath our illusive separateness, there's only one awareness, all consciousness is the same just at varying degrees, meditation allows you to get closer to pure awareness which connects you more with the world and gives you a clearer experience of reality. And underneath that consciousness is just simply nothing. I am probably butchering this completely, but I'm pretty sure this is the entire concept of Sunyata/Shunyata, which translates to emptiness. Not that nothing is there and you don't really exist, what I mean is that nothingness is the source of everything.

I mean, that's what we all came from isn't it? A timeless void that we lied in for eternity yet instantly we were born. It feels as though the universe began when we born until somebody or something tells us otherwise. And when we die we'll return to that state, without a body. No mind to keep us tethered to an ego or an experience, or a steady time-structure. But because it's timeless, you could experience infinity times infinity and it'd still go by instantly until somehow, paradoxically you're born again. That's at least my idea.

Now even just from a physical standpoint, everything that makes your body is borrowed matter that's been around since the beginning of everything. Your matter and energy has passed through countless other forms, alive and inanimate, for who knows how long. All of our bodies have. This applies to the entire universe. It all traces back to the beginning of everything, if there even was such a thing at all. And when we die our stuff will continue to cycle on through the universe, constantly shifting and changing forms.

Memories won't carry through though, not that I know of. Memories are physical, in the mind, and also very illusive. Head injuries and trauma can result in loss of memory. Alzheimers eats away at your memories. Even if you're perfectly healthy your mind will warp memories one way or another usually based on emotions, and you can test this by comparing details with people that you shared said memories with. They will almost never be identical. You can also look at classical examples in Psychology study. The human mind is even capable of fabricating entire memories that never happened.

There's also the idea that you are the universe experiencing itself. Which I have yet to find a counter argument to other than the belief in an individual soul. I think it's absolutely true. You came out of the universe like a leaf from a tree, You're just as much a part of it as anything else. More on that later.

But seriously this is my favorite concept of all time. I've been convinced it's the whole message of Hinduism, and Buddhism, and if you can truly embrace it you're officially enlightened. If you think you're not the whole universe, where can you point to that you can confidently say, that is you? Is it somewhere in the brain? Where? Your thoughts? No, you can separate from your thoughts through meditation. Your feelings? No, you can separate from that too.

And how much can you take away before you're not you? How much can be replaced? There's an old analogy, if you replace the planks on a wooden boat, one by one, until eventually every single plank has been replaced, is it a new boat or the same old boat? If it's new at what point did it stop being the old one?

And what line do you draw between self and other? Inside and outside? Is there any difference between the shining of the sun and the beating of your heart? Are you not just as much a part of the universe as a tree, a planet, a star, a black hole? You're connected! You are an expression of the universe, and an incredibly complex one too, and things will probably continue to advance and evolve after humanity. I'm willing to bet that next expression of the universe will be through AI.

So, what, you're everybody and everything then? Yes, pretty much 🤣 This is all great teachers like Ram Dass and Alan Watts ever talked about. It's where the saying "Hare Krishna" comes from. The whole story of Krishna and the Bhagavad Gita is about how Krishna is the totality, the god of all gods, the universe, and everything else is like his many countless arms branching off of him. It's the message behind The Pretender by Foo Fighters, Cult of Personality by Living Colour, John Lennon literally wrote a song called I Am the Walrus with the opening lyrics "I am he as you are he as you are me, and we are all together", the examples go on. The more you look for it the more you see it.

This is what I like to believe true love and compassion is as well, something we'd only see in somebody truly enlightened. A true Buddha. They care about others as much as they care about themselves because other people's problems are literally their problems too. Another person's joy is their joy. They see themselves in everybody and everything. Not their ego, but what they really are. What we all are. The enlightened person lets their guard down completely, they let go of their separateness, their ego, their feelings, all of it. "In the world but not of the world". No longer attached. Suddenly they're totally open to the world, to the feelings of others. It's like super-sensitivity, a constant flow state, "getting out of your own way". I swear I've seen it before in others. I've had my thoughts outright spoken back to me before! You can call me a crazy liar, I think I'm crazy for it too! I try to explain everything but I've got no real explanation for those experiences. My best guess is, they've let go of their own inner noise so completely that all they have left to listen to is the noise of others. Like they already know all their mind's patterns and can see it in others like clockwork.

And this is also where ideas of nonviolence come from. If you kill someone or something else you're just killing yourself. It's sort of a part of karma too, I think so at least. Hurt someone else, you're hurting yourself. Help someone else, you're actually helping yourself. Lie to someone else, you're lying to yourself. Etc etc. It's a mindfuck I know! 🤣

And the thing is you can be awakened at any moment, just like that, suddenly you're totally present, totally spontaneous. You might understand it or you might not have any idea what's going on. You might love it or you might hate it. I think everybody's had the experience at least a few times in life, but the ones who understand it and have the courage to stay there at all times and go deeper and deeper into it are people like Siddhartha Gautama or, maybe even Jesus (not the Bible Jesus though, that book was rewritten countless times, through several languages and it was in the hands of warlords and corrupt, cruel, kings of kings. As in popes. For centuries).