Method 82 · Attention, witnessing and inquiry
The Same “I” in Everyone
Everything called “me” AdvancedIn the app
An advanced contemplation that turns towards the sense of “I” and asks whether the awareness behind it is personal property or the same awareness present in every being.
Understand
The word “I” is one of the most used words in any language, and one of the least examined. We say it constantly: I am tired, I want this, I remember that. Each of us assumes it refers to something private, located inside this particular body and belonging to no one else. This method turns towards that assumption.
The contemplation, as it is usually described, starts from a simple reflection. The awareness that knows your own sensations, thoughts and feelings seems to be what you call “me”. Every other person also calls their own awareness “me”, from the inside, in exactly the same way. The method invites a quiet consideration of whether these are truly separate awarenesses, or whether the same knowing is present in each, appearing through many bodies and many lives. In descriptions of this kind of practice, the boundary between self and other is said to soften, and other beings are felt less as strangers and more as the same presence looking out from elsewhere.
A common misunderstanding is that the method asks you to lose your individuality, or to stop caring about your own needs. It does not. You remain a particular person with a history, responsibilities and limits. Another misunderstanding is to treat this as a pleasant idea about everyone being connected. In the tradition it is meant as a direct, careful looking at what “I” actually refers to, and an idea adopted without that looking can easily turn into sentiment.
This is an advanced contemplation. Questioning the sense of self is powerful, and when it is done intensely or without support it can sometimes leave people feeling unreal, unanchored or uncertain about who they are. It is not a suitable starting point, and it is not advisable during periods of distress, isolation or instability. People with a history of trauma, psychosis, dissociation or serious mental-health conditions should seek suitable support before taking up practices like this one.
For people with a settled foundation, it is often approached alongside practices of kindness and open awareness, which give the same question a warmer and more grounded setting.
Deep dive
Within the 112 methods of the Vijñāna Bhairava, a group of later practices turns directly to the nature of the self. In the working classification used by Seven Doors, this one sits in the attention and witnessing family. Its neighbours look at the many and the one, at desire and knowing, and at awareness beyond the body; this method approaches the same territory through the simplest of words, “I”.
The Kashmir Śaiva tradition is often described as placing great weight on the sense of “I”. Rather than dismissing it as an error, many of its teachers are read as treating it as a clue: the ordinary, limited “I” is thought to be a contracted form of a much wider self-awareness. Teachers who comment on contemplations of this kind commonly suggest that the feeling of being “me” is not wrong but incomplete. Some interpreters emphasise expansion, as though the sense of “I” were gradually widened to include others. Others emphasise recognition, suggesting that the same awareness is already present in all beings and only needs to be noticed. Still others link the method to compassion, since seeing oneself in others naturally changes how one treats them. These are interpretations within a tradition and should not be taken as a literal statement of what a particular verse says.
Historically, contemplations of the self were taught in a context of study, devotion and a close relationship with a teacher. Students typically came to them after long practice with steadier methods, and a teacher could help them interpret unusual experiences and return to ordinary life well. That context mattered, because inquiry into the self can bring up strong reactions. Some people feel exhilarated; others feel frightened or empty; a few experience a lasting sense of unreality that needs care and attention.
There are quieter risks too. A partial grasp of this method can be used to dismiss real personal needs or to override healthy boundaries in relationships, on the grounds that “we are all the same”. It can also feed a sense of special attainment. A careful teacher would watch for each of these.
A modern, careful adaptation would therefore differ markedly from an intense historical form. It would follow, not replace, a foundation in breath, body and open-awareness practices. It would be brief and light, and it would keep one foot in ordinary life, for instance by noticing a shared humanity with a friend or a stranger rather than pursuing a dramatic dissolution of self. It would treat any shift in the sense of “I” as something to hold gently and talk through, not a goal. It would include clear permission to stop and return to grounded attention at any time. The short guided practice in the Seven Doors app is built along these lines, while this page describes the method rather than giving step-by-step instructions.
For readers drawn to it, practices of kindness and simple, grounded witnessing are a natural and safer place to explore the same question.
Described, not instructed
Best approached after the foundations, or with a teacher. Described here, not instructed. This page explains the method and its context without step-by-step instructions.
Source text
Verse 131 · The Vijñāna Bhairava, ed. Mukunda Rāma Shāstrī, Kashmir Series of Texts and Studies 8 (1918)
अहं ममेदमित्यादिप्रतिपत्तिप्रसङ्गतः ।
निराधारे मनो याति तद्ध्यानप्रेरणाच्छमी ॥
ahaṃ mamedamityādipratipattiprasaṅgataḥ |
nirādhāre mano yāti taddhyānapreraṇācchamī ||
Translation
In the course of such notions as ‘I’, ‘mine’ and ‘this’, the mind goes to the supportless; prompted by meditation on that, one becomes peaceful.
How the practice adapts it
The verse says that in the notions ‘I’, ‘mine’ and ‘this’ the mind can go to the supportless; the practice turns to the plain sense of ‘I’ and notices that everyone has it.
Seven Doors’ own translation from the Sanskrit of the 1918 KSTS text, made and reviewed with AI assistance in two independent passes; the works listed were drawn on for the meaning of hard words, from the AI’s knowledge of them, and were not compared page by page.