These two words, "I", and "me", are both just that ... words. The question you are invited to explore is, what precisely ARE these two words pointing TO? (For example: What does the word "water" pint to? Is the WORD water wet?)
For 99.999% of human beings, the assumption is that the words "I" and ":me" BOTH represent the body, or mind, or body-mind. This can be called the assumed "consensus reality", ie that on which the 99.999% AGREE..One Sage suggested a :test for what Reality IS, and said that the initial test would seem to be agreement. That if 99.999% agree that a statement is true then it IS true ie Reality. But prior to Columbus 99.999% agreed that the earth is flat so the "reality" at that time was a resounding and unquestioned conviction that "the earth is flat" and THAT is Real.
What is the ULTIMATE test for Reality? That's where we suggest looking. If we start with a simple dictionary definition of Reality,"That which has necessary existence and not contingent existence", which could also be stated as "that which is not relative nor dependent upon agreement", or MOST concisely, "That Which Is and Never-Changing", or in my concept, "BEING-NESS BE-ING", then agreement and consensus are out the window!
In the final Understanding ALL definitions are out the window. Why: Because all definitions are language and descriptions of appearances and those are constantly changing!
What is That which is absolutely fresh, unchanging, and unarguably (ie nonconcpetually) REAL? YOU. YOU are Reality. The word that POINTS to That is ... guess what?
"I". This, the Actual "I" (call it by any name you like; Being, Presence-Awareness, Sat-Chit-Ananda, it matters not because no word is IT or can describe or represent IT!) and IT is NOT the concept or sound of the concept, is the True Open Stateless State which you have always been. What were you before you were born? THAT. What will you be after you die? THAT. What are you now? THAT.
The pointer is that in this Understanding that "I" is NOT a changing thing. Conversely, the "me", as I shall put it for the sake of sharpening a distinction between the two concepts "I" and "me", points to the obviously separate BODY. I say "me" in everyday conversation with "others". There is a natural knowing that "me" is a body BUT since the body is constantly changing at every moment, the body CANNOT be the Ultimate Reality! Isn't that obvious in direct looking? Dropping all learned concepts of what we are ... staring into the abyss as one Sage put it .. we find that The "I: is simply open space, Being-Ness Be-ING, and the "me" is one tiny constantly-changing object appearing IN That-Which_Never-Changes, the "I" which IS and prior to the "word 'I'!".
This, when accepted as what is but by no one, comports the Final Truth: There is no creation, no dissolution, no path, no goal, and in Reality, nothing happens, and THIS, the manifesting-dreaming, is what "nothing happening" happens to look like!
Row row row your boat, life is but a dream.
