Part 1: What Is The Doer?

Let’s explore the I am the doer conception further. In what follows, I’ll call it “doership” or simply “the doer” for short.

What is this concept? No one is denying that activities or even doings happen. These are, after all, readily observable. 

The question might then be put: “Has anyone ever actually observed or genuinely ‘internally’ discovered a doer behind these doings?”

The above question can bring us around to what this concept of doership is. It seems to be suggesting that whenever there is an action, there is “such a one” who is located “behind” that action, the one “on account of which” the action is possible. The doer, standing back here, is (as it were) pushing the billiard ball (or, to think of Sisyphus, the boulder, for that matter). The doer initiates the chain or part of the chain of actions that follow.

We need to know what it means to actually discover or “pinpoint” this doer. How are we going to investigate this matter? Well, the surest way is to say, with Atmananda, something like this: “I can only know what’s experienceable.” You might balk at this because you might say: “Well then: who’s ever experienced a quasar?” And the answer is that this is a misunderstanding of experienceability. Thought, in the form of a theory, is indeed an experience. So is a model (essentially another thought). Of course, telescopes are essentially “extended eyes” and certainly some celestial phenomena can be seen thanks to the awesome power of telescopes. In this sense, then, such phenomena are experienced inasmuch as they are seen. 

Point being? I just don’t know what it would mean to say that something can be known without actually being experienced–indeed, without the possibility of experienceability. To think otherwise is to fall pray to hearsay or to idle or fanciful conjecture.

We’re coming up with an epistemic standard by which we can test whether the doer actually exists. 

Part 2: Where To Look?

Where, then, are we going to look for said doer once we accept that the epistemic standard is experienceability?

Here are some obvious options:

• A) Concerning action: Look IN the doing/activity itself for said doer. Also, look BEHIND the activity for the doer itself.
• B) Concerning thought: Look IN the thought for the doer. Look BEHIND the thought for the doer.
• C) Concerning feeling: Look IN the thought for the doer. Look BEHIND the thought for the doer.

Part 3: Findings

It’ll turn out that if you look carefully enough, you won’t find the doer in any of the 6 cases outlined in A-C.

You might want to hedge your bet and say: “Well, it hasn’t been found in those cases, but how can one draw the inference that it doesn’t exist?” With this objection, you’re holding onto a version of the “not yet.”

Reply: Because those cases are exhaustive. Obviously, there’s no question of doership in the case of just seeing, just hearing, just touching, just smelling, and just tasting. Surely, as far as doership is concerned, we’re only really interested in any experience that’s “in the vicinity of” action.

“But what if there’s some kind of impulse?” So long as it’s not experienceable, you’ve got just another hunch (hearsay or idle conjecture) on your hands.

Part 4: Why Does This Topic Matter?

Because something quite magical is deeply felt when one gives up the idea that one is a doer. One feels that everything is just happening (including, shall we say, doings), and one no longer imputes doership to oneself or to others (responsibility, blame, etc.). 

An ease of being sets in. Perhaps one becomes open to the possibility that “something else” (say, God) is “doing all this,” or one doesn’t. Frankly, the latter doesn’t matter since there will be a deeper and deeper sense of trust: a trust in experiences unfolding as and however they do. 

In lieu of taking seriously the icon of Sisyphysian man pushing a boulder up a hillside (only to begin again once the boulder falls down), one will feel that everything is playing out as it does; one will feel that nothing is really amiss, off, or awry. One will feel at home because one will be at home.

The melody is the thing.