Where Is the ‘I’?

If it is said that the human being has an ‘I’, then a simple question arises:
Where is this ‘I’?

The difficulty in answering lies in the fact that we do not merely have an ‘I’ — we are an ‘I’.
And what we are cannot be observed in the same way as something we possess.

To approach the ‘I’, one must attempt something unusual:
to place attention on attention itself.

Yet this is not immediately possible.
To put attention on attention, attention must first be produced — and at the same time perceived.
This requires a lawful doubling of inner activity: attending, while simultaneously noticing the act of attending.

At first glance, this seems impossible.
In practice, however, it can be trained.

Many of the fundamental observation exercises described in Knowledge of Higher Worlds are precisely designed to cultivate this double activity. Observation here is not a passive reception of impressions, but an active deed. One observes an outer object while simultaneously remaining inwardly present to the act of perception and the accompanying thinking activity.

A simple example is the seed observation exercise.

A seed — for instance a lemon seed — is placed on a table. The observer carefully notes its physical characteristics: shape, color, texture. At the same time, the observer consciously brings to mind the fully developed plant that can grow from this seed. One reflects inwardly: this seed contains within it the force that will draw forth the entire plant, given earth and light.

The exercise proceeds through distinct stages:

• careful sensory observation,
• deliberate imaginative construction,
• concentrated contemplation of the invisible formative force,
• and, through repeated practice, a subtle inner experience in which the seed is perceived as surrounded by a flame-like or luminous quality.

What matters here is not the imagery as such, but the quality of activity involved. Attention is simultaneously directed toward:

• a physical object,
• an inner representation,
• and the act of perceiving and thinking itself.

At this point, the decisive question arises:

What is actually looking?

The answer cannot be the eyes, nor the physical body, nor even thought as a content.
What looks — what attends, directs, holds, and moves inwardly — is the human ‘I’.

The ‘I’ becomes perceptible only when it is abstracted to its essential gesture:
willful attention, inner activity, and conscious perception.

The ‘I’ can move the body — but it can also move inwardly.
This inward movement is of the utmost importance, for it is the means by which the soul is ordered, shaped, and brought into a living relationship with the world as it truly is.

The ‘I’ does not appear as a thing.
It reveals itself only in doing.