If I were to ask you the question: "Who are you?" how would you respond? How many labels or descriptors would you need to describe who you are? 1? 2? 10? 100? For example a man might answer that as "I am Joe Bloggs, Doctor, father, husband, worker, happy person, etc". A more unhappy person might answer "I am no one". A more spiritual person may answer "I am God". Now who is right? Any of them? All of them? None of them?

There are elements of all those answers given that we may use to describe who we are, but the last two answers are the most accurate I feel. Let me explain why I think that the "I am no one" answer is quite accurate. In ourselves we have a Soul and an Ego. As Eckhart Tolle describes in his brilliant book "A New Earth" (well worth a read if you haven't already) whenever we talk about "I am…. Whatever" we are actually identifying with the Ego, not with the Soul. We build up our personas in order to interact in this 3rd dimension world in which we live. But, in essence, we are not the person we are creating. We are the Soul behind it. And that Soul is God. God is everything, and everything is God. And so, in and of ourselves, we are not "Alun Jones" or "Joe Bloggs" or whatever our name happens to be this time around. We are Source Energy/God/Allah/Father-Mother God/Divine Spirit or whatever other word you choose to use. Everything else around us is an illusion and many have become so identified with their Ego Self that they cannot see this. I say this not in judgment, just in observation.

Many years ago I used to play an online role-playing game which was set in a fantasy world. You start that game with a character that you create, and you decide how you're going to play this character: what job he/she will do, what the character will wear, male or female, what race etc etc. You then used to interact with other people and do various things to earn experience points and "go up a level" and so become able to do more difficult things and do other things more quickly and easily. For example I had an empath (healer) and the more experience he became the more serious wounds he could help people with. I decided how he would interact with other people and whether he'd be a nice person (as I saw it) or not and so on. Hundreds of people used to play this game all across the world - all doing a similar thing - creating a character and role playing it out. Some people took it incredibly seriously both in terms of the game itself and taking it into the real world. There were whole conventions for this game where people would go dressed as their character really acting out the roles.

OK - if you're not bored and I haven't lost you yet that's good! Another way of looking at the world in which we live is to liken it to the fantasy world I've just described above. We each choose what character we will play, what we will do, how we will behave and interact with others, and we gain experience through such interactions. Again, it's a bit like the film The Matrix with all the people thinking that what they were living was real. Unlike the computer game and the film, however, we cannot switch off this computer game or take a green or red pill. However, we can decide to wake up and understand that the person we think we are is just a role that we have decided to play. Only WE can decide what we think, and feel, and what to do. Even if someone held a gun to our head and told us to go to work we could still choose not to.

There is an awareness within each of us that is waiting patiently for us to acknowledge that it is there. Waiting for us to understand that we are not the characters we play in the world. We are One Soul that is having multiple experiences in order to expand and grow the whole of Consciousness. We are not the butcher, the baker, or the candlestick maker - even though one of those may be the role we wish to play right now. We are so much more than that. The Ego Self will try to force us to limit ourselves to the characters we have chosen to play up until now. The Ego Self in some people reading this will think it's a load of nonsense - and that's OK too.

Regardless of whether you can relate to anything in this week's musings, do have a think about your life and the role/character you are playing. Whether or not you believe you are more than that character, at least consider your role and the choices you are making about who you are. Only you can decide to change it if you are unhappy with it. But you also have the power to change whom you are portraying to the world - all it takes is intention, action, and a bit of tenacity.