The feeling of “I-ness”, as one yogi called it, is a mental construct. All of us feel that we are individuals, and we are nurtured or exploited, supported or threatened, by the world around. This “I” was born, has parents, and will die one day. While he or she exists, he or she will do things and have experiences. The basic perception all of us have is that there is something called “I”, and the rest of the universe is “not I.”
I feel that this perception that we are individuals is a mental construct.
This realisation came once I understood how Prakriti is made of storms, waves, which keep flowing through all entities, and how the body-mind apparatus is simply being acted upon by, or acting upon, everything around it. And there are billions of such body-mind machines, all acting upon each other. Once the perception of separate “I” and “not I” dissolves, the perception of “I-ness” too weakens.
I realised that one cannot function, one cannot even breathe, without this mental construct of “I-ness.” If we lose it totally, we become totally unable to function in the vyavahaarik world. Yet, as long as this I-ness exists, we are constantly caught in the grand play of Prakriti and keep missing the wood for the trees.