How Much of Me is Really Me?

We spend our entire lives collecting advice in the hopes that we might become smarter, more talented, or more successful. Perhaps a teacher’s warning, a parent’s offhand comment, or a stranger’s opinion that never seemed to disappear. And lately, this has inspired a question of mine: how much of me is really me? Because sometimes, I feel like I consist of other people’s perceptions and ideas so thoroughly, that there is no “me” underneath.

Before going further, I think identifying the definition of the self is extremely important here. According to the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, an ancient Sanskrit text, the Self should be “heard of, reflected on, and meditated upon” (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 2.4.5). The Self, in other words, is something that cannot be seen or objectified, but rather experienced. But that seems odd, because if the self is something that can’t be observed, why does mine feel so assembled from the outside?

For one second, close your eyes and just think about it. How many times have you thought back to somebody’s advice, or a piece of a conversation, and how does it guide you today?

People have wrestled with this question for over two thousand years, and one of the oldest attempts at an answer is a conversation about a chariot. In book 2 of The Questions of King Milinda, a Buddhist philosophical dialogue, the monk Nāgasena, asks King Milinda whether the chariot he arrived in is the axle, “the wheels, or the framework, or the ropes, or the yoke, or the spokes of the wheels, or the goad” (The Questions of King Milinda, Book 2, ch. 1). The king says no to each one. It is not all of them together, and it is not something separate from them either. Nāgasena’s conclusion is that “chariot” is only a name for parts arranged to work together. He says the same of himself: “Nāgasena” is a label, and no permanent person is found beneath it.

I think this conversation is strangely applicable to our lives today, as it can sometimes feel like we are made up of different pieces and bits of knowledge and yet, it does not define us. But Nāgasena’s point is that nothing hidden sits underneath the pieces, so I may have been asking the wrong question. Instead of asking “which parts are really me?”, the better question might be “which parts do I choose to act on?” Knowledge is only borrowed until you turn it into your own, and then it becomes something to experience the world.

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Sources:

The Questions of King Milinda, Book II, ch. 1, “The Distinguishing Characteristics of Ethical Qualities.” Translator not stated in the PDF. PDF excerpt hosted at ethicsintroduction.weebly.com. Accessed October 25, 2026. https://ethicsintroduction.weebly.com/uploads/4/4/6/2/44624607/the_questions_of_king_milinda_book_2_ch._1_the_distinguishing_characteristics_of_ethical_qualities.pdf

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, 2.4.5. Translator not stated in the PDF. Hosted at vedantastudents.com. Accessed October 25, 2026. https://vedantastudents.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/10.-Brihadaranyaka-Upanishad.pdf