Famously, Descartes concluded at the end of his long search for something that he could actually accept to be indubitably true about existence, “je pense, donc je suis” usually Latinised to “Cogito ergo sum”.

Of course, while he was definitely going in the right direction, this is insufficiently radical. It has been pointed out that all that can really be said about thinking is that it is occurring.

The more radical step is to note that awareness is: otherwise there could be no awareness that thinking is going on.

And that brings us to the false I, the step along the way to nothing-ness.

Let’s take the steps.

Who is aware? I am. Or am I? Why do we need an “I” to be aware?

What there is, is awareness, or better, aware of being aware.

Instead of “I think, therefore I am” there is “I am aware, therefore I am”.

But as indicated elsewhere, the only “I” is universal not personal.

There’s only one “I” – One.

So let’s take the “I” out of it. And what do we get?

We get the ungrammatical but more universal “Am aware, therefore Am”.

Or just, “Am”.