The human condition is rooted in “Who you are”. Typically, death notices enlarge on “who” the person that just died was. All “who”s die. Your “who” will die too; and mine. Well, mine did already die.

Real identity is rooted in What you are.

For example, in the morning you wake up in the body and for a split instant all you are, what you are, is awake — then suddenly who you are rushes into place.

You are Jack or Jill, Penny or Phil, (insert your name here) — and today you have to (something – fill in the blank)

But that who is overlaid on WHAT you are.

WHAT you are is that pure presence that was there at the moment of awakening before you entered into WHO you are. And if you can see it, “that what you are” — or as some traditional texts would have it, “Tat tvam asi” (That thou art) — is undying.

It is also identical in nature — but not character, that is necessarily unique –at all times, in all bodies that awaken, and is the One Being that is What Is.

And you are That. Not, who you are, that mortal thing.

And yet you are simultaneously, and uniquely, you.