Seeing

I am I not any longer when I see.
This sentence is at the bottom of all creative activity.
It is just the exact opposite of
I am I because my little dog knows me.

-Gertrude Stein, from Henry James, in Four in America.

Gertrude Stein's famous send up of Descartes' "I think therefore I am", was not only poking fun at the pretensions of philosophical thought, but also making a claim about the necessary relational character of one's essential identity.

- Linda Martin Alcoff, Visible Identities.

Philosophers operate in the Agyna Chakra - the region of vision, the mind's eye. They talk of the "blind forces of nature" as if seeing is intent; and attempt to "see" the Self through introspection, then, seeing nothing, conclude it doesn't exist. If you can see the mountain, you are distant from it. If you are on it, you cannot see it. The same applies to the Self.