Excerpt about the feeling 'I AM'
It is the vague feeling 'I AM' that creates the idea of self which has
no corresponding reality, and to see this truth is to realize Nirvāna,
which is not very easy. In the Samyutta-nikāya there is an
enlightening conversation on this point between a bhikkhu named
Khemaka and a group of bhikkhus.
These bhikkhus ask Khemaka whether he sees in the Five Aggregates any
self or anything pertaining to a self. Khemaka relies 'No'. Then the
bhikkhus say that, if so, he should be an Arahant free from all
impurities. But Khemaka confesses that though he does not find in the
Five Aggregates a self, or anything pertaining to self, 'I am not an
Arahant free from all impurities.' O friends, with regard to the Five
Aggregates of Attachment, I have a feeling "I AM", but I do not
clearly see "This is I AM".' Then Khemaka explains that what he calls
'I AM' is neither matter, sensation, perception, mental formations,
nor consciousness, nor anything without them. But he has the feeling
'I AM' with regard to the Five Aggregates, though he could not see
clearly 'This is I AM'.
He says it is like the smell of a flower: it is neither the smell of
the petals, nor the color, not of the pollen, but the smell of the
flower. Khemata further explains that even a person who has attained
the early stages of realization still retains this feeling 'I AM'. But
later on, when he progresses further, this feeling of 'I AM'
altogether disappears, just as the chemical smell of a freshly washed
cloth disappears after a time when it is kept in a box.
This discussion was so useful and enlightening to them that at the end
of it, the text says, all of them, including Khemata himself, became
Arahants free from all impurities, thus finally getting rid of 'I AM'.
