The vocable "I" becomes attached to each impulse that arises in a psychic complex, no matter how mutually contradictory such impulses may appear to be. From this process springs the idea of a multitude of "me"'s. The impulses in question are affective, so that the inferential "I" is affective rather than intellectual. What is the origin of the vocable "I"? Every "living" phenomenon, every sentient complex must necessarily have a centre, call it "heart" or "head". Such centre in itself is as phenomenal as the appearance of which it forms the "heart" or "centre", but its necessary function is the organization and care of the phenomenon which it controls. Emotions such as fear, greed, love-hate arise on behalf of the phenomenon for which they constitute protection and stimulate survival and perpetuation in the space-time context of manifestation. Consequently the vocable "I", representing this "centre", represents the physical body, and this representation is responsible for the identification which constitutes bondage. This "centre", then, is the phenomenal basis of an I-concept or ego or self, which is inferential and has no existence in the sense of being capable of independent action as a thing-in-itself. On account of the emotions of physical origin for which this I-concept assumes responsibility, the whole complex has the appearance of an independent entity which it is not-- since it is totally "lived" or "dreamed" by the noumenality which is all that it is. It is this "centre", and every impulse that arises in a psyche, to which is attached the vocable "I", and this it is to which is attributed responsibility for each thought that arises in consciousness and every action of the apparent "individual". It is this, of course, to which the term "ego" is applied, whose functioning is known as "volition". In fact, however, it merely performs its own function in perfect ignorance of what is assigned to its agency. It was never I and never could it be I, for never could any "thing", any object of consciousness, be I. There cannot be an objective "I" for, so-being, it would have to become an object to itself and could no longer be I. That is why "Is-ness" must be the absence of both object and subject, whose integration in mutual absence is devoid of objective existence. I could never be anything, I CANNOT EVEN BE I, for all being is determined. Nor could I ever be identified with anything objective, and "an I" is a contradiction in terms. I am no "thing" whatever, not even "is-ness."
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