Identification(self-identification)
Identification mechanism
We found out that there is a certain feeling or sensation of oneself, of one’s existence. It can be felt when we say “I, I, I, ...”, referring to ourselves. We called the feeling that arises in this case self-awareness, or a sense of self, or also a feeling of I. Self-awareness can also be understood this way. When we do, say, think something, we mean that we are doing it all. We say this: “I’m walking,” “I’m hungry,” “I’m thinking about what I’ll do tomorrow,” “I feel bad.” The “I” that we mean in these statements is what we call the sense of self. Where is your sense of self located in your body? Usually, people say: “I am somewhere in my head behind my eyes or in my chest, and from there I observe everything.”Understanding that this feeling of “I” is somewhere here, behind my eyes, we still often say such things: I am a carpenter, I am a mother, I am Russian, etc. It is quite obvious that “being a carpenter” is a job or a profession, but this is in no way a feeling of the Self. Imagine, if I really were a carpenter, then I would be forced to say this: “The carpenter wants to eat,” “The carpenter thinks, how to cut an apple”, “A carpenter raises children”. It is obvious to everyone that this is heresy. The children are raised not by a carpenter, but by a father. Those. It is obvious that being a carpenter is just an occupation, a job. Therefore, it would be more correct to say: “I work as a carpenter.” In our speech it is customary to say: “I am a carpenter.” And this fundamentally changes everything. Because there is an identification of the feeling “I” and the image “carpenter”.
A person can clearly feel this identification when doing carpentry. If I am a carpenter, and I am currently engaged in carpentry work, then I consider myself a carpenter at the moment. This phenomenon can be perfectly observed by observing how people behave at work, especially if their duty requires them to communicate with other people. For example, a cashier or a salesperson, when they serve you, behave exactly like a cashier and a salesperson. This is because they have now clearly identified themselves with their profession. If the cashier suddenly began to tell you how difficult her life is, that yesterday she was at the market and saw Glashka, and that lately her children have not listened to her, then this woman would leave the role of the cashier, having disidentified with her, and enter would be in the role of your friend. Fortunately, this does not happen or occurs rarely.
So what happened when a person identified himself with one of his roles, for example, a profession? What happens is that he forgets himself as a pure sense of Self, and he literally becomes his role. This is self-forgetfulness, loss of oneself. This can also be called “playing too hard.” It often happens that we play around in one role or another. For example, we got carried away with cooking, and it captivated us so much that we stopped feeling ourselves, as if we had lost sight of ourselves. And all that we were aware of at that time was the cooking process. We have become the process of cooking, in the truest sense of the word.
The only way to get out of identification is to constantly keep in your consciousness part of the attention on the feeling of “I”. When you remember yourself during some activity or performing some role, then you seem to be observing your role from the outside. And then you see that you are not this role. For example, if the carpenter Vitaly, working at his job and performing carpentry work, recognizes himself as doing this work, then he is no longer identified with his role as a carpenter. At the same time, he can continue to do his carpentry work, but, observing himself in this work as if from the outside, he sees separately his sense of Self and separately his work process. In this case, he will no longer be identified with his profession of carpenter.
This state in which a person does not lose sight of himself and at the same time realizes that he is fulfilling a particular role is called disidentification. In fact, disidentification is associated not only with the role performed, but also with all possible forms of identification of the sense of Self: with the body, gender, abstract images, etc. To understand the state of disidentification, for example, with some of your roles, simply remain present in the current moment while performing this role. For example, you are traveling to public transport. In this case, we identify ourselves with the role of the passenger. This role implies certain rules of conduct. For example, give way to pregnant women; transfer money for a ticket if asked; allowing other people to be in close proximity to you; etc. As soon as you enter the vehicle, your role as a passenger immediately begins. During this time, remain aware, just watch how you behave in this vehicle. At the same time, keep partially in sight your sense of self, your sense of Self. While you observe this process, your behavior, thoughts and perhaps feelings, you are not identified with them. You are in a state of disidentification with your role as a passenger.
In much the same way, disidentification with any other form with which you can identify occurs. To become disidentified with your gender, you simply need to observe yourself when you act like a woman or a man, depending on your gender. For example, if you are a woman, then during conversations with men or with your girlfriends, notice what in your behavior, thoughts and feelings is included in your image of a woman. You can flirt with men, wear makeup and nails, gossip with other women, etc. All of these elements of your behavior are usually included in the image of you as a woman. As long as you realize that you are behaving like a woman, you are disidentified with this role. As soon as you stop observing this, your identification with the role you are playing automatically occurs.
The following conclusion can be drawn. Identification with one form or another occurs automatically when you are not aware that you are now this form. Those. Until you realize that you are behaving like a mother, then at that time you will be a mother and identify with this role. Until you realize that you are acting like a passenger, you will be a passenger. Until you realize that you are identified with this body of yours, you will be this body of yours. But as soon as you direct your attention to these forms of identification - mother, passenger, body - the realization immediately turns on that this is just another form with which I have identified, but I, in fact, am here. I am the feeling of I. And then there is I and there is a form of identification - role, body, thought, etc. This is a state of disidentification.
By the way, in order to disidentify from your thoughts, you do the same thing. You simply observe them as images in your mind. For example, what are you doing now? Well, obviously you are reading this text. You can say, “I am reading.” And this is, of course, true. And you will have the feeling that this is your thought, that it comes from you. Try this. Once again say “I am reading” on your own, but at the same time pay attention to the fact that these are just words, just a thought in your mind. There is this thought, and there is you, who is aware of it. In this case, you will feel that the same thought will not come from you, as it were. You will become disidentified with her.
Do you know where disidentification with your thoughts can be useful? In dialogue with people, and especially in argument. For example, you are arguing with your friend about whether there is a cafe called “Daniella” in Anapa. You say that it exists because... We were in Anapa in this cafe. And your friend says that there is no such cafe there, because... he was in all the cafes of Anapa and did not see an establishment with that name. When you say that there is a cafe there, you are saying this from your own experience and on your own behalf, so you will be identified with these thoughts. If your friend says that you are wrong and don’t know the city at all, then this will hurt you. The denial of your thought, in this case, will result in the denial of you, only because you are identified with this thought. But now you take and disidentify with this thought of yours, observing that it is just another thought in your mind, and it is just a thought. Moreover, you become disidentified with your thought at the moment when it appeared to you. There is this thought of yours, and there is you, as your feeling of yourself. Now your friend’s words that you are wrong will only concern this thought of yours, but not you. And then his words will not hurt you. It's a bit like cutting your coat with a knife. It won't hurt you. But if they cut your skin with a knife, it will hurt. Imagine that your thoughts are like your coat that hangs on you, but it is not you. Then there will be no pain.
Disidentification with your thoughts can also be very useful when they are not actually confirmed, but you emotionally invented them as a possible explanation for an unpleasant situation. For example, you are a man, and your girlfriend is now walking somewhere without notifying you about it. At the same time, your friend tells you that she was seen in the company of some man. Your imagination immediately draws a picture of her cheating on you. You say to yourself: “She’s definitely cheating on me with someone!” If you believe this thought of yours, identifying with it, you will feel strong attacks of jealousy. If you catch yourself that such a thought has now appeared in your head, and that this makes you feel unpleasant, you will realize that this is just your thought, and that there is no direct evidence of your friend’s betrayal. Then you will become disidentified with this thought of yours. And then you will be able to come to your senses and really find out what is really happening, and not believe the first thing that pops into your head. negative thought. You pick up the phone and find out what actually happened. It turns out that the young man your friend is hanging out with is her brother. And, pay attention, this information, this new thought, instantly changes your emotional state. Before that you were angry, and after that the anger instantly disappears. This is the true power of thought! Especially the thought with which you are identified.
So what happens? There are two possible states of you - identified and disidentified. In the first case, you are not aware that you have identified with this or that thought, role, physical fitness. And in the second - you see and realize that you are now playing a role, or that your thought has captured you, or you are aware of some other manifestations of yours. At the same time, you do not lose awareness of your presence, your sense of Self.
— Book “Who are you?”, Evgeny Frolikov
Gurdjieff
To begin self-observation and self-study, you need to divide yourself. A person must understand that in reality he consists of two people."One person- this is the one whom he calls “I”, and others call “Uspensky”, “Zakharov” or “Petrov”. The other person is the real "he" real self, which appears in his life for a very short time, for moments, and can become stable and permanent only after a long period of work.
"As long as a person accepts himself as one person, he will not move.. His work on himself will begin from the moment he feels two people in himself. One of them is passive, and the most that it can do is register or observe what happens to it. The other one, who is active and speaks of himself in the first person, is in reality only “Uspensky”, “Petrov” or “Zakharov”.
"Identification becomes the main obstacle to remembering oneself. A person, identifying himself with something, is not able to remember himself. In order to remember oneself, one must not be identified. But in order to learn not to identify oneself, a person must first of all not identify himself with himself, not call himself “I” always and in all cases. He must remember that there are two in him, himself, i.e. Me, and someone else that he needs to fight and defeat if he wants to achieve anything. As long as a person is identified or can be identified, he is a slave to any chance. Freedom is, first of all, freedom from identification."Except general forms identification, we should pay attention to one particular type of it, namely, identification with people, which takes a special form: a person begins to “reckon” with others. There are several types of this condition. “Most often, a person identifies himself in other people with what they think about him, with how they treat him, with how they treat him. He always thinks that people underestimate him, are not polite and attentive enough to him. All this torments him, causes thoughts and suspicions, on which he wastes a huge amount of energy; he develops a distrustful and hostile attitude towards people, how someone looked at him, what someone thought about him or said - all this becomes huge for him. meaning.
<...>"All this and much more is one of the forms identification. This judgment is entirely based on "requirements". A person internally “demands” that everyone sees what a wonderful person he is, that everyone constantly expresses their respect, respect and admiration for him, his intelligence, beauty, intelligence, wit, presence of mind, originality, and the like. These requirements, in turn, are based on a completely fantastic idea of themselves, as is often the case with people with very modest appearance. For example, writers, actors, musicians, artists and politicians– almost all, without exception, are sick people. What are they suffering from? First of all, from an unusually high opinion of oneself, then from one’s pretensions, from suspiciousness, i.e. because they are prepared in advance to feel insulted by a lack of understanding and underestimation.
[...] A person forgets what relates to him, all those “mental photographs” of himself that he may have taken before.
And this deprives a person’s views and opinions of stability and accuracy. A person does not remember what he thought and said; and he doesn't remember How he thought and How spoke.
This, in turn, is connected with one of the features of a person’s attitude towards himself and everything around him, namely: he is constantly “identified” with what at the moment attracts his attention, his thoughts, desires, imagination.
"Identification"- such a general quality that when observed it is difficult to separate it from everything else. A person is constantly in a state of “identification”, only the object of identification changes.
A person identifies himself with some minor problem that has arisen in front of him and completely forgets the big goals for which he began to work. He identifies himself with one thought and forgets all other thoughts; with some one feeling, with some one mood - and forgets broader thoughts, emotions and moods. When working on themselves, people identify themselves so strongly with individual goals that they do not see the forest for the trees. Two or three nearby trees constitute a whole forest for them.
“Identification” is one of the most dangerous enemies because it penetrates everywhere and deceives a person at the very moment when he seems to be struggling with it. It is very difficult to overcome identification, since a person very easily identifies with what interests him most, what he devotes his time, work, and attention to. To free oneself from identification, one must be constantly on guard and ruthless with oneself, i.e. not to be afraid to see all the subtle and hidden forms that identification takes.
It is necessary to see the identification in oneself and study it to the very roots. The difficulties of dealing with identification are compounded by the fact that, having recognized it in themselves, people consider it positive feature and are called “enthusiasm”, “zeal”, “passion”, “spontaneity”, “inspiration” and the like, believing that only in a state of identification can a person truly do good job in one area or another. In reality, this is, of course, an illusion. A person cannot do anything that requires his attention and sensitivity when he is in a state of identification. If people understood what the state of identification means, they would change their minds about it. A person turns into a thing, into a piece of flesh, losing even that small resemblance to a human creature that he possesses. [...] Look at the people in shops, theaters, restaurants; look how they identify themselves with words when they argue about something or prove something, especially something that they themselves do not know. They turn into greed, into desire, into words, nothing remains of them.
Identification becomes the main obstacle to “remembering” oneself. A person, identifying himself with something, is not able to “remember” himself. In order to remember oneself, one must not be identified. But in order to learn not to identify oneself, a person must first of all don't identify with yourself, do not call yourself “I” always and in all cases. He must remember that there are two in him - himself, i.e. Me and someone another, which he must fight and defeat if he wants to achieve anything. As long as a person is identified or can be identified, he is a slave to any chance. Freedom is, first of all, freedom from identification.
In addition to the general forms of identification, attention should be paid to one particular type of it, namely, identification with people, which takes a special form: a person begins to “reckon” with others. There are several types of this condition.
Most often, a person identifies himself in other people with what they think about him, with how they treat him, how they treat him. He always thinks that people underestimate him, are not polite and attentive enough to him. All this torments him, causes thoughts and suspicions, on which he wastes a huge amount of energy; He develops a distrustful and hostile attitude towards people. How so-and-so looked at him, what so-and-so thought about him or said - all this becomes of great importance to him.
He “takes into account” not only with individuals, but also with society, with historically established conditions. Everything that such a person does not like seems to him unfair, illegal, incorrect, illogical. And the starting point for his judgment is always that these things can and should be changed. “Injustice” is one of the words behind which suspiciousness is often hidden. When a person has convinced himself that he is indignant about some kind of injustice, then the cessation of suspiciousness will be for him “reconciliation with injustice.”
There are people who are able to “take into account” not only injustice or the inability of others to properly appreciate them, but are also ready, for example, to be indignant about the weather. Funny, but true. People can express indignation about the climate, heat, cold, snow, rain, get irritated by the weather, be indignant, angry at it. A person is able to accept everything from such a personal point of view, as if the whole world is specially designed to bring him pleasure or, conversely, inconvenience and trouble.
All this and much more is a form of identification. This judgment is entirely based on "requirements". A person internally “demands” that everyone sees what a wonderful person he is, that everyone constantly expresses their respect, respect and admiration for him, his intelligence, beauty, intelligence, wit, presence of mind, originality, and the like. These requirements, in turn, are based on a completely fantastic idea of themselves, as is often the case with people with very modest appearance.
There is another form of suspiciousness that deprives a person of significant energy and which manifests itself in the fact that a person believes that he is not attentive enough to someone else, that this other person is offended by his lack of attention. And he himself begins to think that he does not care properly about the other person, does not pay due attention to him, is not inferior to him. All this is the most common weakness. People are afraid of each other; but this may lead too far. [...] Eventually a person may lose his balance, if he had any at all, and begin to perform the most senseless actions. He is angry with himself, feels like a fool, but cannot stop, although in these cases the whole point is just to “not pay attention.”
The same thing, but perhaps even worse, happens when a person believes that he is “obliged” to do something, when in fact he does not need to do it. "Should" and "shouldn't" is a rather difficult subject: it is not easy to understand when a person really "should" and when he "shouldn't." This can only be approached from the point of view of "goal". When a person has a goal, he “should” do only what leads to the goal, and “should not” do anything that impedes movement towards it.
[...] People often think that if they struggle with suspiciousness in themselves, it will make them “insincere,” and this frightens them, because they believe that in this case they will lose something, they will lose a part of themselves. In this case, the same thing happens as in the case of struggling with the external expression of unpleasant emotions. The only difference is that in this case the person is struggling with the internal expression of perhaps the same emotions that were previously expressed externally.
The fear of losing sincerity is, of course, self-deception, one of those formulas of lies on which human weaknesses are based. A person cannot help but identify himself, cannot help but be suspicious; he is unable not to express his unpleasant emotions simply because he is weak. Identification, suspiciousness, expression of unpleasant emotions - all these are signs of his weakness, powerlessness, and inability to control himself. But, not wanting to admit to himself his weakness, he calls it “sincerity” or “honesty” and convinces himself that he does not want to fight his sincerity, when in reality he is not able to fight his weaknesses.
In fact, sincerity and honesty are something completely different. What a person in this case calls sincerity is simply an unwillingness to control himself. And deep inside a person is aware of this; but continues to lie to himself, claiming that he does not want to lose sincerity.
IDENTIFICATION OF PERSONAL IDENTIFICATION is one of the operational investigative activities (see Operational investigative activities). It consists of identifying the suspect (being checked) using a fingerprint file, traces left at the scene of the incident, the composition of blood, saliva, traces of smell, etc. For O.l. forensic and operational accounting, information systems. O.l. produced by special departmental laboratories, research institutes or operational and technical units and documented in a conclusion.
Large legal dictionary. - M.: Infra-M. A. Ya. Sukharev, V. E. Krutskikh, A. Ya. Sukharev. 2003 .
See what “PERSONAL IDENTIFICATION” is in other dictionaries:
personal identification- one of the operational investigative activities (see operational investigative activities). It consists of identifying the suspect (being checked) using a fingerprint file, traces left at the scene of the incident, blood composition,... ... Large legal dictionary
Identification of a person by external signs- see Habitoscopy...
identification- German: Identifizierung. French: identification. English: identification, Spanish: identificacifn. Italian: identilicazione. Portuguese: identfficazao. The psychological process by which a subject assigns to himself properties, qualities, attributes... ... Dictionary of Psychoanalysis
PERSONAL IDENTITY (personal identity)- everyday (in Western culture) and a scientific term meaning: 1) identity of self (consciousness, mind), awareness by a person of the unity of his consciousness at different times and in different places; 2) maintaining a constant or continuing unity of activity... ... Modern philosophical dictionary
INDIVIDUAL- [from lat. individuum indivisible], a concept denoting a representative of a class. group, which has a separate independent existence and characteristic features, due to the presence of ryx, it cannot be identified with other representatives... ... Orthodox Encyclopedia
IDENTIFICATION- (Latin identificare - to identify) - identification, recognition of people, objects, phenomena by their characteristic features (signs). Forensic identification is the process of establishing the identity (identification) of various objects during collection and research... ... Soviet legal dictionary
Snetkov, Viktor Alekseevich- (b. 1930) doctor legal sciences, professor. Region scientific research theory of forensic diagnostics, identification of personality by external signs. Basic works: Portrait identification of a person in operational search and... ... Forensic encyclopedia
A type of activity carried out (openly and secretly) through operational investigative measures in order to protect the life, health, rights and freedoms of man and citizen, property, ensure the security of society and the state from criminal... ... Legal dictionary
In forensic science, identification of a person by letter (handwriting), i.e., identification of the performer (author) through a comparative study of the signs of handwriting displayed in a document, the performer of which is unknown, and the signs of handwriting,... ... Big Soviet encyclopedia
- (Geber) or Jabir ibn Hayyan (c. 720 815), Arab alchemist, whose works were studied by the English philosopher Roger Bacon (c. 1214 92). The identification of Geber’s personality with Jabir is questionable, however, it is known for sure about Geber that he put... ... Scientific and technical encyclopedic dictionary
Who am I? Part 1: The Ego Trap: Self-Identification
The word "I", depending on the context, represents either biggest mistake, or the deepest truth. When you say the word “I,” you mean something completely different from what you really are. The boundless depth of your Higher Self, as a result of monstrous compression, is replaced by the sound produced vocal cords, the thought of "I" in your mind, or anything else with which that "I" can be identified.
When a child learns that the sequence of sounds spoken by his parents is his name, he begins to equate the word, which becomes a thought in his mind, with who he is. At this stage, some children refer to themselves in the third person: “Johnny is hungry.” Soon they learn magic word“I” and equate it with their name, which they previously equated with who they are. Then other thoughts come and merge with the original “I” thought. The next step is to identify and designate those things that will make up “me”, will become part of “me”. This is identification with objects, that is, endowing things, and, ultimately, the thoughts that designate them, with a sense of self. This is how the child identifies himself with them. When “his” toy breaks or someone takes it away, he experiences great suffering. He suffers not because of the value of the toy, but because of the idea that it is “his.” The toy has become part of the child’s developing self-perception, the sense of “I.”
As the child grows, the original “I” thought attracts other thoughts to itself: it becomes identified with his gender, his things, the perceiving and feeling body, nationality, race, religion, profession. Other things with which "I" is identified are roles (mother, father, husband, wife, etc.), experiences or opinions, likes and dislikes, and what happened to "me" in the past, the memory of which is a set of thoughts that determine my further self-perception as “me and what I have experienced.” In the end, they are nothing more than thoughts that randomly came together as a result of the fact that they were all endowed with my self-perception. It is this mental construct that you mean when you say the word “I.”
Most people are completely identified with the constant stream of thoughts in the head, obsessive thinking, much of which is characterized by repetition and lack of meaning. For them, there is no “I” outside the thought process and the emotions that come with it. This is called being spiritually unaware. When you tell them that there is a voice in their head that never stops, they either wonder: “What voice?”, or vehemently deny it, and yet it is that same voice, the thinker, the unobservable mind. It can be considered a certain entity that has taken possession of them.
The result of identification with the Ego is a complete lack of awareness of my unity with the Whole, my inherent inner unity with both any “other” and with the Source. This oblivion is original sin, suffering, delusion.
Identification with things
Those who work in the advertising business know very well: in order to sell a person a thing that he does not particularly need, he must be convinced that it will add something to the way he sees himself, or how others perceive him, in other words, to add something to his self-perception. In most cases, you are not buying a product, but an “identification enhancer.” Branded stickers are what you fall for first. They are expensive, which means they are “exclusive”.
What things a person identifies with depends on him - on his age, gender, income level, belonging to a certain social class, fashion, cultural environment, etc.
Paradoxically, the existence of the so-called consumer society is based on the fact that it is impossible to find yourself through things: the feeling of ego satisfaction does not last long, and therefore you are always looking for something more, you continue to buy, you continue to consume.
The ego seeks to equate possession with Existence: I own - that means I exist. And the more I have, the more I exist. The ego lives through comparison.
Of course, that physical dimension, where our superficial selves reside, things are necessary and a necessary part of life. We need housing, clothing, furniture, tools, vehicles. We need to show respect for the world of things, and not despise it. In every thing there is an Existence.
However, the ego uses them as a means of self-strengthening, in other words, it tries to find and inflate itself with their help.
Egotypic identification with things creates attachment to things, obsession with things, which, in turn, shapes our consumer society and its economic structures, where the only measure of progress is invariably “more.” An uncontrollable, insatiable thirst for more is both a functional disorder and a disease. This is the same functional disorder that occurs in cancer cells when their goal is to multiply themselves. Diseased cells do not realize that destroying the organism of which they are a part will lead to their own death.
Through introspection, examine your relationship with the world of things, especially those created by the world of “mine.” You need to be vigilant and honest to understand whether, for example, your self-worth is tied to the things you own. Do certain things give you a subtle sense of self-importance or superiority? Does not having certain things make you feel inferior to those who have more than you?
By saying that you own this thing, you are telling a story in which the thought forms “I” and “thing” merge into one. This is how the mental principle of ownership works. If everyone agrees with what you say about ownership, then signed pieces of paper will appear behind it, certifying that people agree with it. You are rich. If no one agrees with this story, you will be sent to a psychiatrist.
Even if people agree, it is still a fiction. Many, until they are on their deathbed and until everything external has fallen away, do not understand that nothing, no thing, has anything to do with who they are. When death is near, the whole concept of ownership becomes meaningless. In the last moments of life, people also realize that while they spent their lives searching for their fuller sense of self, their Being - what they were really looking for - was always with them, but it was tightly closed by identification with things, which ultimately turned out to be identification wisely.
How can you let go of attachment to things? Don't even try. This is impossible. Attachment to things goes away on its own when you stop looking for yourself in them. Just become aware of this attachment.
The thought forms “I”, “mine”, “more than”, “I want”, “I need”, “I must have” and “not enough” characterize structureContents the ego can be any thought, image, thing - it is changeable and interchangeable. As long as the egoic structure remains in the same place, you will not be satisfied with any content. No matter what you have or receive, you will not be happy. You will continue to look for something that will give you hope to be more fulfilled and feel complete instead of inferiority, and you will continue to feed the feeling of inadequacy that lives inside.
Identification with the body
Besides things, another basic form of identification is “my” body, gender, the role of “man” and “woman”.
The ego seeks to equate feelings with Existence: I feel the body, which means I exist. Beautiful healthy body pushes the ego to a greater extent to identify with it.
A person's fulfillment in life is often perceived as something that depends on his gender. The worst thing that can happen to a woman living within some cultural traditions is to remain unmarried or childless, and to a man to lose his sexual potency and be unable to produce children.
The self-perception of most people in the West is largely determined by appearance and the condition of the body - its strength or weakness, external beauty or ugliness - in comparison with others. For many, self-esteem is intrinsically linked to physical strength, fitness, and good looks. No less are those who have low body image, because they perceive their body as ugly or imperfect.
Those who are identified with their bright appearance and physical strength worry and suffer when these attributes begin to fade and disappear, but it cannot be otherwise. Now their very identity, which is built on this, is threatened with extinction. In any case, a significant part of their personality, negative or positive, is their body, no matter how beautiful or ugly it is. More precisely, they build the concept of their personality on the foundation of “I”-thought, which they mistakenly fix on a mental image, an idea of their body, which in reality is nothing more than a physical form that shares the fate of all other forms - impermanence, variability and, ultimately, complete collapse. This identification inevitably leads to suffering.
Avoiding identification with the body does not mean neglecting it, despising it or not caring for it. If the body is strong, beautiful, strong, you can highly value these qualities - while they exist. You can also improve his condition with healthy eating and exercise. If you do not consider yourself a body, then at a time when its beauty fades, its strength and capabilities decrease, it will not affect your self-esteem or personality in any way. In fact, when the body begins to weaken, it is easier for the light of consciousness, the dimension of the formless, to break through its fading form.
You can go beyond identification with the body by shifting your attention from its external form and thoughts about it as beautiful, ugly, strong, weak, too fat, too thin - to the sense of vitality that resides in it, the living energy field. This inner body is the bridge between form and formlessness. Develop the habit of feeling your inner body whenever possible. You may feel a slight tingling sensation at first, followed by a feeling of energy or vitality. By contacting the inner body, you move away from identification with form to the formless - and we could call this the Existence. This is your true identity.
Identification with the mind and thinking
Most people are so identified with the voice in their head - the constant stream of obsessive thinking accompanied by emotions - that we can describe them as being caught up in their own mind. Until you begin to realize this, you will mistake the “thinker” for who you are. This is the egoic mind, the core of the ego. We call it egoistic because in every thought - in every memory, interpretation, opinion, point of view, reaction, emotion - there is a sense of self, a sense of self, "I" (ego). Spiritually speaking, this is unconsciousness.
The ego seeks to equate thinking with Existence: “I think, therefore I exist.” The more developed the intellect, the more the ego strives to identify itself with it.
Descartes’ aphorism “I think, therefore I exist” was refuted three hundred years later by another philosopher J.P. Sartre. He looked very deeply into Descartes' statement, and suddenly realized that, in his words, "The consciousness that says 'I Am' is not a thinker." What did he mean? When you are aware that you are thinking, this awareness is not part of thinking. This is another dimension of consciousness. This is the same awareness that says: “I Am.” If you had nothing but thoughts, you wouldn't even know you were thinking. You would be like someone who sees a dream but does not know that it is a dream.
So, the ego includes personal components of identification not only with what you own, but also with opinions, appearance, old grievances or ideas about yourself like “I am better than others” or “I am worse than others”, with success or failure.
Ego different people are the same in that they live by identification and separation. When you live through the mind-created self of thoughts and emotions, that is, through the ego, then the basis of your personality is accidental and unreliable, because by their very nature thoughts and emotions are ephemeral and fleeting. Therefore, any ego fights for its survival, trying to protect and enlarge itself. To support the “I” thought, it needs a countervailing thought about the “other.” The conceptual self cannot survive without the conceptual other. Others are even more different when I look at them as enemies.
At one end of the scale of this unconscious egoistic pattern of behavior lies the obsessive habit of expressing discontent others and look for flaws in them. This is an ego-strategy of self-strengthening. Personal, face-to-face, and more often mental hanging of negative mental labels on people or spreading rumors behind their backs often turns out to be a component of such a stereotype of behavior. Scolding is the crudest form of such labeling, coming from the ego's need to be right and the desire to experience the triumph of victory over others. A step further down the scale of unconsciousness you scream and yell, and a little further down you resort to physical violence.
Instead of ignoring others' unconsciousness, you turn it into their personal qualities. Who does this? The unconsciousness in you is the ego.
Not reacting to manifestations of the ego of others is not only the most effective way to go beyond one’s own ego, but at the same time the most effective way dissolution of the collective human ego. However, you can only be in a state of non-reaction when you are able to recognize someone's behavior as coming from the ego, as a manifestation of a collective functional disorder. When you realize that it is not personal, then the reason forcing you to react as before disappears.
Calmly telling someone about his mistake or shortcoming that can be corrected does not mean expressing dissatisfaction, it is a statement of fact. For example: “My soup is cold, please heat it up” - a statement of fact; “How dare you serve me cold soup...” is an expression of dissatisfaction.
Old hostility becomes the reason rancor- strong negative emotion, associated with some event, sometimes from the distant past, supported by obsessive thinking, repeated retelling of this story to oneself or out loud like “that’s what he did to me,” etc.
When you try to let it go old grudge, you try to forgive, but it doesn’t work. If you see that rancor has no other purpose than to strengthen your false sense of self and keep it in its former place, then forgiveness happens naturally. This is a liberating vision.
The ego takes everything personally. Emotions rise, a need to defend oneself, and perhaps even aggression. Every ego takes opinions and points of view as facts. Moreover, it cannot distinguish an event from a reaction to it. Any ego is a master of separate perceptions and creating distorted interpretations. You can distinguish fact from opinion only through awareness - not through thinking. Only through awareness can you see: here is the situation, and here is my anger about it, and then understand that there are other approaches to it, other ways of seeing it and acting.
Nothing strengthens the ego like sense of rightness, which gives you an imaginary moral superiority over a person or situation that has disappointed you and deserved your condemnation. This is the very feeling of superiority that the ego so passionately desires in order to strengthen itself with its help.
Collective ego
At a collective level, the “we are right and they are wrong” mentality is especially deeply ingrained in those parts of the world where conflicts between nations, races, tribes, religions or ideologies are long-standing and extreme. The belief that "I'm right and you're wrong" outside the world of simple and verifiable facts is a dangerous thing. Each side is convinced that it is right, considering itself the victim and the other side as evil. Both sides are unable to understand that there may be another point of view, another experience, and that they too may be valid.
The history of Christianity provides an excellent example of how the belief that you are the only possessor of truth, in other words, rightness, can distort your actions and behavior and lead them to the point of madness. For centuries, torturing and burning alive those whose opinions diverged even slightly from Christian doctrine or narrow interpretations of scripture (“Truth”) was considered just cause because the victims were “wrong.” They were so wrong that they had to be killed. Truth was put above human life. And what was this Truth? It was some kind of fairy tale that you have to believe in; that is, a tangle of thoughts.
Here it becomes obvious that the human ego in such its collective aspect, like “us” against “them”, even crazier than “I”, the individual ego, although the mechanism is the same. Moreover, a huge proportion of the violence committed by people against each other is the result not of criminal forces or mentally disabled individuals, but of normal, respectable citizens serving the collective ego. One could go further and say that on this planet, “normal” is equivalent to crazy.
What is at the root of this madness? Complete identification with thought and emotion, in other words, with the ego. Various egregors (pendulums) essentially represent a collective ego.
Greed, selfishness, exploitation, cruelty and violence continue to permeate every aspect of life on this planet. When you are unable to recognize them as individual or collective manifestations of a general background disorder or mental illness, then by personifying them you fall into error. You create a conceptual identification of an individual or a group, and you say, “This is who he is. This is what they are like.” This increases the feeling of disconnect between you and the other person whose " distinctive features"swells to such an extent that you are no longer able to feel either your common human nature with him, or that you are rooted in the same Life - in your common divine nature, which you share with every other person.
Consider the ego for what it is - a collective functional disorder, a mental illness of the human mind. If you accept the ego as it is, then you no longer mistake it for someone else's personality. Once you see the ego as an ego at least once, it becomes much easier to remain in a state of non-reaction to it. You stop taking it personally. You stop complaining, reproaching, condemning, and making others wrong. There is no one who is wrong. It's just someone's ego, that's all. On a subtle level, We Are All One.
2014-12-23
based on the book by E. Tolle " New land"
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