 |
| Identification and Oneness go hand in hand. |
For example, we can identify as
our physical body, our emotions that allow us to feel and react, our mind that
allow us to think and process, or our conscious awareness behind it all. It is
much more than just consideration of some idea, but is the actual state of
being (much like the difference between looking at a map and walking the actual
terrain). The quality of compassion develops when identification expands to include
other people, and similarly the condition of being a sociopath is when one
can’t identify with anything outside of themselves at all. Much of the practice
of meditation is ultimately based around contemplating identification, and
refining it upward to new heights of consciousness (which is the basis of
spiritual growth), and/or expanding it outward to include other people (which
is the basis of altruism and Oneness). Identification is also a fundamental cause
of why people can be fans of a sports team, political party, or spiritual
belief system.
When identification includes
mind and emotions (as it does for almost everybody physically incarnated) then it
usually results in expectations. An expectation is a mental thought about the
way things are or should be, combined with surrounding emotion that reacts
based on whether that expectation is being met. For example, a child becomes furious
if their sibling gets more allowance than they do, or even a slightly bigger
piece of cake. That’s because their identification is wrapped up with their
family, and they have the expectation that siblings should be treated equally.
The child is less annoyed about some billionaire’s kids getting ponies and
such, because they fully expect that there are richer and poorer families, and
they don’t wrap their sense of identification around other families like they do
their own. We usually get more upset about injustice towards ourselves, or a
person of our own family, nation, or ethnicity, as opposed to people in a
random tribe half way around the world or extraterrestrials in a different
solar system. It follows that becoming aware of and dropping expectations can
improve our sense of identification, and result in evolution.
Identification is just as much a
belief and experience of what we are not, as of what we are. Very often we
define ourselves by what we’re not, or by what we reject or dislike. For
example, I’m not a child anymore, I hate unevolved racist people, I’m a unique
person different from everybody else, and so on. Many types of rejection are
negative, however rejection can also be approached in a positive manner. (After
all, we don’t want to reject the concept of rejection! ;-) Ultimately, all of creation and all
manifesting is a limitation, or a specific choice made out of infinite
possibilities. Painting red on a canvas necessarily means that it can’t be any
other color, but some choice or limitation is necessary to produce art and avoid
the canvas eternally remaining a womb of potential. Physical incarnation
(whether of a human or of a Universe) is a specific area being marked out to work
with or a role to experience.
The whole concept of consciousness itself can be
defined in terms of identification, or the continuous process of alternating
assertions and negations of “I am this” and “I am not this”. Changing identification
is a fundamental aspect of evolving consciousness. For example, the difference
between the consciousness of an animal and being a galaxy can be described in
terms of identification. Physical death is basically no longer identifying with
a particular dense form. No longer identifying with form in general results in
what’s classically called “ascending”, or no longer being drawn to physically
incarnate in the future (except out of love and service). On a deep level,
identification can transcend consciousness altogether. Consciousness consists
of a self, and that which is outside the self being experienced. Therefore all physical
and psychic senses, and the general concept of sensitivity, are based around concepts
of the non-self impacting the self. Once there’s no longer a limited self (or at
least the classic "self" as we know it) then awareness can expand to
unprecedented new levels of being. ♥
