Essay 10: THE “I” OF IDENTIFICATION

““All men in supreme moments have seen that there was nothing to worship, but there was something to be.” (Esoteric Philosophy page 39:4)

“I am a man.” “I am a woman.” “I am an American.” “I am a Christian.” “I am a nurse.” “I am a plumber.” “I am married.” “I am single.” These statements are just a few examples of the countless ways that we identify ourselves in the world. All the identifications we give to ourselves, as well as to others, bring the elements of structure and definition into our human lives and affairs, so very dependent and involved as we are with our earthly senses. Identification is a mental process that allows us to live, move and function in a world of endless forms and ever-changing experiences.

As spiritual beings and constant observers of both outer and inner processes, we find that simple identification can often lead us to a state where we also identify WITH a thing, concept, or idea that we have placed our attention upon. When we find ourselves identifying with something in the world of matter, we come upon something like a spiritual “line of demarcation.” We look toward facts instead of Truth, as the illusions of duality and opposites come into play. As we break the bonds of our own mentality, we begin to see only Truth. What is transitory and temporal gives way to what is Eternal and Unified. Matter and “matters” take their proper place, as does our proclivity for naming and identification.

Absent identification, the realm of material conditions, ideas, forms, etc. lose the illusion of reality that our human personalities and senses bestow upon them. Since identification is a mental process and founded in the densest part of our being (the lower body), that which we identify is rooted in our own idea of what those things are. Opinion, culture, experience, nationality, and many other factors contribute to how we, as human beings, identify or identify with a thing, concept, or idea.

As we look toward Immortal Mind Presence alone, we see that every identification, every name, and every label is symbolic and devoid of True Substance. What we see and experience around us seems real, but it is only relative, a result of the Cause that awaits our recognition of It as Absolute, Changeless and Eternal. As we move through this life of forms, we can ask ourselves: What is of Substance… the light in a darkened room or that which sheds the light? We begin to realize that the act of identification holds the illusion of matter in place.

On a journey once to Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asked His disciples, “Whom do men say that I am?” Jesus persisted in also asking, “Whom do you say that I am?” (Matt. 16:13-20) In one of His countless “teachable moments,” the Master was offering His followers a lesson on the self-made prison that identification can become as we ascend into the higher realms of consciousness. Many answers and many labels could have been the response to His questions: teacher, carpenter’s son, prophet, healer, preacher, etc. While His disciples knew Him by one set of labels, those like the Pharisees knew Him by quite another. While the recipients of His miracles gave exalted names to Him, the inhabitants of His own hometown identified Him in more pedestrian ways.

What Jesus knew and passed on to His inner circle was the Ideal that, back of all the names and labels lies the Truth, that which is beyond naming, beyond identification. In the end, only Simon Peter responded to the query of Jesus by saying, “Thou art the Christ.” In His usual elegant style, Jesus had shown those who “will do even greater works” that the shadow world of identification can be misleading, dissipated and given to limitation and illusion.

When we identify or identify with a thing or idea, part of our mentality “buys in” to what the world believes about those things, and we give up part of our native freedom as well as concealing our reunion with the True Self, the Indwelling Christ. What would seem to be the certainty and confidence of naming or identifying with ideas and concepts becomes a curtain of limitation that separates us from the full Power, Presence and Wisdom of Immortal Mind.

Upon close inspection, the practice of identification can be seen as a subtle form of idolatry. The first of the Ten Commandments instructs, “You shall have no other Gods before Me.” If the Truth about God is that It is not identified with anything, yet is the Cause of everything, are we, in the purely spiritual and esoteric sense, keeping that Commandment? Ancient civilizations embraced many gods that served a myriad of purposes and, in fact, represented the many aspects and qualities of the One God, Immortal Mind. When we describe and identify God by attributes such as wholeness, peace, prosperity, health, etc., do we not, in a way, participate in a form of idolatry just as the ancients did? If the basis of idolatry is creating God in our own image and idea, then the attempt to estimate Spirit by naming, labeling and identification likely falls short of the inestimable experience of Truth that Jesus Christ brought forth.

Genesis Mind never identifies, never supposes, and never estimates. This Mind’s activity is that of letting God be God in Its Infinite totality. If God is to be God in our experience, as the revealed Christ, we must elevate our words and the mind that speaks them to match the Immortal Mind Ideal as closely as we are able.

Emma tells us that “The highest affirmations we can make express the most energy. They make it impossible for mortal mind to even claim to exist.” (Esoteric Philosophy 31:7) Here we are lifted into the Mystical from the mental, beyond definition and identification. This brings forth the Mind that simply and elegantly declares “Let It Be,” both in prayer and in the affairs of our lives.

When we allow our outer eyes to become nothing more than the instrument of our inner Knowing, we no longer need to identify or identify with anything. Everything that we ever named, labeled, or symbolically created “graven images” around takes its proper place as shadow and reflection. Raised above all earthly parameters, we no longer say that “I am this thing or that, one idea or another,” we simply declare “I AM,” our Being and our “doing” reconciled as the Christ.