Do you remember a time when you felt that there was more to a story than what you were being told? Or when you felt there was a gap between the world you saw and what was portrayed by those around you? These feelings came from a very deep place within yourself, the core of your life. Perhaps most of us do not hold such memories because early on we became “them”. What went on in between? A process of identification was happening.
It is true that we have all brought the “seed” of life with us as we entered this life. This seed carries the information of our life from the past, including the patterns and identifications we had. However, this seed needs soil and water and the right conditions to wake up and start to germinate. Before this happens, patterns are in a dormant state. Life is in a relatively pure state because the heart, consciousness, and Shen are relatively unified. We are able to reflect reality and manifest its qualities in a simple and direct way without going through the filtration of patterns.
How the information in the seed manifests will depend on what kind of information we are exposed to. Life is a process of constantly receiving information and interacting with the information we receive. In human society the majority of information, both past and present, is created by human consciousness, and patterns are the base from which the consciousness operates. From the beginning of this life, we receive such information from all kinds of sources, from society, from the media, from educational establishments, from family, from all the people around us.
Very soon the flame from that unified place within ourselves is extinguished by all the information we receive. For example, when information such as “this is good and that is bad, this is right and that is wrong” came to us, we were put in a position to do something about it. There was this need to establish what makes sense to us to be able to have a base to relate to other things, the world. So we agreed and accepted something, and gradually identified with it. This is what happens when wisdom cannot manifest – the consciousness will take over. In this process we also identify with this way of relating to reality – polarized thinking. At the time, the information of this pattern that is dormant in the seed can also be awakened. As this process goes on, the pattern of polarized thinking forms. Furthermore, our consciousness will seek external references to confirm our identification. We will receive support and approval from everyone else who also has this pattern, which reinforces the pattern as well as the identification behind it. Once the pattern is formed, the chance for wisdom to manifest becomes even slimmer. Gradually, more and more patterns are formed this way and the consciousness is eventually dominated by our ever-diversifying and strengthening patterns.
We create identifications this way with everything, even with the patterns that are built upon them. How do we know that we have identified with a pattern? When we don’t think that polarized thinking is a problem at all; we think it is right and normal to think this way. We have problems in life but don’t see that polarized thinking can be at the root of the problems. When we identify with a pattern, we can be sure that the pattern is already deeply-entrenched in our consciousness.
Understanding the relationship between identifications and patterns and how they reinforce each other is the first step of our work on dismantling identifications.
Yuan Tze
Experience this message on Guided Meditation on Self Identity | Who Are You? as a meditation on REN XUE TV
