Identity jacket

[1]

Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev [1]

Great figures of history have one thing in common — all of them left behind their small, limited identities and moved towards larger ones. Suddenly for some reason, some event took them out of their identities and they identified with a larger process that was happening around, and they did things that they themselves could not imagine.

If you look at Mahatma Gandhi, when he was thrown out of the train in South Africa because of the colour of his skin, he fell on the platform and just sat there for hours, thinking, “Why did this happen to me? I bought a first class ticket. Why was I thrown out of the train?” Suddenly, he identified himself with the larger predicament of the people. Till then, his survival, his law practice and money-making was all-important. Then suddenly, he identified with a much larger problem that existed and became a colossus. He just came out of that limited identity of a lawyer working for a living and moved into a much larger identity.
There has probably never been another man on this planet who moved as many people as Mahatma Gandhi moved with such simple ways. Never before has another conquering force on the planet been made to vacate the land where they had taken root, without firing bullets or killing them. Throwing bombs or shooting at soldiers who carry guns is one thing, but just going there, standing on the street, willing to be beaten down on the head — one line of people fall down, the next line of people come forward offering their skulls to be broken again — is a completely different kind of strength. It takes a very deep inner strength for a person to do that. And all that happened was Mahatma Gandhi’s identity just exploded and he identified with a larger problem of the people.
When we look at identity as a process, why does a human being cling to a certain identity? Fundamentally, it is his basic instinct of self-preservation. When it is something so fundamental, one cannot live without identity. He has to take on some kind of identity. Are our identities becoming an impediment or are our identities an empowerment — that is the question?
Today, the way we are empowered as super-human beings by science and technology, we could become a disaster in our search for wellbeing, unless we shift to a larger identity. A hundred years ago, probably a large part of the world had identities associated with their ethnicity. In the last hundred years, we have graduated to national identities. Today, even national identities are not enough. People will have to take on a much larger identity of being human, and if it is possible, of just being life. Just being human is not good enough because human life does not happen in isolation from the rest of life.

Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, a spiritual leader, is a visionary, a humanitarian, author, poet and speaker.