The self and the identity

[1]

Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev [1]

The reason why people have missed out on the spiritual dimension within themselves is that they get identified with something that they are not. They get identified with this wall, as a house. They get identified with this cloth; they get identified with somebody else; they get identified with their own body, or their religion, or a symbol, or a God. They get identified with something other than what they are. That’s the only reason why humanity has not turned spiritual.
You think you are something other than what you are; that’s the whole problem. So, if you are genuinely looking at a spiritual process, a spiritual process cannot happen by identifying yourself with something. But most of the time in the name of spirituality, people just create a new identity; from old identities they shift to a new identity. Getting identified with something and feeling established is not going to take you through life and death; it will only take you through some small upheavals that may happen in your life.
Right now, if you get identified with a certain group of people or acquire a certain identity, it helps, it eases you past the bumps on the road on a daily basis. But if you are seeking liberation, then you have to really look at the fundamentals of what the bondage is. The only bondage is that you are identified with things that you are not. Starting with the body, starting from your ways of thinking and feeling and everything else that has come out of it — you are identified with all that, isn’t it? If a piece cloth is yours, if I tear it, it hurts you. If a wall is yours, if I scratch it, it hurts you. In fact, the bigger and bigger you become in your operations, the more and more it hurts you, because everybody tramples on what is yours. And anybody can trample upon your mind, isn’t it?
Even a man who is walking on the street, just with one word he can trample upon your mind and emotions. Isn’t that so? So, once you are identified with the mind and the body, it’s a huge bondage, it’s an endless bondage, and it goes on and on. So the fundamental basis, the fundamental process of spirituality is just this — that you destabilise everything. At the same ti­me you develop a system with which you can maintain your balance in a totally destabilised situation. You are not waiting for a crisis to happen in your life; you are creating every possible crisis that can happen to you within yourself and still maintaining a balance. So that, in case you land up in hell, you still don’t suffer.

— Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, a yogi, is a visionary, humanitarian and a prominent spiritual leader. An author, poet, and internationally-renowned speaker, Sadhguru’s wit and piercing logic provoke and widen our perception of life. He can be contacted at www.ishafoundation.org [2]