No More Identity Crisis

Mayank Goel

CESP, SSS, JNU

mayankgoel90@gmail.com

Is our identity our institution, passport, pan card, belief, religion, caste, mind or even our body? We have so many identifications that it sometimes becomes difficult to recognise which is our original identity. Pause for a moment and think do we actually have these many personalities or it is mere lack of knowledge or illusion or ignorance that makes us think in this way. It is really strange to know that our identity is changing. Change in personality defeats the notion of identity because if we try to perceive, identity is something which has to be specific, should always hold true, and remains unchanged after any transformation. This definition holds true irrespective of the subject in which the term identity is dealt with. This then raises the obvious question what our real identity is?

It is in fact a million dollar question. There are two views to answer the same question. First, material sciences or material theories that are based on direct perception and inductive knowledge. These definitions usually fail to answer all the questions and do not give an understandable picture pertaining to ‘identity’ because they are confined to external environment which is nothing but matter. Matter is anything which is inactive, limited and temporary. That’s why all our senses which are nothing but products of matter are limited – can see, feel, smell, hear and touch only in a range.

The alternative to material science is spiritual science. We instantly become sceptical on hearing the term ‘spiritual’. This is our biggest folly because one certainly needs to taste honey to know its sweetness. Any speculation won’t suffice. The identity crisis occurs because we are not empowered with the real knowledge of the self. We tend to identify ourselves with our designations, positions, or the state of being. All these portfolios keep on changing. We tend to associate our identification with something or the other, overlooking the fact that all the positions are ours but this is not what we essentially are. In a similar fashion, we find ourselves one with the body. Just like we are not our hands but our hands belong to us, this body, made up of matter belongs to us. It is due to misidentification of considering body as the self that we are surrounded by an ocean of problems, tensions, frustration and mental breakdowns which reaches its heights when someone dear to us passes away.

We, having a higher consciousness should then ponder; who was there who passed away? If the body was the self, it’s still there! It is the soul that passes away. This knowledge of self or the soul is the base of spiritual science, knowing which the air becomes clear and everything seems so simple in life. This is our real identity. We are spirit souls, indestructible, unborn, eternal, unchangeable and immutable; beyond the concept of matter; that pervades the material body through consciousness. All our relations to people and material things are important due to the presence of soul. As soon as the soul leaves any living entity, that relation subsides. So it is the soul which is more important around which everything should be centred.

Those who are in full knowledge of the bodily conception of soul and who know that bodily desires are the results of being influenced by the illusion, do not become addicted to the body and its pleasure. They know that just as the fire which burns and illuminates, is different from firewood which is burnt to give illumination; similarly the soul, the seer within the body, is separate from the material body.

The planet where we live does not allow us to be isolated like islands. One lesson, this school of life on this planet forces us to learn, is that when we come together willingly to communicate with a positive purpose or to pray together and to unite for the good of the whole, then harmony and peace can exist. Unless and until we make this, the centre of our existence, world peace and harmony will remain a Utopian world because it is essentially this unity that brings forth the spiritual vibration emanating from the Supreme. This vibration is of spiritual love which is not based on bodily relations or mutual attraction but is necessarily one in spirit. It is then we all will realise that even though we look so different on the platform of body, language, religion, caste, etc., we are all alike and expansion of the same energy. This is the real oneness, real unity in diversity arising from our real identity.

We need to realise how similar we are in order to expand our hearts and hands to others we may have previously rejected. This is how love and understanding will dissolve boundaries that keep us stifled as a society and individuals and keep us far from entering higher dimensions of consciousness. A lack of love for us reflects lack of love for Godhead. We are not our beliefs, religions, castes, identity proofs, institutions, minds or bodies. We are all divine souls on a wondrous journey. It is essentially this unity between us with Godhead as the centre that can give us the real happiness and satisfaction we search everywhere and in everyone but fail to achieve.

We, absorbed in bodily consciousness believe in ‘survival of the fittest’ and thus do not worry how we harm others in this rat race to ‘eat, drink and be merry.’ Claiming our forefathers to be apes, the origin of this beautiful planet to be a big bang, we cannot imagine ourselves to be more than a bunch of chemicals or atoms colliding with one another both inside and outside. Such a blunt, blind, superficial outlook renders life meaningless, making the world purposeless which is neither useful to us nor to others. We, the youth need to think twice is this what it is? Is this our identity?

The Vedic life that centres around the real identity of individuals as souls and our loving relation with Godhead and His creation; empowers us to consider another man’s wife as mother; other people’s wealth as garbage, and to wanly treat others in the way we want ourselves to be treated. Thus, spiritual life arising out of our real identification is based on the firm foundation of co-operation of all, welfare for all, proper utilisation of God-gifted resources in a sustainable way and freedom from selfishness. This is the world that we should not only conceive but work together to make it a reality.