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Am I Thinking For Myself?
Once you seriously ask, “Am I thinking for myself?” the entire hierarchy of identity starts to unravel. If you keep asking without being daunted, eventually you get closer to the core. This is the final level of false identity.
Am I thinking for myself? Or am I thinking like: The person I was yesterday; the person I wish I could be; an ideal image of myself, a nobody trying to be a somebody.
We put on these layers of false identity in order to be separate from everybody else, to feel unique and special. Yet at the same time we know that separation is the problem. Common humanity is beyond self-image. It’s beyond the issue of whether you are a somebody or a nobody.
If you follow the way of peace you don’t try so desperately not to be a nobody. Those distinctions stop having power over you, because you turn into something different. Instead of a label, you become human. Instead of “I am X,” you become “I am.” The healing of separation is the beginning of true knowledge.
This transformation isn’t mystical. If I confront the first layer of false identity, I simply catch myself thinking like a type. I pay attention to my reactions when I start sounding too much like a typical Indian, a typical doctor, a typical middle-aged male. Having caught myself, I stop. Just that.
I can then proceed a bit deeper. I catch myself whenever I am talking so that someone else will like me better. If my words are a disguised way of saying, Love me, accept me, respect me, I stop. There’s nothing mystical in that act. Instead of talking, I listen. Instead of serving my own self-interest, I think about what everyone wants, or what is moral and good despite what everyone wants.
Finally, if I am thoroughly honest, I get to the deepest level. If I catch myself talking for the sake of my ego, I stop. Again, it all starts with the thought, This isn’t the real me.
Adapted from: Peace Is the Way, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2005).
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7 comments
add your comment »What do you do when you have no identity? When you go deep and you are nothing? This was a beautiful post by Deepok but it frightend me because I realised that as I remove the layers I am nothing. I don't know who I am!
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hard to kick the ego to the curb...but essential for true happiness....cat
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P.S. I like the posts here reminding us all that awareness is VERY important in the process. Thank you all.
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I am happy to see a more uplifting kind of post Dixon. We don't have to agree with everything or everyone one but it helps everyone when we can find some positive along the way. :)
I'm still working on this thing about my identity. We seem to have to have enough identity or idea of self in order to function in the world, to relate to others, and to have enough difference so that creation can display such a marvelous diversity. At the core, we are all of the same stuff. We just give different shapes to it all like Jell-O being poured into different molds.
Seems we have to walk two worlds at once - having an identity and yet remembering that is not who or what we really are.
People pleasing has been my forte' but I am learning how to become aware of other’s feelings and needs while taking care of my own. I have got to be “me” but that doesn’t require that I become self-centered or selfish and neither does it require that I make a doormat of myself. .
Namaste’ y’all! ;)
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To become aware, practice awareness, of the the present. What am I doing NOW. What am I thinking now, what am I saying now. To be aware of what really is by being aware of the present, brings the action/conflict to a stop. Not "living for the present"! Living in awareness of the present. Pay attention to what you are doing right now. Constant connection, constant awareness is the answer to end conflict. Thought causes conflict, awareness ends conflict.
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All of Deepak's comments are correct to help one deal with their "percieved indentity." Their real identity might still be hidden from them.One's real identity is always a function of one's relationships. Your relationship to God, to your parents, to others around you, to mankind in general - all of these are part of your real identity.
Percieved identity affects your behavior and that seems to be Deepak's emphasis.
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These are excellent points, but they put the emphasis on stopping particular kinds of thoughts. It's not hard to stop once you are aware of the thought. It is hard to become aware that you are having those thoughts.
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