EXPAND YOUR IDENTIFICATION TO OTHERS

[Ms Tercy Lonan]

100. EXPAND YOUR IDENTIFICATION TO OTHERS
May we constantly live with the awareness that our body is a moving temple of the Divine
Reality. We regard our body as my body. We forget that He has an equal right to say that this body is
My temple. And what we call ours is perhaps more His than ours. How easy it is to think that our
body is ours! How difficult it is to keep thinking that it belongs to Him!
What is easy and what is difficult? What makes an easy thing easy and a difficult thing
difficult? If we reflect upon this point, some very interesting facts arise. It is so very easy to think
about ourselves. We never forget ourselves. It is so very easy to think about every minute detail of
our needs, our programme, our goals, our clothes, our food. It comes so easily, so spontaneously. It
seems natural. But it seems so very difficult to think about others—the needs of others, the
happiness of others.
Why is it that we have to make an effort to think of others, whereas it comes so easy to think
of ourselves? Perhaps it is because we do not have to make an effort to think about that with which
we are fully identified. Therefore, it is natural and easy to think of the body and its needs, comforts,
conveniences and every minute detail of its requirements. It spontaneously comes into the mind; it
is always present in the mind. Sometimes it is difficult to put it out of the mind and think of
something else. Once we know this, it becomes very easy to see why it is difficult to think of others.
It is because we are not identified with others—their lives and their needs. Where there is
identification, thought becomes easy and natural— spontaneous. Where there is absence of this
identification it becomes very difficult.
People in the International Red Cross think of people all over the world. The moment a
disaster strikes—someone is suffering—the Red Cross immediately thinks about them and rushes
aid. What a miracle! How unnatural it seems! They are always alert, geared to think about others. It
requires no effort because they have made that their basic aim, their objective. The very meaning of
their existence is to think of others, to rush to the help of others. They have developed within
themselves a capacity to identify themselves with others. They have developed this natural
inclination to feel that their disaster is our disaster, that their suffering is our suffering; we have a
part in it.
Perhaps the Red Cross has unconsciously solved the basic metaphysical problem of the
individual soul in samsara, not by being philosophers or metaphysicians but by being
humanitarians. Perhaps this is the key to the Vedantic declaration that we should wake up from the
slumber of ignorance and give up this false identification with our little, narrow, confined, limited,
temporary, false individual personality—that which is not our true Self.
Start your Vedanta, start your liberation by first being humanitarian, by first being kind and
compassionate. Extend your identification and attachment to something vaster, higher, beyond.
Thus the first step in breaking your bondage to this “I and mine” consciousness is to train yourself to
think of others, to feel for others, to try to engage yourself in doing something that is helpful to
others.

It may be that this is an indispensable interim stage. If you want to somehow or other
overcome the immediate problem of the jivatman, and if you find it difficult to suddenly switch
from the thought of yourself to the thought of the Supreme, then try to make this possible by
switching your thought of yourself to your immediate nearby universe —the universe of others—of
other people, creatures, insects, plants.
This is not so difficult because it is the known. It is the seen and it is immediate to you.
Commence with this step. At least, if it will not take you immediately to God, it will have the
helping effect of taking you out of yourself, out of your imprisonment to yourself. That is no mean
achievement. That is itself a big step.
If you cannot find some way of suddenly switching from yourself to God or Brahman, then
love your neighbour. Love anyone who happens to be your neighbour at that particular point in
space and time. It doesn’t matter that they may be a perfect stranger, yet they are your neighbour at
that time. So, if you extend a helping hand, perhaps to that extent you have attained a great victory,
because you have extended your “I and mineness” out of this self-centred narrow cage of flesh and
bones. It is one plus point in this process of liberation. And if you go on adding these plus points to
your game of life, your life may be a constant process of liberating yourself, of continuous victory
over the big problem—this bondage to the “I and mine.”
This is perhaps why they said: “Be good, do good. Be kind, be compassionate,” and
“paropakarartham idam sariram (This body is meant for selfless service to others).” Knowing that
an interim step is required to make one come out of oneself, to liberate oneself from oneself before
one can enter into identification with the Supreme Being, they presented to humanity an ethical
dimension, a dimension of idealism, of dharma, of paropakara, of kindness, compassion and
service, of not “I”, but others. How interesting to consider this evolution of human society and
history and how it has become part of the evolutionary process of the individual.
Therefore, if you want to make a seemingly difficult thing easy, start becoming identified
with it, start feeling that this is mine as much as any other thing. Similarly, if you feel God is mine, it
will be easier to think about Him, to remember Him without forgetting Him—much more than if
you think He is some Being somewhere.
Therefore, the feeling of mineness, of identification, which is our human problem
metaphysically, holds within itself the key to the metaphysical solution. Gurudev said: “Dharma is
the gateway to moksha. Paropakara is the greatest sadhana, the key to blessedness. There is no
God-realisation without ethical perfection.” May you find this key, this magic method of making
difficult things easy, this magic method of liberating yourself from everything which vexes you!