Pioneering Mystic Lectures, 2017

Identity

David Mihalic, May 12, 2017, Cleveland, Ohio

  Identity is defined as 1. Sameness of essential or generic character in different instances; sameness in all that constitutes the objective reality of a thing: oneness. 2. The distinguishing character or personality of an individual individuality; the relation established by psychological identification. 3. The condition of being the same with something described or asserted. 4. An equation that is satisfied for all values of the symbols.
  Aristotle's law of identity asserts that A is A. A is not B.
  As can be seen by the above definitions, we can mean a variety of things when we speak of identity. From Aristotle's point of view, a more fundamental meaning is educed albeit tautologically. [Tautology is defined as "a phrase or expression in which the same thing is said twice in different words." The definition of tautology in logic is "a statement that is true by necessity or by virtue of its logical form."]
  From a psychological and/or spiritual point of view, the meaning of identity is often raised in conjunction with the question, Who am I? In these cases, the ensuing search for identity is less of a philosophical issue and more of a personal one. That is not to say that we cannot learn something about identity from philosophical inquiries. It is just that the philosophical approach is more about principles of existence and not so much about personalities. You can see this dual aspect of identity already forming in the first two dictionary definitions listed above.
  So when we say identity, we can be referring to a thing or a personality. That is, we mean something somewhat different when referring to a chair or Mary Jane. When we identify something or someone, we call it by name. The name tells us something collectively about the thing or person. Name, at least as it applies to things, also refers to function. Chairs are for sitting on and cars are for driving.
  Thus, identity usually denotes function. Function should be differentiated from attributes of things. I can have a red bathtub or a white one. The bathtub's color is an attribute of its being but not part of its function. In general, attributes contribute minimally, if at all, to the function of an object. Yet in some cases, redness may actually have some function as in red traffic lights or stop signs.
  The identity we are most interested in is, of course, personal identity. It makes for interesting philosophical conversation to question what the nature of objects are but, the nature of what and who we are is certainly one of the greater mysteries of life.
  Who am I? From Aristotle's most basic observations, I am myself and not somebody else, an obvious but important truth. But why is this important? Some people identify with more famous or successful persons in life, sometimes to the extreme and to the detriment of their own mental health. Examples abound with people going so far as to have plastic surgery to look like their personal favorite.
  From this sort of extreme behavior you might conclude that personal identity is malleable. It is not necessarily fixed at birth; however, we know that at least some portion of our identity must be fixed or we would not meet the Aristotelian premise that I am who I am and not someone else.
  This still leaves the question of who I am almost completely unresolved. Earlier we said that when we identify something, we call it by name. Indeed one of the very first things that happens when you are born is that you are given a name. That name denotes you, presumably not someone else, although some others might have the same name. Thus, we have satisfied Aristotle's first two criteria for identity.
  However, as we said before, names can also denote things as well as people. Both people and things also have functions. We most often think about people in terms of how they function, noting also that they may have multiple functions. When attending social gatherings, for example, and meeting a person for the first time, the most obvious first interaction is to introduce yourself by using your name. The second question many ask the other is, What do you do for a living? That is, how do you function?
  However, what distinguishes some person with a particular name and a particular job function from someone else with the same name and the same job function? Several things come to mind. First, these individuals are just that, individual. They are separate in time and space (A is not B). Second, these individuals undoubtedly have many other functions that would differentiate them. Third, we can introduce the concept of relationships as a defining element of identity.
  A relationship defines some kind of connection or association between people or things. For example, to say that I am someone's son is to define what my relationship is to the person I call my father. To say that I own a home is to define my relationship to an object. Some relationships are personal; I am married to that person. Some are logical; for example, 120 is greater than 25. So relationship is a way of qualifying or quantifying a connection or association.
  Since no thing or person exists by itself, all things exist in relation to one another. In that sense then, relationships define your identity through differentiation. The Latin root of relationship is, relationem, the meaning of which is bringing back or restoration. So if we are bringing something back or restoring it, it is implicit that something has been lost or otherwise rendered.
  If relationships then are restorative in nature, we must ask what are we looking to restore. What has been lost? The answer is a sense of connectedness. This is a generalized sensation. I say this because people seek to fill that connection void by establishing relationships with people, places or things. Some look for academic success, other seek wealth, fame or that special someone. You can fill in the blank here with anything that people desire.
  People seek based on a desire to be connected. This essentially is a search for identity. You identify with something outside yourself by seeking to establish a relationship with it. In that way, you hope to be completed or made whole through this connection. When you wish to testify to your identity, you actually make statements to the effect that you are one with that which you sought. I am a Patriots fan. I am a professor of English literature. I am so and so's spouse.
  In all these cases, you are making statements that identify you by function, by an established relationship, and by name, thus fulfilling the three criteria for defining identity. These are all statements of I AM but they also include predicates to modify I AM. I AM denotes pure being whereas I AM something causes Being to modulate its expression from absolute to relative. So your personalized expressions of I AM, are ways of qualifying the absolute nature of your being.
  The word identity has its roots in the Latin identidem, which means repeatedly. But identidem is a contraction of idem et idem, meaning, same and same, or A is A.
  When these relationships, once established, fail, you experience that same old sense of lost connectedness. If my sports team looses, I've lost. If my spouse divorces me, I am alone and unconnected again.
  Thus, the search for an identity that lasts is easily frustrated since all the things we have discussed are transient in nature. Nothing of the physical can last since by the very laws of physics all things tend to entropy.
  So does anything last? Is any relationship eternal in nature? Is there anything outside of ourselves that we can call home that endures? If we strip away all the desires for things that are rooted in the transient, does anything remain? What happens when the clamoring voice of self is stilled? What transpires in that quiet place when all the ripples and disturbances in consciousness are ended?
  Your life is filled with many desires. With effort and by holding true to your desire, you may obtain what you seek. You may seek knowledge because you fear ignorance. You may seek love because you fear loneliness. You may seek wealth because you fear being poor. You may have all these things and more, but will they, once obtained, bring you peace? Or will they leave you wanting yet something else? Is desire itself the problem? Or is endless desire the symptom of something else?
  What you seek you may certainly find. Yet what characterizes the relationship between the seeker and the sought after? We have said that relationship is a defining element in identity. In one of the above examples, we said that a man may seek after wealth because he fears poverty. You identify with what you seek. This establishes a relationship, a defining moment in how you perceive who you are. What you appropriate to self also becomes a tether binding you to what you desire. These kinds of relationships shape you and direct your future choices in such a way as to move you closer to or farther from your goals.
  The answer is a subjective experience where you are free from all the tethers, fears, beliefs and opinions that hold you back from clear seeing and knowing. You are in a place of profound silence that allows you see and know clearly with a consciousness that is not limited by the physical. In that profound silence you find the roots of your being. You do not find such a place by accident, or by some casual inquiry. It is a journey of many lifetimes that begins with the desire to end the struggles within and to find relationships that are not characterized by fear or bondage to the desires of self.
  Is there a single technique to obtain these results, a method, a prayer, an exercise? Not really. Any form of practice is just another form of resistance. What you are really looking for is a change in consciousness that comes from understanding what you are doing at any given moment and why. From this high state of consciousness is born true freedom from the fictions of a worldly life that leads face-to-face to who you are, where you came from, and where you are headed.

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