Identity – a well-used word in today’s society indicates many different forms of recognition, with many a meaning. It usually means who you are, the way you think about yourself, the way you are viewed by the world, and the personal characteristics that make you, you. For example, the labels that have been accorded to me by society are: Helen, a daughter, sister, mum, auntie, daughter-in-law, friend and colleague. However, we are not born with these labels – they are applied to us, when we arrive in this world.
Discovering our true, lasting identity, the True Self, comes with the elimination of the egoic self. For most people, it is a lifetime’s work because controlling the ego is never easy.
The word identity is banded around in many forms to suit many meanings – eg identity badge, identity card etc. We even come across an identity crisis – i.e. a developmental event that involves a person questioning their sense of self or place in the world. This concept originated in the work of developmental psychologist Erik Erikson, who believed that the formation of an identity is one of the most important conflicts that people face.
Many people talk about finding yourself and discovering their true identity, but very rarely know what this actually means, and how to discover what it is. Not knowing our True Self can lead to depression, anxiety and stress. So much so that during challenging times, we mistake our true self for external factors such as our appearance, clothes, jobs, where we live, and how much we are liked by others,
When the relative identity, according to Thomas Merton, becomes my ego – i.e. when I am thought to be nothing but the sum total of all my relationships, and when I cling to this self and make it the centre around which, and for which, I live – I then make my empirical identity into the false self. My own false self, the ego, then becomes the obstacle to realizing my true self.
What a joy it is to have discovered Neti-Neti meditation, from the Sanskrit expression meaning ‘Not this, Not that’. Through this meditation, we come to understand what we are not and in so doing, grasp as to who we truly are.
The true self is our whole self before God – the self we were created to become our self in Christ. It is this self that breathes, stands and sits. It is this self that is. The true self, being simple like God, can be realised through Gyan, which is a precursor to contemplative awareness.
When we receive the Gyan, the Knowledge of God, through the grace of her Holiness Satguru Mataji, we discover our true self. We discover who we truly are, and always have been, even before we were born, created in the image and likeness of God!
If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love becomes perfected in us. By this, we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. We can see and now testify that the Father has perpetually sent his Saviour to salvage the world. Whoever confesses that the Saviour abides in him, and he in Him, we then get to know and believe the love that God has for us.
God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. In so doing, we associate with the true self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness, and live a life of completion and fulfilment.
– Helen Richards, Lichfield
