As soon as there is the ego-position
– Identification – (or
self-contraction), there is the entire
conditionally manifested universe. When there is no
self-contraction, there is no conditionally
manifested universe. You are Narcissus. You are looking at an
– Differentiation –
image, and you think the image is actually
there as something outside you, as
something that has nothing to do with you, except that you
are seeing it as an object. As
Narcissus, you are controlled
– Desire – by that
known-object. You have already taken up the
ego-positionand, from that position, you even regard
Me as a known-object, digitalizing
Me into the checkerboard that extends from your little block
of presumption.
“Recognize the primary activity,
the prior activity in consciousness. And what is the nature
of that primary activity? It has two aspects. The one is
separation in consciousness, this continual realization in
consciousness, of separation. And the other is contraction
in life. And life and consciousness are not separable, but
the peculiar qualities in which this activity within us
manifests itself are a separative activity at the level of
consciousness and contraction in the mechanisms or functions
of life. So it appears always as identification,
differentiation, and desire.” unpublished notes, 1971 – Adi Da
Samraj Identification is the
secondary action or cognition of consciousness wherein it
conceptualizes its subjectivity, its identity or principle
of presence. It is secondary, even though primitive in its
priority over experience, because it proceeds
programmatically and necessarily from the prior and
primitive action of the avoidance of relationship. And that
avoidance of relationship is itself a secondary action, a
conceptualization based the reflection of conditions. Mythological, men have conceived this original event as a
cosmic drama of self-division, of internal separation in
some super cosmic entity. Thus, they objectify their own
conceptual activity and seek through action or external
means to restore the primary unity. And, in the meantime
they make assumptions about the world’s reality or unreality
based on this conceptual objectification. But, in fact, the event from which we suffer is not
formal, cosmic or objective, but conceptual. It is not the
result of a creative, cosmic event or disclosure, but of a
conceptual reaction to the content of what appears.
Therefore, it is of radical importance that one understands,
for, on the basis of understanding, the dilemma of conscious
life is revealed not to be a necessary, formal, cosmic
dictation of duality, but a conceptual realization informed
and required by our own, present action, the avoidance of
relationship. The dilemma of conscious life is not the result of
perception or intention of a natural, cosmic division or
separation. Separation, division, the pattern of Narcissus
is only a symptom, a result, not a picture the creative
fact. The dilemma does not arise prior to or coincident with
the cosmic or processional event of formal existence. It is,
rather a reaction and a conceptualization after the fact in
the face of formal existence. It’s a style of realization, a
strategy of existence that produces suffering and
unconsciousness and when this strategy is understood, when
consciousness includes the whole of action, the worlds of
formal existence and experience no longer appear in
necessarily problematic form, but all of this remains
obvious in the Heart, the simply, radically Real that is
prior to our reaction and secondary cognition of the
worlds. Therefore, the separative action is the avoidance of
relationship under the conditions of formal existence. This
is obvious to one who understands, and all dilemma appears
to him to be a result of this avoidance and its various
conceptualizations. Because he knows this to be so, he sees
no dilemma, no separation in formal existence itself. His
dilemma is recognizable to him in its causes and well as its
results, and he moves in the formal play in the
consciousness that is understanding, already free of the
secondary results that are the forms of dilemma. These results are the entire content, cognition and
activity of ordinary life. But the primary and controlling
evidence is the triple cognition of identification,
differentiation and desire, not as simple, existing function
in the processes of life, but as radical conceptualizations
of Reality itself. Just as the worlds appear prior to all dilemma, the
structures of function in the worlds are not problematic.
There are apparent entities, discrete functions in the
processes of formal existence. There is water and mountain,
sea and a man along the beach. There is a sun and many other
stars. There is a man between. But none of that is a radical
entity. A capsule of limitations apart from the entire
process, where presence implies a schism in Reality itself.
There is simply all of this, a universe in fact. But the
awareness arising within and overall is certainly tended to
the illusion of separation and the actions, that reinforce
it to death, unless it becomes wise. There is a reaction consequent upon the action that is
all form existence. It is the duplication of that movement
where in things appear. But that duplication is the
reflection of the original, present action. It tends to
cognize itself as the results, the direction of that which
moves to appear. Therefore, it turns from the essential
movement of consciousness to the reflection of its
appearance. And thus very action is separative, turned away,
the avoidance of relationship with the essential motion and
all its other results or reflections. Therefore, the worlds are cognized within their forms on
the basis of the reaction, the essential avoidance that is
the duplication or reflection of Reality as formal
existence. And the dilemma of formal existence is precisely
the configuration of experience which results from this
reaction and the forms of its conceptualization in life. The forms of conceptualization which arises as the
structure of ordinary consciousness are the basic agents:
IDENTIFICATION, DIFFERENTIATION and DESIRE. Thus, I have said that identification is the secondary
action or cognition of consciousness wherein it
conceptualizes its subjectivity, its identity or principle
of presence. The key to this statement is
conceptualizes for in this activity the discrete
role of the functional entity is the universe is abandoned*
or reduced to the conceptualization of its separate,
non-integral disassociated, reactively motivated principle
of self-perception. *The world is of the form of
the five categories of sense objects, and nothing
else. These five kinds of objects are sensed by the
five senses. As all are perceived to the mind
through these five senses, the world is nothing but
the mind. Is there a world apart from the
mind? If the mind, the source of
all knowledge and activity subsides, the vision of
the world will cease. Just as knowledge of the real
rope does not dawn till the fancied notion of the
serpent disappears, vision (experience) of the
Reality cannot be gained unless the superimposed
vision of the universe is abandoned. 2 – The Self and Non-Self –
GEMS FROM BHAGAVAN, A necklace of sayings by
BHAGAVAN SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI on various vital
subjects Strung together by A. DEVARAJA
MUDALIAR. Clearly, the conceptualization realized as identification
is a form of radical separateness, the model of narcissus,
of avoidance. Differentiation is, again, a form of conceptualization,
rooted in the same reaction, whereby the identified subject
perceives that from which he has conceived his separateness.
He thus identifies all things that appear as radically
unique, conceptually apart from himself and from one
another. Thus he enforces the unconsciousness of that
functional appearance that is the universe. He cannot “see”
the universe, but only the conceptually differentiated mass
of appearances. Space appears dead, a zero, a no-force
between objects and events, a lightness non-container, not
present but including everything, therefore negating and
requiring the end of all things. Indeed, the original action
(or reaction) that is the mind in dilemma is the
conceptualization of space, wherein it is marked off from
the obvious, root power that is conscious reality.
Therefore, space seems dead, and it is this symbol that
appears to all men, moment to moment, apart from their real
consciousness, to signify the nature of existence. But underneath this whole revolution of reaction and
conceptualization is motion. The reaction or reflection that
is avoidance is also a kind of motion. And life in dilemma
appears as the conceptual from of desire, wherein separated
entities move by an unconscious drive to restore themselves,
to deliver themselves and all things to one another in the
orgiastic repetitious of union, forgetful for a moment of
the dilemma in the mind. And time is merely the conceptual
demarcation of the events of consummation. The quality of
time is entirely determined by the moment to moment
configuration of desire and consummation conceived by the
problematic identity in the conceptually differentiated
worlds. All of this is trouble, suffering, dilemma and confusion,
search and reflection, and conceptual motivation without
end. Thus, the Zen Master, Huang Po, has said, “If you can
only ride yourselves of conceptual thought, you will have
accomplished everything.” It is “conceptual thought” in the
sense I have described it that is universally recognized
amount all great teachers to be the roots of suffering and
fear. But it is radical understanding exactly as I have
communicated it to you that is the only and radical freedom
from suffering and fear. And that consciousness that is
already free is the real consciousness and joy of every kind
of formal existence.
The
waking life, what we cognize to be the ordinary waking
state, is a continual drama of these three activities of
identification, differentiation and desire. The “causal” being, which is also
the seat of deep sleep, manifests as the activity of
identification, or separate self sense, through contraction
of the causal center on the right side of the chest.
The subtle body, which is also the
seat or condition of dreams, is the internal or subtle
organ, and it manifests essentially as the elaboration or
differentiation of thought, feeling, energy and sensation.
This is done by contraction of the
subtle mechanism, which has many centers or functions in the
spine and brain. Then the waking state adds this
movement of desire or manifest vitality, the descending and
“frontal” life. The traditional searches are an
attempt to return to the simpler origin. When they turn inward in the waking
state, away from desire, this is religion. When they turn inward from subtle
life and dreams to forms of subtlety or light beyond mind,
this is spirituality or yoga. The intuitive methods of the would
be Jnani or Buddha turn beyond life and subtlety into the
causal ground. But in fact all of these are simply
ways of going from one state into another, moving from one
condition to another that is relatively more subtle, or
relatively more free of conditions. None of these functional movements
is the Truth itself. But when a man comprehends his own
adventure, and his search occupies him less and less, when
his suffering becomes the only real possibility for him,
when suffering or dilemma becomes his essential condition,
regardless of his state, waking, dreaming, or sleeping, then
there is the possibility of real intelligence, of
spontaneous re-cognition, of understanding, of Truth.
The world is seeking, nothing more.
And all seeking is suffering and separation as continuous
creations. They are created by the perpetual activities of
identification, differentiation and desire. These are the
mechanism of the avoidance of relationship. And these three
are continuously performed in the various levels of being,
corresponding to what are called the “chakras” or the
circuit of creative centers, and the various bodies, realms
and experiences. The consciousness of the seeker is a
constantly changing perception of dilemma. And in all that
he does he is always only avoiding relationship.
DEVOTEE: You have said this action
takes the form of identification, differentiation and
desire. In a concrete situation, what happens? FRANKLIN: The ordinary sense that a
man has, sitting, walking, is of separate existence. He
doesn’t ordinarily say to himself, “I am this body, I am
this mind, I am this, I am that.” No mental process goes on that is
itself the communication of this sense to him. He already has this sense.
He wakes up alive, he moves in
bodily terms, it just seems very obvious. And there is the. sense of some sort
of subtle limit, size, shape, or difference. That is
identification. It is called the “ego.” Differentiation is all the forms,
all the qualities of cognition or mind, in which everything
becomes an extension of this same thing that he has assumed.
Everything becomes a “this.”
Look at this, look at this.
Suddenly, there are endless planes
of significance. The very structure of his thought is
“this, this, this.” Spontaneously, everything is already
multiplied, distinct. Having already, spontaneously
acquired this sense of separate existence, and while already
perceiving, thinking a range of multiplicity, of separate
natures, forms and forces, he moves. And that motion is desire.
This separate one moves. He conceives a realm of multiplicity
in which to move, because he is separate. There is something, even a world,
that he is up against, so he moves. And that movement is desire.
An endless adventure is possible
when these three assumptions are made. And that adventure is what people
are doing. All men, all ordinary beings who are
karmically manifested in the material worlds, are living
this adventure. Each one lives it with different
qualities, different circumstances, different ranges of
subjectivity, but all essentially are living it on the
armature of this same structure, this same form, this same
complex of assumptions. There present state, “me,” separate,
with everything around me moving. What you ordinarily perceive to be
your condition at any moment is the best example of
it. Now all adventures, all human
adventures are possible from that point of view, and all are
built on that point of view. And that point of view is the
dilemma. All accomplishments take place
within the framework of that dilemma. Therefore, all pursuits, all
searches, all activities, all accomplishments, spiritual and
mundane, are possible adventures within that same framework.
It is not that the spiritual ones
are better than the mundane ones. They are all the same
adventure.
Said the Blessed One, “Lord of
Lanka, seest thou not that the differentiation of things,
such as is perceived in jars and other breakable objects
whose nature it is to perish in time, takes place in a realm
of discrimination [cherished by] the ignorant? This
being so, is it not to be so understood? It is due to
discrimination [cherished by] the ignorant that
there exists the differentiation of dharma and
adharma. Lankavatara Sutra
It is Brahman Itself, which does not
admit of any differentiation. The knowledge of the fourth
quarter is realised by merging in it the previous three.
That is to say, the waking state is merged in the dream
state, the dream state in dreamless sleep, and finally,
dreamless sleep in Turiya, or Pure Consciousness. Mandukya Upanishad
The zero of the heart is expanded as
the world. Consciousness is not differentiated and
identified. There is a constant observation of subject and
object in any body, any functional sheath, any realm, or any
experience that arises. Thus, I remain in the unqualified
State. There is a constant Sensation of “Bright” Fullness
permeating and surrounding all experiences, all realms, all
bodies, all functional sheaths. It is my own “Bright”
Fullness, Which is radically non-separate. My own “Bright”
Fullness includes all beings and all things. I am the Form
of Space Itself, in Which all bodies, all functional
sheaths, all realms, and all experiences occur. It is
inherently “Bright” Consciousness Itself, which Reality is
even every being’s Very Nature (or Ultimate, inherent, and
inherently perfect, Condition) now and now and
now. When enquiry has settled in the
heart, awareness develops as what Ramana, Ramana Maharshi,
calls the ‘Amrita Nadi . I call it the ‘Form of Reality.’ It
is the circuit of current from the heart to the head. As a
child I knew it as the ‘bright’. In the unqualified state
all identification, differentiation and desire have ended.
There is only unqualified relationship realized in enquiry
to be already the case. If you are always present in
relationship, not the avoidance of relationship, and enjoy
that radical state under all conditions, you will not assume
the forms of identification, differentiation or desire. You
will simply be present in relationship, and this is itself
perfect control, and I mean this literally. Control of the
functions of existence comes about spontaneously, naturally
and easily in one who understands. But one who tries to
control himself in the midst of compulsions and difficulties
never succeeds, because he always gravitates karmically back
to the condition itself because he hasn’t penetrated it. He
hasn’t understood.
The forms of identification,
differentiation, and desire, the things that one does in
reaction to what is Witnessed, are all motions of attention.
The beginning of Wisdom, then, is to observe yourself as you
are. Forget philosophy, religion, and all the garbage of
life. What precisely is your situation in this moment? Even
now, you are That Which is Witnessing these arising
conditions, whatever That Which is Witnessing this is
altogether. Ultimately, you Realize that you are just That,
and there is no doubt about it.
So what I was recognizing here is
the primary activity, the prior activity in consciousness,
which prevents its fundamental enjoyment. And what is the
nature of that primary activity? It has two aspects. The one
is separation in consciousness, this continual realization
in consciousness, of separation. And the other is
contraction in life. And life and consciousness are not
separable, but the peculiar qualities in which this activity
within us manifests itself are a separative activity at the
level of consciousness and contraction in the mechanisms or
functions of life. So it appears always as identification,
differentiation, and desire. It appears as a separate self sense,
it also appears as a knot in the navel. It always appears as
contraction and separation. And I saw that perhaps we can
think of this in evolutionary terms as the gigantic organic
process of the universe manifests the human function, the
human possibility, the psycho-physical entity that may or
may not become fully conscious in all that it
contains.
So suffering and separation “are
created by the perpetual activities of identification,
differentiation and desire.” Seeking manifests in the forms
of suffering and separation, isolation and dis-ease. But the
qualities, the various kinds of suffering and separation
that tend to manifest are themselves expressions of these
fundamental qualities in conscious life, which are the
qualities of identification, differentiation and desire,
which I have talked about in a number of ways.
Identification is this whole drama of separate self-sense,
in its subtlest forms, not just as self-imagery. That
self-imagery has more to do with the quality of
differentiation or mind or thought. But self-sense prior to
imageries. Just the self-sense itself, which is always what
is dramatized when you become selfish, or working from the
point of view of yourself as an entity. So these qualities
of suffering and separation are built on first of all, the
separate self-sense in all its form but as an essential
quality, as an essential activity in consciousness. The
fundamental contraction at one level of consciousness is
this separate self-sense just as at the physical level it
can take the form of a sensation, a cramp of some sort in
the psyche it takes the form of the separate self-sense.
That is why Maharshi says the “I” thought is the first
thought. The next activity of which suffering
and separation are the manifestation is the activity of
differentiation. Distinction, difference, other. Wherever
there is an other, there is fear. This whole process of
differentiation or thought. Examine the process of thought.
Thought is just momentum of differentiation. Just as you are
never, barely for an instant, without this separate
self-sense of an omnipresent condition of consciousness,
thought is also hardly ever interrupted in the waking state
and it is always in the form of differentiation, that’s all
thought is. Thought is differentiation. It’s the generation
in consciousness of the sense of differences, either between
two or more things. This over against this. Thought is
always in the form of a distinction. So the separate
self-sense or what we commonly call ego and now
differentiation or thought. So ego, thought and the third
mentioned here is desire, which is generated by these two.
What is the activity of the entity, separate one, in the
midst of his endless activity of differentiation or thought.
It is movement, motivated, desire, always motion. A
particular motion. People don’t move non-particularly. You
always move in a particular way. Movement is always
directed. It’s always in the form of desire. Motion that is
without desire is motion without particularity, without
specific direction, or goal. So it’s absolute motion. Motion
without desire. It’s perfect motion. It’s without a center,
as well as without a goal. So it is the absolute being. The
perfect God. That’s the only form of desirelessness
ultimately. But desire as we ordinarily know it is
particular motion, motivation. It’s this entity, separate
self-sense, acting through some mode of differentiation,
some quality of thought. So, the ordinary life from moment
to moment is the separate self-sense involved in the
qualities of thinking or differentiation. Moving,
particularly motivated, living as desire.
At times avoidance is generated
through desire. At others through differentiation. At others
through identification. The search created by those attached
to desire is the love and service of God. The search created
by those attached to differentiation is the way of mystical
union. The search created by those attached to
identification is the way of Self-knowledge. But those who fail to overcome
desire seek endlessly for that which they do not possess.
Those who fail to overcome chronic differentiation are
endlessly dismayed by alternatives. And those who fail to
overcome the process of identification are endlessly bound
to the assertion of qualities that are unlike the things
they perceive. Desire is chronic activity.
Differentiation is chronic inertia. Identification is
chronic limitation. But understanding constantly
recognizes the pattern of avoidance in each of its forms. It
is already free of the search implied in each form. It is
entirely free of the consequences of every path. Where life
appears as identification, differentiation or desire, the
man of understanding is already free of the form of
avoidance implied in each.
Identification, Differentiation and
Desire As soon as there is the ego-position
– Identification – (or
self-contraction), there is the entire
conditionally manifested universe. When there is no
self-contraction, there is no conditionally
manifested universe. You are Narcissus. You are looking at an
– Differentiation –
image, and you think the image is actually
there as something outside you, as
something that has nothing to do with you, except that you
are seeing it as an object. As
Narcissus, you are controlled
– Desire – by that
known-object. You have already taken up the
ego-positionand, from that position, you even regard
Me as a known-object, digitalizing
Me into the checkerboard that extends from your little block
of presumption.
Said the Blessed One, “Lord of Lanka, seest thou not that
the differentiation of things, such as is perceived
in jars and other breakable objects whose nature it is to
perish in time, takes place in a realm of discrimination
[cherished by] the ignorant? This being so, is it
not to be so understood? It is due to discrimination
[cherished by] the ignorant that there exists the
differentiation of dharma and adharma. It is Brahman Itself, which does not admit of any
differentiation. The knowledge of the fourth quarter
is realized by merging in it the previous three. That is to
say, the waking state is merged in the dream state, the
dream state in dreamless sleep, and finally, dreamless sleep
in Turiya, or Pure Consciousness.
The zero of the heart is expanded as the world.
Consciousness is not differentiated and
identified. There is a constant observation of
subject and object in any body, any functional sheath, any
realm, or any experience that arises. Thus, I remain in the
unqualified State. There is a constant Sensation of “Bright”
Fullness permeating and surrounding all experiences, all
realms, all bodies, all functional sheaths. It is my own
“Bright” Fullness, Which is radically non-separate. My own
“Bright” Fullness includes all beings and all things. I am
the Form of Space Itself, in Which all bodies, all
functional sheaths, all realms, and all experiences occur.
It is inherently “Bright” Consciousness Itself, which
Reality is even every being’s Very Nature (or Ultimate,
inherent, and inherently perfect, Condition) now and now and
now. The forms of identification, differentiation, and
desire, the things that one does in reaction to what is
Witnessed, are all motions of attention. The beginning of
Wisdom, then, is to observe yourself as you are. Forget
philosophy, religion, and all the garbage of life. What
precisely is your situation in this moment? At any moment avoidance is primarily in the form of
identification, differentiation or desire, and secondarily
(effectively) in the remaining two. But these three account
entirely for all forms of avoidance. Unpublished – Adi Da Samraj – 1970
But in the instant of differentiation the most
primitive archetype of all knowledge appears. It appears as
a simple presumption of independent existence,
consciousness, and pleasure over against all kinds of
relations or objects, high and low. The
Enlightenment of the Whole Body
0bjective or independent self, world, and God are the
conventional illusions. The primal incident is
differentiation of the One and Present Reality, which
is Infinite Consciousness, from Love, Radiance, Light, and
Vibratory Life, or all the Infinite Eternity at once. But in
the instant of differentiation the most primitive
archetype of all knowledge appears. It appears as a simple
presumption of independent existence, consciousness, and
pleasure over against all kinds of relations or objects,
high and low. Enlightenment
of the Whole Body
So what I was recognizing here is the primary activity,
the prior activity in consciousness, which prevents its
fundamental enjoyment. And what is the nature of that
primary activity? It has two aspects. The one is separation
in consciousness, this continual realization in
consciousness, of separation. And the other is contraction
in life. And life and consciousness are not separable, but
the peculiar qualities in which this activity within us
manifests itself are a separative activity at the level of
consciousness and contraction in the mechanisms or functions
of life. So it appears always as identification,
differentiation, and desire. It appears as a separate self sense, it also appears as a
knot in the navel. It always appears as contraction and
separation. And I saw that perhaps we can think of this in
evolutionary terms as the gigantic organic process of the
universe manifests the human function, the human
possibility, the psycho-physical entity that may or may not
become fully conscious in all that it contains. It is in the childhood of man that the idea of God-apart
or Reality-beyond is conceived. The sense of dependence
initiates the growing sense of separate and separated self
through the experiential theatre of growth. The intuition of
the Whole, the One, is the ground of birth, but “growing up”
is a conventional pattern of initiation in which the sense
of difference is intensified. At the level of the
life-functions themselves, there needs to be such functional
or practical differentiation, but the implications in
the planes of consciousness are the cause of an unnatural
adventure of suffering and seeking in dilemma.
Identification,
Differentiation and Desire
