Deano
SELF-IDENTITY ...
http://www.davidicke.com/oi/extras/08/january/selfident1.jpg
... THE GUARD AT THE GATE
Hello all ...
In the movie, The Matrix, there's a scene where the Neo character finds himself in a computer program and Morpheus explains what has happened. The interchange goes like this:
Morpheus : 'This is the construct. It is our loading program. We can load anything from clothing, to equipment, weapons, training simulations, anything we need.'
Neo : 'Right now ... we're inside a computer program?'
Morpheus: 'Is it really so hard to believe? Your clothes are different. The plugs in your arms and head are gone. Your hair has changed. Your appearance now is what we call residual self image. It is the mental projection of your digital self.'
http://www.davidicke.com/oi/extras/08/january/matrix1.jpg
'You mean this isn't real?'
This theme of 'residual self image' and the 'mental projection of your digital self' operates on many levels and represents the most powerful form of self-delusion and, thus, self-enslavement.
It is the illusory state that I call 'self-identity' - the reality filter that controls the lives of billions because they don't realise that the biggest manipulator of their reality is themselves.
I once wrote that anyone who could put a name to what they believe is in a box because everything just is; we all just are. We are not Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists or atheists. These are just the labels of a bewildered mind. You cannot label the force with no name. It just is and we just are.
I will go further. Anyone with a self-identity is in a state of self-delusion and self-denial - the denial of who and what they really are. Self image immediately transfers our point of observation from the all to the small. It is the box-builder, the guard at the door to infinity.
And by self-image I mean any self-image - I am a man; I am a woman; I am white; I am black; I am a Muslim; I am a Jew; I am good; I am bad; I am lucky; I am unlucky; I am rich; I am poor; I am loving; I am hateful. Even 'I am human' is a self-identity because 'human' is a software program - a manifestation of what I call 'body consciousness'. We are not human - our vehicle is.
All of these fake identities are the fault lines that fracture infinity into illusory 'parts'. And they fracture people and peoples across the world.
It is nothing new. Self-identities have been at war since humanity entered its amnesic state and began to perceive reality as parts and not a whole. The Christian self-identity brought wars of genocide and inquisitions of unimaginable terror and torture. German master-race self-identity set the world ablaze and led to concentration camps and 55 million dead in Europe alone; the 'John Wayne America' self-identity has 'fought-for-freedom' in war after war of calculated enslavement.
This very week self-identities in Kenya - I am Luo tribe, I am Kikuyu tribe - have brought mass slaughter. The same has happened in Iraq - I am a Sunni, I am a Shiite - and in Israel and Palestine - I am a Muslim, I am a Jew.
Self-identity is the most destructive force on earth.
http://www.davidicke.com/oi/extras/08/january/kenya.jpg
The consequences of self-identity in Kenya
Its calling card is not just war and violence, either. Self-identity controls the fine-detail of what we call 'life'. It is the filter through which 'reality' is observed, edited and reconstructed. It is an extreme form of belief and what we believe we perceive.
People wear their self-identity like a uniform that goes with the job. A New Ager will invariably have the self-image of being loving, kind and 'spiritual'. Whether they are or not is irrelevant. No matter what they do or say the reality is rearranged to ensure the survival of the self-identity.
I have known people who believed themselves to be loving, kind, 'spiritual' and committed to 'waking people up' and even when they acted in ways that were deeply unkind, self-obsessed and destructive to 'waking people up' the self-image remained intact and immovable.
To observe them reconstructing reality and events to protect their self-image in the light of behaviour that was anything, but loving, kind, and 'spiritual' was a revelation to behold and allowed me to see the power it has to control a person's sense of who they are.
When they are faced with a situation in which they have acted in ways fundamentally at odds with their self-identity the reality re-write begins immediately. It starts from the premise that they are loving, kind and 'spiritual' and so anything that doesn't pass through that filter is either rejected or made to fit.
Thus, what happened and how they behaved must either be someone else's fault or have an explanation that can bring their self-identity out of Intensive Care. It doesn't have to be true, indeed by its very nature it never is; it just has to be enough to convince them and that's easy because the self-identity is telling them what they desperately want to hear.
Another aspect of this is that many people are so consumed by their self-image that they believe that everyone else must see them in the way they see themselves. 'I am loving, kind and spiritual and so everyone must see that, surely?'
http://www.davidicke.com/oi/extras/08/january/mirrorego.jpg
'They must all think I am so great.'
Once again I have known people who went through life utterly oblivious of the fact that others saw them in ways that could hardly be more different to their self-identity. They would come off the phone or leave a room without ever thinking for a second that they could be seen in any way other than their own self-image.
Yet at the other end of the line or behind the closed door the heads were shaking at how unloving, unkind and 'unspiritual' they were. When from time to time they are faced with this reality their self-identity has another filter to cover their eyes: the people involved are all wrong and don't understand him or her.
Self-identity can be all-powerful and, like the body, its prime motivation is survival. That can make it hard to shake, but shaken it must be if freedom is the goal.
http://www.davidicke.com/oi/extras/08/january/selfident1.jpg
... THE GUARD AT THE GATE
Hello all ...
In the movie, The Matrix, there's a scene where the Neo character finds himself in a computer program and Morpheus explains what has happened. The interchange goes like this:
Morpheus : 'This is the construct. It is our loading program. We can load anything from clothing, to equipment, weapons, training simulations, anything we need.'
Neo : 'Right now ... we're inside a computer program?'
Morpheus: 'Is it really so hard to believe? Your clothes are different. The plugs in your arms and head are gone. Your hair has changed. Your appearance now is what we call residual self image. It is the mental projection of your digital self.'
http://www.davidicke.com/oi/extras/08/january/matrix1.jpg
'You mean this isn't real?'
This theme of 'residual self image' and the 'mental projection of your digital self' operates on many levels and represents the most powerful form of self-delusion and, thus, self-enslavement.
It is the illusory state that I call 'self-identity' - the reality filter that controls the lives of billions because they don't realise that the biggest manipulator of their reality is themselves.
I once wrote that anyone who could put a name to what they believe is in a box because everything just is; we all just are. We are not Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists or atheists. These are just the labels of a bewildered mind. You cannot label the force with no name. It just is and we just are.
I will go further. Anyone with a self-identity is in a state of self-delusion and self-denial - the denial of who and what they really are. Self image immediately transfers our point of observation from the all to the small. It is the box-builder, the guard at the door to infinity.
And by self-image I mean any self-image - I am a man; I am a woman; I am white; I am black; I am a Muslim; I am a Jew; I am good; I am bad; I am lucky; I am unlucky; I am rich; I am poor; I am loving; I am hateful. Even 'I am human' is a self-identity because 'human' is a software program - a manifestation of what I call 'body consciousness'. We are not human - our vehicle is.
All of these fake identities are the fault lines that fracture infinity into illusory 'parts'. And they fracture people and peoples across the world.
It is nothing new. Self-identities have been at war since humanity entered its amnesic state and began to perceive reality as parts and not a whole. The Christian self-identity brought wars of genocide and inquisitions of unimaginable terror and torture. German master-race self-identity set the world ablaze and led to concentration camps and 55 million dead in Europe alone; the 'John Wayne America' self-identity has 'fought-for-freedom' in war after war of calculated enslavement.
This very week self-identities in Kenya - I am Luo tribe, I am Kikuyu tribe - have brought mass slaughter. The same has happened in Iraq - I am a Sunni, I am a Shiite - and in Israel and Palestine - I am a Muslim, I am a Jew.
Self-identity is the most destructive force on earth.
http://www.davidicke.com/oi/extras/08/january/kenya.jpg
The consequences of self-identity in Kenya
Its calling card is not just war and violence, either. Self-identity controls the fine-detail of what we call 'life'. It is the filter through which 'reality' is observed, edited and reconstructed. It is an extreme form of belief and what we believe we perceive.
People wear their self-identity like a uniform that goes with the job. A New Ager will invariably have the self-image of being loving, kind and 'spiritual'. Whether they are or not is irrelevant. No matter what they do or say the reality is rearranged to ensure the survival of the self-identity.
I have known people who believed themselves to be loving, kind, 'spiritual' and committed to 'waking people up' and even when they acted in ways that were deeply unkind, self-obsessed and destructive to 'waking people up' the self-image remained intact and immovable.
To observe them reconstructing reality and events to protect their self-image in the light of behaviour that was anything, but loving, kind, and 'spiritual' was a revelation to behold and allowed me to see the power it has to control a person's sense of who they are.
When they are faced with a situation in which they have acted in ways fundamentally at odds with their self-identity the reality re-write begins immediately. It starts from the premise that they are loving, kind and 'spiritual' and so anything that doesn't pass through that filter is either rejected or made to fit.
Thus, what happened and how they behaved must either be someone else's fault or have an explanation that can bring their self-identity out of Intensive Care. It doesn't have to be true, indeed by its very nature it never is; it just has to be enough to convince them and that's easy because the self-identity is telling them what they desperately want to hear.
Another aspect of this is that many people are so consumed by their self-image that they believe that everyone else must see them in the way they see themselves. 'I am loving, kind and spiritual and so everyone must see that, surely?'
http://www.davidicke.com/oi/extras/08/january/mirrorego.jpg
'They must all think I am so great.'
Once again I have known people who went through life utterly oblivious of the fact that others saw them in ways that could hardly be more different to their self-identity. They would come off the phone or leave a room without ever thinking for a second that they could be seen in any way other than their own self-image.
Yet at the other end of the line or behind the closed door the heads were shaking at how unloving, unkind and 'unspiritual' they were. When from time to time they are faced with this reality their self-identity has another filter to cover their eyes: the people involved are all wrong and don't understand him or her.
Self-identity can be all-powerful and, like the body, its prime motivation is survival. That can make it hard to shake, but shaken it must be if freedom is the goal.