Markers

lifestyle.howstuffworks.com

We are so attached to the things that describe us. "That's the dude who's good in programming." "He likes role playing games." "She's a really good artist." "He really gets along with people." I'm sure you can fill in the blanks. These descriptors are important in the sense that they give a point of reference that others can relate to when they interact with you.

The problem arises when you lose the very thing that used to describe you. That's why losing a job is so stressful. Or why it's so frustrating not to be able to do a sport anymore because of chronic injuries. And why it's so traumatic to lose someone. In each case you lose a reference point, a marker on how you, and others, see yourself and your place in the world.

I'm not saying it's unimportant, just that it's nice to have a little perspective. The easiest example would be a sensory deprivation chamber. Without the physical cues, then it's impossible to physically act. That's why there are emotional cues, mental cues and spiritual cues, and these are the cues that we attach to ourselves so that we may function, albeit temporarily, in this world.

And why not extend this thought to the premise that perhaps the personality, from the point of view of the soul, is one such anchor to the workings of this world? If we didn’t have an identity or personality, there would be nothing to segregate us from the All, because spirit is homogeneous. So there must be an anchor point that allows the spirit to differentiate.

If a career, for example, is the reference point that most people identify with, then perhaps for the soul it’s the personality or identity it uses to differentiate its existence in this world. And going higher in the spiritual realms, as described by the sages of old, the individual self-identity becomes the illusion and as we move closer to the Source, less and less of what differentiates us from others exists until there is only One.