science

Doing & Identity 

During some ‘work doings’ of the Karmic world, exploring the scientific world of ‘Artificial Intelligence’, an expression found its way … Man & AI. 

Man’s whole sense of identity is built on what we ‘do’ for that identity & express it into a space in the world as the manifested self, making up the manifested world; Now, what will ‘be’ the expressed world, when there will be no need for Man’s ‘doing’, taken over by ‘Artificial Intelligence’? Loss of identity, what to express? 🤔 In other words, Identity Crisis … 

Then it strikes me … if it is taken away, it will be a crisis but … not if it’s ‘given’ away or ‘shared’. Then it is a gift. The gift of freedom – a gift of Love ❤️ ‘Coz love is freedom. So the solution lies in the frequency of love. Love is to give. We can ‘give’ that which is either smaller in meaning than the self or that which one has an abundance of.
When the identity is restricted to ‘doing’ something for it, there is no more self left beyond it to express. There is a fight to hold on to identity. But when the self is free of its own sense of identity, no attachment to it, the self is rooted in the ‘being’, it can never be taken away. Identity is a part of the whole. It can be shared or given, ‘Coz it is only a part of the ‘being’ – The true self. There is no need left to express an identity, as the self seems bigger than the identity. It can be seen automatically. I trust Man & AI can co-do or co-be or one ‘do’ & one ‘be’ on this planet … 😊

If there is no fight of ‘doing’ for identity! 

An experience beyond identity 

I spent a good chunk of my middle & high school years in a boarding school. Don’t think I can call myself a very bright student, non-studious for certain, but I’d make it through somehow. I mostly excelled in extra curricular activities – dramatics, elocution, dance, singing, athletics, swimming – you know, the usual. So I was the popular kid in school. I never really needed to make friends. Somehow, friends just happened. 

I wouldn’t call myself naughty either, but I was definitely an experimenting mind; more often than not getting my friends into trouble with me. I’ll just leave it at ‘experimenting mind’ for this post. Anyways, in grade 9, my chemistry teacher was a sad lady. I don’t blame her, not then, not now. She had lost both her children in an accident. This teacher, let’s call her Mrs G. Mrs G had seen me and some friends ‘experimenting’ and decided to single me out of the group as the leader. She was strict & Her terror was big among the students, me included. Mrs G ordered my entire class (all sections included) to not be seen talking to me, or else it would mean a month of detention 😳. 

So I don’t blame my classmates either. Not then, Not now. They were afraid. They tell me now of how they wanted to talk to the popular girl but were too scared to. I understand I needed to be ‘isolated’. That’s what they called it. But I had a very special friend, an angel,  who didn’t let me feel the isolation as much. The daughter of the principal, let’s call her Miss M. 

Miss M 

Miss M, one of the most beautiful souls, both inside & out, to have touched my experience of life. She was my dramatics teacher. Maybe in her late 20’s at the time, beautiful, confident, and enigmatically mysterious. It was the word in school, Miss M is always watching. Somehow she knew, she saw the silent ‘isolation’ and my acceptance of it. And she saw, the pains my besties took to still, secretly experiment with me 😂. 

So the lovely Miss M decided to make a point. Silently! After all she was the daughter of the man who’s dollars (coupons) bought us our canteen grub. She started to take me out of school to party in her open jeep 😆 along with her other friends from grade 11 & 12. I had new friends, the head boy & girl included. This in itself was a ‘big thing’ for the rest of my classmates & Mrs G. I understood no-thing except that this was a kind woman who liked me. Miss M simultaneously, and much to my confusion, pulled me out of the middle school plays (where I belonged) & placed me with central roles in the senior school plays. The silence, now of surprise, continued among my classmates but the nasty remarks & hateful expressions of Mrs G stopped. 

Touched by an angel

In this ugly experience, I found a beautiful gift 🎁 Miss M, who didn’t even let me feel the pain of ‘isolation’ at the time, what she was seeing, she protected me from seeing. Mrs G was attacking my identity. To make me feel small, to kill my spirit, to take away my expression of myself – in the name of discipline. 

And Miss M used that opportunity to challenge me, to go beyond myself; beyond the identity that was being attacked. Yes, with her I had to work very hard, sometimes into late nights. But she brought out the best in me with drama, elocution, dance, swimming & athletics; making me the youngest actor in the touring senior school plays & getting me straight to ‘highly commended’ awards in all the activities she overlooked on me. Wherever she is, May god bless her. 

I had asked Miss M once, ‘why do you love me so much?’ And she replied, ‘you have a colourful spirit, that is bigger than yourself. You are a simple girl and many people will try to steal your simplicity by telling you there is something wrong with you. I want you to remain confident in your own expression of life. It is a complicated world out there, we need some simplicity.’ 

I didn’t understand her then, I understand her now. It had no-thing to do with my ‘doings’, my identity at all, only to do with my spirit. She wanted to protect my spirit. The ‘doings’ were only an excuse to make me confident in my own self expression. Today, I want to thank her because today, I understand her. I just don’t know how to tell her ‘thank you’. 

What ‘I’ learnt about identity 

At the time, I’m not sure what I learnt. I remember after grade 10, when I decided to go back to day school in Kolkata, Miss M tried very hard to have me stay back. She said, ‘I’ll make you head girl. We want you here.’ Something must have affected me deeply though, ‘Coz I remember saying to Miss M, ‘I want to go home now.’ Boarding school days were some of the best days of my life, yet, the experience of isolation, even with friends, had made me feeling small in some ways. I just wanted to start afresh even if it’s small. The experience of life, even then was more important to me than my identity. Head girl was a big deal then but not bigger than life. 

Later, my mother ran into another teacher from school & learnt that Mrs G had said to him a few times, ‘if my daughter was alive, she’d be better than this girl (me) at everything and she would have more friends too.’ I guess Mrs G missed her daughter when she saw me. My spirit reminded her of that which she wanted to forget – the spirit of her deceased daughter.  Everyone expresses inexpressible emotions differently.  All she wanted was for me to stop ‘doing’ whatever I was ‘doing’ to remind her of the identity her daughter held. 

Today, I understand what identity is, back then I didn’t. Somehow, I have never led with identity. I see that now, or else the isolation would’ve affected me a lot more. On the contrary, it helped me understand very early, the importance of aloneness & self dependence. The spirit of the ‘being’ is bigger than the ‘identity’. When the ‘being’ leads, the identity is too small to affect too big. 

An experiment with identity 

That was then. Now, via Tantra, Bhagwan has encouraged experimentation with the sense of identity from time to time. Shaking it up a bit by using situations of life & all the mediums of expressing identity. I tried that recently, tried to feel like a nobody – no identity – only an expression of ‘being’. It is what ‘I’ most crave truly. The world of ‘becoming’ scares me. The world of ‘beings’ & ‘happenings’ is where I mostly fly. 

Anyways … the experiment was a fail 🙄. It was impossible to leave the total past behind even for a moment into an identity less space. Parts of the identity followed in. Yet, in other ways the experiment was a success, in learning that no matter where ‘I’ go, the identity will follow as long as the ‘doing’ is there. All that ‘I’ can do is ‘understand’ that identity is not ‘I’, it is only a part of the ‘I’ that ‘I am not’. No-thing need be done for it to be expressed. Yet expression will ‘be’. So Identity – let it follow me, instead of leading me – make it utilitarian. So it’s possible to live from a place where it can be easy to give or share the identity (all doing) yet keep the self if needed. 

That space is the spirit. One can call it the soul too. Or consciousness. Some call it ‘living from the heart’. That frequency of love, where identity feels too small, even non-existent outside of worldly matters. Beyond the ‘doing’ of identity is the ‘being’ of spirituality. 

Science & spirituality 

what ‘I understand’ from Bhagwan is that science & spirituality (essential ‘being’ of Man) are lost brothers who must meet to complete the missing pieces of the whole experience of life, yet there is a struggle for individual identity 🤷🏻‍♀️. Science can express spirituality. ‘Coz spirituality is essentially about that which is ‘not’ – the spirit – only energy. It cannot express. And AI (science) currently expresses various frequencies of the mind – that which is. Whatever Mind can do, today AI can do better. 

But whatever spirit can do, AI still cannot ‘do’. And …They’re both here to stay! Maybe in the ‘spirit’ of spirituality, someday, it will be willing to loose its identity to be expressed through science. In any case, spirituality is about the spirit, not about the identity. The ‘doing’ is always happening, but the focus is the self not the ‘doing’. Living from That part of our consciousness that breaths or breaks down our food in the body – automatic. The identity is not needed from that space, yet ‘doing’ is. The identity may be useful & helpful in some worldly ‘doings’ – it is then only utilitarian. Use it when needed, like AI today. 😊

Conclusion

Over the past many months, I’ve learnt a lot about identity. I’ve learnt that the feeling of ‘no-thingness’ is big, very big. To feel like ‘no-thing’ is to feel like ‘everything’. But to feel small in identity is a very restricting space. Small is worse than no-thing. There is nothing to feel good about when I feel small. Hopelessness. If identity loss were to happen, when AI takes over; it’ll probably be a hopeless world as far as man is concerned. Unless man understands that identity is really just a ‘play’ & cannot be a true expression of the ‘being’. It is only an expression of identity. It is restrictive. Not freedom. When we understand this Man & AI can co-exist in love & freedom. ‘Coz love is freedom. Freedom from an ‘identity’. 

But that is then, when AI takes over … why ‘think’ now? Now there’s only a sprouting plant of AI, that’s fun & utilitarian; not something that controls us or defines Man. It is still within our control of the play of identity, to engage or disengage; although ‘doing’ life is becoming slowly & increasingly challenging in the mind by disengaging completely. A sort of created dependency, therefore now a need …

Sadhguru, who ‘I understand’ to be of realized consciousness, not artificial intelligence, surprised to find himself at AI conferences; says, ‘we still have around 15 years to go before Man’s need in ‘doing’ the world will be immensely reduced if not eradicated. AI will ‘do’ it all.’

As ‘I’ move through my world of ‘doing’, ‘I’ Wonder sometimes what kind of identity Man will hold in that rather artificially intelligent world? 🤔

What was then, is now 

What is now, will be then, 

When then, will be now ⭕️