“Identifying is the greatest enemy that we have to overcome. It is through being always identified that we are kept asleep.” G Gurdjieff quoted by Maurice Nicol

The Nature of Identification

“Inebriated, as the Gospel of Thomas says. What are we inebriated on? The elixir of identification.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Claymont 2012 Gurdjieff for Christian Contemplatives, 22:48 16 Friday Afternoon Teaching.

“Let us understand this more clearly. So long as a person takes himself as one he cannot become different. Do you see why? He cannot change, because he is identified with himself and takes everything in himself as himself. His thoughts, opinions, moods, feelings, sensations, and, in fact, everything, he takes as ‘I’. He says ‘I’ to them all. You will remember what the Work says about identifying. I will quote a few things: Identification is so common a quality that for the purposes of observation it is difficult to separate it from everything else. Man is always in a state of identification and for this reason he cannot remember himself. . . Identifying is one of our most terrible foes. It is necessary to see and to study identifying to its very roots in oneself. Identifying is the chief obstacle to self-remembering.” Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries, p285-286.

“We might be attached to our role as a radical. We might be attached to our sense of ourself as a vegetarian or an Enneagram 5 or an introvert or any sort of statement that you make about yourself that has this value of identification in it. So those are our attachments. And when our attachments come our way, we have this wonderful sense that life is okay. The Desert Fathers called it the peace that comes from the flesh. It means that, okay, we’re in our comfort zone. But if you have in place like a power and control program, and what you really want to do is be important, or even worse, if you have an esteem affection program, you want to be recognized as a good person for what you’re doing. All these things kind of are working their way through us. If you have an observer eye, you’ll see them. If you don’t, you won’t. You’ll be completely blindsided by what you think you’re doing, by your image of yourself.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Awakened Mind Awakened Heart 2003, 2:44 Disc 4 Track 2

The Spiritual Impact of Identification

“Insofar as transformation is concerned, identification is the root of all evil. The esoteric traditions have all said that the goal is to be able to develop a self that clings to nothing, to have enough being to be nothing. That’s part of the poverty, chastity, and obedience. That’s the poverty aspect.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Encounter With Evil Feb 2023 CA, 25:00 Day 3a Morning Teaching.

“We were speaking of ‘poor in spirit’ as the contrast to the ‘rich man’ which Mr. Ouspensky defined as the ‘identified man’, meaning that the ‘rich man’ is the kind of man (or woman) who is very identified with everything, with their virtues, goodness, meritoriousness, charitable actions, talents, cleverness, appearance, position, possessions—and so, [on the contrary], with their setbacks, negative moods, failures, etc. In short, they are identified with the prevailing pictures of themselves.

“Such a man’s energies are not spread over his being, but localized to one part of himself—as it were to one room in the great three-story house of himself. So he or she identifies through not having a ‘balancing of centers‘ whereby forces are equally distributed throughout the physical and psychological organization. In such a case, to quote one of the ‘Sayings of Christ’ (found comparatively recently on the West Coast of the Red Sea at Oxyrhynchus), the person has not made the sides of himself all equal: [Maurice lived and wrote at the time when the Gospel of Thomas was first discovered]

“If ye make not the below into the above and the above into the below, the right into the left and the left into the right, the before into the behind (and the behind into the before), ye shall not enter into the kingdom of God.”

Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries, p 1445-46.

“The greatest work is to lessen this state of always being identified and to become ‘poor in spirit‘. Someone once asked Ouspensky whether Christ taught the Fourth Way to which the Work belongs. His answer was that the Way of Christ was something much bigger, but yet when we study any one of the Four Gospels in the light of the ideas of this Work, we will realize that there are many similar things said in the Parables and Sayings of the Gospels that correspond to the teachings of this Work.” Psychological Commentaries, p1444.

“Attachment to matter gives birth to passion without an Image of itself because it is drawn from that which is contrary to its higher nature. The result is that confusion and disturbance resonates throughout one’s whole being. It is for this reason that I told you to find contentment at the level of the heart, and if you are discouraged, take heart in the presence of the Image of your true nature.” Dialogue 1, The Gospel of Mary Magdalene

The Beauty of Non-Identification

“There is great beauty in realizing that identifying, as the Work says, is the only emotion we know, the emotion of being identified. I repeat, there is great beauty in realizing that it is unnecessary to be identified and you have the sanction of the Work not to identify. Here lies great beauty and it has something to do with connecting with Higher Centers eventually. … The beauty lies in realizing that you have a right not to be negative—and without that realization you cannot remember yourself. All Self-Remembering has to do with the fact that you came down to this earth and life here does not correspond with what you came down from: and something in you knows it—that is, has not forgotten it: and that means remembers it. Identifying makes everything ugly. But the sense of beauty connects us with the two worlds of spirit and matter.” Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries, p1478-79.

“24. Abba Poemen also said, ‘If a monk hates two things, he can become free of the world.’ ‘What are they?’ said the brother to him, and the elder said, ‘Repose of the flesh and vainglory.'” John Worley, The Book of the Elders: Sayings of the Desert Fathers, p12.

Practical Work on Identification

“Try in practical work to see what you have been most identified with today or yesterday and try to separate from this particular form of being identified and try for the time being to make an aim to remember yourself at such times. Certainly you will not be able to carry this out for long because you will find that your efforts become mechanical so much so that you cease to understand what it is you are doing. There is nothing extraordinary in this. It is everyone’s experience, so do not be downcast: try to make effort in some other direction until that becomes mechanical.” Commentaries, p1444-45.

“As attachment, as identification, ceases to be your motivation, your actions will become reflections of compassion absolute.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Claymont 2016 Three-Centered Knowing, 51:00 21-Friday Morning Teaching.

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Logion 27
Yeshua says…
If you do not fast from the cosmos,
you will never grasp Reality.
If you cannot find rest on the day of rest,
you will never feast your eyes on God.

Logion 28
Yeshua says…
I stood to my feet in the midst of the cosmos,
appearing outwardly in flesh.
I discovered that all were drunk
but none were thirsty,
and my soul ached for the children of humanity,
for their hearts are blind.
They cannot see from within.

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Page numbers for Maurice Nicoll refer to Psychological Commentaries on the Teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Eureka Editions:2020) unless stated otherwise. 

Quotations from the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene are from Lynn C Bauman, Ward J Bauman, Cynthia Bourgeault, The Luminous Gospels (Praxis 2008)

Read the Impression introducing the Gospel of Thomas.