Online dialogue interaction on 3 August, 2025
This was a truly beautiful online interaction that we had on zoom on the theme of ‘Identification: Why do we identify?’. It was delightful to see friends from across the country including Bangalore, Aurangabad, Ranchi, Varanasi, Gurugram, Delhi, Kolkata and more. Many thanks to Vijay Chhabra ji, who joined us from the hill retreat in Jalna to facilitate the interaction. We found it all very enriching and the interaction was so friendly, informal. Thanks to all.
Am attaching the links to two very relevant texts which you will love to read. The first is the one that Chhabra ji read out towards the end of our interaction. It was a question and answer with J Krishnamurti in Bombay in 1948 about attachment. The second is Chapter 2 in the Commentaries on Living (Series 1) on ‘Identification’. Am also sharing the link of the short you tube video which we shared ‘Identification is a trick.’
All these are worth looking at. It appears that ‘Conflict’, which was the theme of our dialogue at our Centre on 27 July, is inevitable as long as there is identification. Similarly, attachment and identification appear to be very inter connected. There is much to reflect on. Needless to say, the dialogue interaction does not end here. In fact, I hope it will merely be the start of deeper inquiry and reflection.
It seems that as long as identification is kept functional and factual, it is not destructive. So, in itself one’s being born in a particular country or in a particular family or a certain religious background or language is just factual, incidental information. It need not be the instrument of division and conflict. Identification however, with all its psychological baggage of the past and the ‘me and mine’ conditioning, makes conflict inevitable.
Incidentally, this very short two minute video below may help us find the answer to the question ‘why do we identify?’
