When this writer was coming into his youth, he wanted to be a basketball player. There is nothing unusual about that, except that his entire experience with basketball consisted of attending one semi-professional basketball game with his father; nothing more. He set up a hoop in the barn and practiced sporadically. About a year later, the family left the farm and moved to a small town. The move coincided with his first year of high school. He tried out for the high school basketball team. Because he was awkward and uncoordinated, he was one of the first to be cut from the squad. That did not damp his enthusiasm. He became a manager, someone who polishes the balls and takes care of the equipment. His interest in basketball has continued to the present. He does not know if the interest was because of the excitement of that first game, or because of the companionship of his father, or something else, but it has been part of his life, for better or worse.
For the “worse” part, there was a downside to this interest, with regard to spiritual growth. It was in identifying with specific players, or teams or even a city. Identification is a detriment to spiritual growth.
The verb “to identify” has two definitions. According to the unabridged Webster dictionary, one meaning is “to establish the identity of”. This meaning has a long history in mysticism and the occult. For example, the Pythagoreans believed, as many schools of magic do, that one has an advantage, if one knows the name of someone. A name is not accidental. To know the name of someone, which is to identify them, is to know something about them. This kind of “knowing” is not trivial. With this knowledge, one has some useable knowledge about the person . The names of some gods, which give access to their power, have always been kept secret. King Solomon had such knowledge and used it. Some say the name of Christ is exoteric, and that the real name is not trusted to the profane. In the Gospel of St. John, Christ says “If ye ask anything in my name, I will do it.” This kind of asking is more than just saying words, and knowing the name means more than merely knowing to call someone Chuck, or Janice, or Jesus. “And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” Most often, we do not believe enough. The power of one’s name has been mostly lost, but not completely. The power in the reputation of one’s name is shallow. Signing one’s name to a bank loan is not quite so shallow. Faust signing his name in blood to the contract with Mephistopheles was a deep ceding of the essential power of the spirit.
The main variant of the other definition of “to identify” is: “to link in an inseparable fashion : make correlative with something.” Correlative in this definition means “a bound reciprocal relationship.” Identifying with someone means having a give-and-take relationship with them. This says nothing about the fairness, and quality of what is given and taken.
Most complementary relationships are reciprocal, but usually do not involve identification. Interdependence in complementary relationships is healthy. “No man is an island of itself… .” We all need each other. In generations before ours, marriages were more complementary than they are at present. They were also more partitioned. There were things one partner did, and other things were done by the other partner. It worked. Families were raised, and children matured socially. Complementary specialization was efficient. It allowed free time and energy for other things beyond the family.
There are other forms of complementary relationships with specialization that are successful, such as realtors forming complementary partnerships with accountants. However, not all aspects of interdependence and specialization are desirable. Specialization, in the face of major changes, leaves one vulnerable. When this writer’s mother died, his father was left vulnerable. The vulnerability was more than emotional. It was in prosaic, practical, things. He had to learn to prepare his own food. He never learned to do his laundry, not because he was incapable, but because he had developed an attitude about himself that he was incapable of learning to do laundry. He had developed an attitude of dependency rather than an attitude of voluntary interdependency. In biological evolution specialists are often dependent symbiotically on fragile environments. When major changes, such as a cataclysm, occur, most specializing species are gone forever. It is the generalists that can adapt and survive.
Self-reliance is key to general spiritual evolution. Max Heindel did advise us to adopt one spiritual path for efficiency, but not to become specialists. There is special emphasis on self-reliance in the Rosicrucian path. Dependence is anathema to self-reliance. It is not meant that we eschew complementary relationships, it is meant that we maintain self-conscious self-reliance within them. We do not want to identify with a partner of any kind, as our “other half,” as is so often done.
Partnerships, of any kind, are horizontal relationships. Which means that they are between individuals on the same level. The more deleterious identifications and dependencies, are found in vertical relationships. Vertical relationships are with those above or below us, in one way or another.
Intentional identification with someone generally inferior is almost always unfortunate. Many intelligent, and well brought up, teenagers smoke because they identify with others who are not so smart or well-behaved, because they are “cool”, unlike the socially inept identifier. Almost everyone regrets such an identification later. Identifying with basketball players who are amazingly talented physically, but seriously backward mentally, socially and morally, is not so smart either. Compensating for a specific deficiency by identifying with someone adept in the area of deficiency, but who is generally wanting, is almost always regrettable. Losing one’s identity to a cause has similar consequences. One’s identity is ceded to the crowd. Self-reliance. One might not attain excellence, or even proficiency, in an area of weakness, but that does not mean one should not work in that direction. If we don’t apply ourselves, we will never develop proficiency.
We are trying to develop spiritually. Spiritual development can only come in general, balanced, character development. It is dangerous to seek advancement in spiritual faculties if one has serious moral deficiencies. In this regard, it might be likened to inflating a balloon. As the pressure increases, if there is a weak spot, a bulge will develop that will eventually pop. The difference with spiritual development is that the balloon is capable of selective self-strengthening. Max Heindel used to refer to this as “building moral muscle.” Those who have pledged themselves to work with a true spiritual Teacher, an Elder Brother who works with the Recording Angels, are presented with exactly the right life experiences to strengthen where there is weakness. One doesn’t fail a trial, one gets better where one was weak.
Vertical relationships, in part or in whole, present problems different from those of horizontal relationships. As with horizontal relationships, the problems are a mix, some are benign, and some not so good. Having people to look up to, can be extremely helpful to improvement of any kind. Parents do this service to their children without even intending to. It is called “role modeling.” If one reveres and follows the example of someone worthy of reverence, both parties are blessed in the relationship. Many mystics have advanced by aspiring to emulate, in their own way, worthies who have preceded them. A Venerable is someone at the first step of beatification for aspiring Catholic mystics. Seeing someone live out things we can only aspire to, is extremely encouraging. “If they can do it, why can’t I?”
We call veneration gone wrong, “hero worship.” It is clearly vertical identification. To participate in hero worship is to personalize something, which is more effective to our benefit, if it is kept impersonal. Instead of sharing a common aspiration with someone on a higher level, hero worship produces a personality cult, a static relationship. “That person will always be better than me.” Vertical aspiration is dynamic, vertical status is not. It is best to look up with aspiration. If one does not, one’s growth is stymied. Musicians are often influenced by those who came before them. If they play in the style or technique of those they admire, they improve but only to a limit. If Ray Charles had remained a Nat King Cole impersonator, he would never have developed his genius. Eventually imitators hit a ceiling. They cannot come into their own until they throw off the straitjacket of their idolization. Self-reliance.
Identification, whether horizontal or vertical, is eventually almost always limiting, or even weakening. It is so because we are giving up, or giving over, something of our essential being, our individuality, to someone or something else. We are crippling, or handicapping, ourselves from attaining the very thing we are aspiring to. It would seem wisest for modern spiritual aspirants to completely refrain from all identification, with one exception, Christ.
Identification with Christ in Life Spirit, is different from human identification. The selfness of Life Spirit is the source of all Selves. When one identifies with Christ, one is not giving away one’s individuality, as one does in ordinary human identification. One is finding the purpose of one’s Self in a way that cannot be found in one’s Self alone. One is freed from solipsism without losing something of one’s essential being, as one does in an unhealthy self-sacrifice. Instead, one gains intimate, spiritual union with everyone, in sharing the common Self of Life Spirit. One develops an indissoluble bond of divine, altruistic, love.
Aspiring to be a Christian is not an easy task, for those of us with a worldly attitude. Christians, of all types, are admonished to give themselves and everything they do, or possess, to Christ. We are told to do things “for the Christ’s sake.” When we do this successfully, we see things from the more universal perspective of Life Spirit, and we are cleansed of individual bias. There is no performance anxiety. We are freed from seeking reward. We are freed from sin. To the degree we are successful, do we see that what we have given up was relatively worthless. In doing this, or even trying to do this, our lives might seem no different in outward appearance, it is inwardly that we are changed. In identifying with Christ our lives and selves are returned to us with unbelievable richness. “And I will pray to the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, … which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name… . The Comforter is the Self. Self-reliance.
In this mundane world we often do not have access to those with whom we would identify. With Christ we always do. “I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” Thus, as with St. Paul, when he was struggling with “a thorn in the flesh,” we can have inward consolation in Christ, and hear: “My grace is sufficient for thee.”
