The Three Stages to Freedom

In today’s post, we look at a model for the three stages of mental identification. Understanding this difference is critical to becoming free. Let’s dive in.

The most common stage where we find ourselves is the ‘Object Identification’ stage. This means that we feel that the other person, the object, the situation, the government or something external to us is responsible for our problem. In fact, the preoccupation with the external ‘object’ is so much that we even forget ourselves for a while. This is best understood in extreme anger or grief. In that state, we even lose the capacity to recognize that we are suffering. There is just the pure, raw, uncensored emotion that takes over the entire being. Some of us may even vehemently deny that we are suffering at all, and continue to blame the other. This is a highly entrenched egoic position of self-defence. This state is rooted in fear, but our egos are so dominant that there is a strong denial.

The second stage is the ‘Self Identification’ stage. This is a common state that sensitive people find themselves in. Such people feel that they are suffering. While there is a recognition of the external object that caused the suffering, the focus of one’s attention is more on ‘How could the other do this to me’?. The emotions commonly experienced in this state are sadness, pity and hurt. There is a heightened awareness of the pain but the emphasis is on the ‘I’ that suffers. While this is still not a fully free state, it represents progress over the object identification state.

The final stage is the ‘Non Identified’ stage, which is the state of being free. In this state, one recognizes the external trigger, the internal emotion, but does not superimpose the concept ‘I am suffering’. Instead, they gain the capacity to say ‘There is suffering’. This is a very important distinction. When we feel that we are an ‘I’ that suffers, then there is something we need to do. We need to resolve the emotion either through counter-attack (shouting, revenge, and so on) or through thinking (indulgence in self-pity, dark thoughts and so on). Both these are mechanisms to get rid of the uncomfortable emotion for it appears that this negative emotion destroys our sense of self (i.e. the ‘I’). Instead, a non-identified person accepts the emotion and sees it as being there, but (s)he does not identify the emotion with an illusory ‘I’. And this makes all the difference.

True freedom comes when we adopt this witnessing position to our thoughts and feelings. We realize that perceptions, thoughts and emotions – the only three things there can ever be – are all arising on their own accord within awareness, and disappearing of their own accord. This coming and going of the three modes of cognition aren’t being controlled by a thinker, feeler, or do-er called the ‘I’. We must experience this for our own selves. Only when we come to recognize that there is no ‘I’, can freedom come about.

Therefore, begin by adopting a witnessing attitude – first to simple things – like a beautiful sunset. Then to times when we are excited, joyous. And then to challenging times – when we are angry, triggered or deeply sad. While experiences are always changing, the knowing of them (i.e. consciousness) always is. That is, experiences are always known. There simply cannot be an unknown experience. By practising this repeatedly, we begin to stabilize in the fact that we aren’t an ‘I’, a person, or an individual, but we are consciousness itself. We have an infinite capacity to know infinite things. And we never change. We always are. This gives us the confidence that nothing can harm us. Nothing can add unto us. We need not crave anything. We are eternally free.