Who are you? Are you a man, a woman? Are you your name? Your nationality, religion? Are you defined by the things you like, the things you do? The amount of money you have? Your skin color? You ancestors, you memories, experiences? Have you fallen into the identity trap as well? Sure you did, we all did.
We become quite obsessed with identity as we grow up. First we start with just being here as Life, exploring, learning how to move and speak. But already our parents start calling us by our name and so we identify with the sound of our name. Then we learn we are a boy or a girl and that girls are not the same as boys. Girls wear pink and boys wear blue for example. Then we start to identify with our family because we see that our family is different than other families. And as we start to watch TV and go to school and be among peers, then the competition starts in trying to be special, because that is all that we see on TV and in our world. Lots and lots of competition, where everyone is trying to be special, where people are focusing more on differences than similarities and where everything is given a label and judged. We start talking with our schoolmates and we discuss what one likes and what one doesn't like and we identify with that. We start to identify with the clothes we wear, the things we have or don't have, the nationality, religion, skin color, the sport teams we support, the products we like, our body shape, with our profession etc. And from a very young age we already fall into this identity trap, where we try to differ, be different, special and then justify and defend our specialness as some sort of holy right. We start demanding from others to respect our specialness we proclaim, while at the same time we judge others... As a consequence, we constantly compare ourselves and also judge others. And so we create a lot of conflict between ourselves where we allow abuse of others, just because they are different. We see people as labels, not living beings. We project our judgments onto everything and so we separate ourselves from everyone else. We see ourselves as more than others or less than others and so allow exploitation to exist between men, animals and nature. We learn in school that we as humans have a different identity than animals because we are smarter and that animals are different than plants since plants don't move much. And so we identify ourselves as being superior to animals and plants and we don't really care what happens to them. We don't see them as Life. We don't see that all Life is equal, because you cannot say who has more Life than another. How much Life do you have compared to a dog, a tree, an ant or a whale? Who has more Life? It's not definable. All Life is equal.
Imagine how much conflict we can resolve when we simply realize that we are all Life and that all Life is equal. If we label/identify someone as our enemy for example, we want to destroy him. But when we remove the label/identity of him as an "enemy" and see him as Life, then we realize that destroying him is not really the best solution as we are not really more than him or different in our essence. So the better way is to consider each other and find a solution that is best for both/all as Life and to treat another as we would like to be treated in their place.
So, lets get rid of all the fake identities we try to give ourselves and others. Lets forgive ourselves for wanting to be special and separate from others. We are obviously all still unique as physical beings, but at the same time one and equal as Life and this is all that really matters. When we truly realize this, then we also understand that the best way to live and treat each other is by following the principle that is best for all Life: do onto another as you would like to be done onto in their place. So lets start identifying ourselves as Life and see all others the same - as Life. Lets prevent everyone from falling into the identity trap of separation, comparison, competition and abuse. It doesn't serve anyone. As Life - we are all equal in value.
