The Destruction of Individuality

by Frank M. Wanderer

As children, playing free of problems, we live in the present moment, in the state of alert Consciousness. Then, carefree playing was replaced by more serious things in our life. From our parents we learned who we are and what our mission in life is. We were told that we are young human beings, still in the process of developing and shaping, and becoming an adult is a hard work.

Carefree playing was gradually replaced by purpose-oriented work in our life. Our teachers and parents therefore taught as how to set up objectives, how to make plans, and we soon learned that future is more important for us than present. We then concentrated out attention from the vividness of the present moment onto the image our parents and teachers created in us, onto the image we need to become one day. Simultaneously with that process, the impression that we are not what we are supposed to be emerged gradually in our mind.

As children we simply had no choice, we had to accept the process, we had to identify with the new image. We are therefore moving away from our own inner nature, under the hypnotic attraction of a future goal to be achieved later. This process makes us a replica.

That is how our different convictions have been created over the years, that is how we have created a system of values and beliefs for ourselves, and we now organize our entire life based upon those systems. Those conditioned mental patterns serve as a background to the events that are happening to us day by day. The majority of our worries, desires, pleasures and motivations are derived from those mental patterns and all these, in turn, further reinforce those patterns.

A characteristic feature of these conditioned mind patterns–no matter how different they might be in different cultures–is that they reproduce themselves. They therefore produce human replicas that meet the expectations and norms of the society they are born into. They adjust to, and keep the rules of their respective society, and they become effective members of that society. They think, behave and feel as expected from good citizens. In the meanhwile, they preserve the illusion of free choice, since the conditioned mind patterns are, to a certain extent, flexible. Then we identify with the conditioned mind patterns and begin to believe that we know the answer to the question regarding our identity, our goals in life.

That is how our personality develop, though the original goal of that personality was to represent their individuality in the world. This individuality is, however, hidden deeply under the thick layers of conditioned mind patterns, beliefs, ideas and identification. Thus it is no wonder that we live as replicas, and completely forget about their original mission in this world.

Here are 16 warning sings that show that, you are a replicant:

1. Our attention is always engaged by something, something that we need to deal with, so we very rarely take the trouble of looking into ourself.
2. We aspire for something all the time, we always want to achieve something.
3. We chase our desires and unfulfilled dreams. We are attracted by money, power, prestige, a wholesome, happy life.
4. We are never satisfied, we always want something else, we would like to be better, more beautiful, richer than we are at present.
5. Thoughts come and go all the time. If we attempt to suppress them, it is only possible with considerable efforts, and even then to a short time only.
6. In most of our waking time, our Mind wanders either in the past or in the future, in our thoughts we deal with our experience of the past, offences we suffered in the past, or with our future plans, goals and fears.
7. We do not simply live through our experiences, but we also categorize them as good or bad. We judge everything that happens to us and everybody we meet in our lives.
8. The dominant character of our life is the Ego; we wish to make it larger, brighter and more individual. That is why we are learning, gathering knowledge from others, until the end of our life, in the belief that we will thus become more and more intelligent.
9. The Ego always means some sort of an identification, self-determination (I am a man, I am a father, I am an Englishman, I am Christian etc.) The Ego therefore rests upon our identification with things that are important for us Ego.
10. The deepest source of indifference in us is the fact that we live as separate and isolated Egos and, most of the time, our attention is engaged by telling our personal history.
11. The appreciation and opinion of others are very important for us. We want to meet the expectation directed at us,
12. We always watch the other people, we compare and measure ourselves to them. All that time, we also try to adjust our actions and deeds to the expectations and opinions of others.
13. In our daily life we tend to cover our real face with a set of masks. Our personal identity is the collection of our various masks. We immediately put on one of those masks whenever we are not alone.
14. We are pleased to play the social roles that are dictated by our community. We thrive to be good parents, a good husband or wife, useful employees and law abiding citizens. Our entire identity is based upon those roles.
15. Our personal history keeps us under its spell, in a hypnotic state. In this way we give up our Alertness, the world passes by us, because we only concentrate on the elements of reality that appear to confirm our personal history.
16. We do not look for true answers to the question ”Who am I?;” we are content to be told that by others.

The process of identification does not stop just because we have become spiritual seekers.  But now different things are becoming important for us, for instance the extended state of Consciousness or the experience of the astral projection. At that state of Consciousness, we identify with these experiences, these are the factors that are important for us, they provide the identity of our spiritual Ego. Nothing has really changed, apart from the forms and shapes we identify with.

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