Identifying

What is meant by ‘identifying’ in The Fourth Way?

The terms ‘identifying’ and ‘identification’ are commonly used in conversation, and have the following meanings according to the Oxford English Dictionary:

a). identification – the action of identifying, or the fact of being identified.

b). identify

1. prove or recognize as being a specified person or thing.
2. recognize as being worthy of attention.
3. (Identify with) feel that one understands or feels the same as (someone else).
4. (identify with) associate (someone or something) closely with.

In order to be clear about what is meant by ‘identification’ in the Fourth Way, we can use Mr. Ouspensky’s description when being asked about this by a student:

…when we begin to observe emotions, particularly, but really all other functions as well, we find that all our functions are accompanied by a certain attitude; we become to absorbed in things, too lost in things, particularly when the slightest emotional element appears. This is called identification. We identify with things. It is not a very good word, but in English, there is none better. The idea of identification exists in Indian writings and the Buddhists speak of attachment and non-attachment. These words seem to me even less satisfactory because, before meeting this system, I read these words and did not understand – or rather, I understood but took the idea intellectually.  I understood fully only when I found the same idea expressed in Russian and in Greek by early Christian writers. They have four words for four degrees of identification, but this is not necessary for us yet.  We try to understand the idea not by definition but by observation. It is a certain quality of attachment – being lost in things (Ouspensky 1977).

Maurice Nicoll also speaks about identification from the point of view of the development of consciousness:

We are told in this Work that one of the things that we have to
observe in ourselves is identifying. It is said that identifying is the most
terrible force acting on this planet that keeps people asleep and so
prevents them from awakening. As we are—that is, as mechanical
people, who do everything mechanically and have not got any proper
consciousness—we identify at every moment. We identify with our
thoughts, with our feelings, and we identify with what happens in outer
life. In this way we are kept in prison without realizing it—and only
through the development of consciousness can we get out of this prison (Nicoll 1984).

References

Ouspensky, P.D., (1977) The Fourth Way, p. 12, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.

Nicoll, Maurice, (1984) Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, Volume 3, p. 899, Shambala Publications, Inc.

P D Ouspensky (1878-1947)