The Importance of Individuality

“If I'm going to sing like someone else, then I don't need to sing at all.”

- Billie Holiday

Spiritual traditions often point to our essential “oneness,” to the underlying unity beyond our ego-identifications. Consciousness is fundamentally singular and our sense of separation is illusion. The Yoga Sutras tell us that asmita, or ego-identification is an aspect of avidya, or ignorance. Liberation or enlightenment in this sense seems to be a release of individual identity, a transcendence of “I, me and mine.” But what does this really mean? Certainly we cannot function without some sense of identity.

Ego in this sense is really an unconscious identification with the body-mind which serves as a vehicle for the soul. “Soul” here refers to our deeper more essential nature as beings of consciousness. We don’t “have” souls as much as we are souls. The ego is more of a description we have developed of ourselves vis-à-vis the world. However, we hold onto that description for dear life! An essential aspect of the ego is our non-stop internal elaboration of this description of ourselves; what we usually refer to as “thinking.”

The ego in this sense is hardy “individual.” Instead it is the result of conditioning or “programming,” by family, culture, media, religion, etc. There is very little within us that is truly unique, creative or spontaneous. Instead we are imbedded in a narrative which originates elsewhere. To truly discover our individuality we have to reach beyond our egos. Perhaps “reach beyond” is a bad choice of words. We have to go deeper within ourselves to uncover what is more real, more essential and truly alive. What is truly individual within us is a unique expression of the One.

Culture is actually just the biggest “cult” around. As much as we need to stand out and be special, we need to fit in. Spiritual groups often become a substitute culture. We become spiritual “borgs”, identified with the collective and out to assimilate. “Resistance is futile!” Whether we are Moonies, Hare Krishnas, Evangelical Christians, or Scientific Materialists the modus operand is the same. A true spiritual culture, like a good family is meant to help us grow beyond its limits. At some point we are not supposed to “fit in.” At some point we are meant to individuate. To be an individual we may have to face ridicule, shunning, and outright hostility.

We experience a broader collective identity in various situations: at a sports event, concert, religious ceremony or group chanting. This ego “transcendence” takes us into an experience of a collective or shared identity. In some cases it leads to group violence, in others to a sense of shared peace and oneness with a higher Being. It can be a group regression as well as a transpersonal experience. It depends on the level of consciousness of the group itself. I have never heard of a riot following kirtan. We have to be aware of which kind of collective field we are being swept into. We also need to be able to detach ourselves from that field. God, or Self, is the field of all fields, present everywhere but ultimately transcendent. And, as the Upanishad tells us, “Thou art That.”

So, paradoxically, individuation is what brings us into closer contact with the totality, the essential oneness of Being. Individual responsibility is essential to our spiritual development. Jesus and Buddha were both outstanding individuals. Their followers merely seek to imitate them, at best. They both exhorted us to do better than that. “Be yourself,” as Gerard Way says, “don’t take shit from anyone and don’t let them take you alive.”