This continues the meeting of the weekend work of Saturday 15 November 1986. Mr Adie has introduced the concept of “de-identifying.”

Kevin:   All I could manage was to notice that I was identified all the time. The only way in which I ceased to be identified by something was to be identified by something else. The forms of identification were very varied. I noticed that. And they could be trying to get more comfortably involved in some work to get it done. What I didn’t really succeed in doing was to have enough overall feeling of observing. Somehow there seemed to be some weakness or lack. Lack of continual memory; that is what the effort is supposed to be.

Mr Adie:   Very near it. But now, if you take it theoretically, what is, in general, the activity necessary to be able to de-identify yourself?

Kevin:   Deliberate preparation or deliberate relaxation.

Mr Adie:   Actually, it’s clearer than that. It’s to be able to study identification. I can only de-identify myself according to my study of identification. If I make a study of the identification and don’t try and lose it, then I gradually build up the power to de-identify myself, because I’m always identified, I must be. I’m always attached to something. My “I” is not yet fully developed, and it’s not that there. And so my being-state is related to what is around me and it will always be that way.

So, if I can make a study of the different forms of my own identification and those which are very costly and those which are less costly, and experience the state of making that study, I free myself from the identification. I observe it, I observe it like anything else. I observe a table, but I don’t become the table. But if I know nothing about it, I almost do. I like it because it’s an antique, its colour, I’ve almost become the table. But if I made a study and I know that, I can regard that without that disappearance. It really is a new opportunity. If you realise that there’s no other way to work than to be present to your identification, and learn it and not move away because it’s uncomfortable, you have the experience of presence.

I cannot wait until I’m God in order to be free, I have to gradually develop the power. And my identification provides me with all the real material for my effort. What I experience on the way, of course, is not very easy to put into words. You were expressing some kind of search and effort, not very cut and dried, but you mentioned your observation. That isn’t your normal state. That is a state of a certain kind of activity going on in you which is not normal. It’s in the direction of doing for your being, and that is a freer experience. You were not lost. You didn’t know where to go, perhaps, but you were not lost, not to yourself, because you have a recollection of it. I didn’t disappear. I knew I was in a forest, but I didn’t disappear. So, I shall recognise that forest when it comes again.

What did other people find? It’s an experience we’re talking about. The importance of the observation is not the observation,  the importance is the experience of making the observation.

Steiner:   At the first stop we had after lunch I remembered the idea of de-identification and it suddenly came as a shock to me that this was something completely new.

Mr Adie:   Yes. After how many years, identification becomes new. Of course it is, and you have the experience of being drawn and then being able to collect yourself before being lost. It’s true. I have to find new experience. They’re almost unlimited, and it’s going to be a passage where each step is a fresh experience. Each experience can add a small crystal. Everything is unique, every experience is slightly different. And if I come out of that with something, if I get a little bit from that, it adds to this central centre of gravity and this crystallisation. Gradually I acquire a centre of gravity and then impressions go there when they hit me, to  awaken me more and more. Certainly, I need shocks to call me at the moment. With pleasant things, I sort of open my mouth like a big trout and take it in and it’s lovely and there’s no work. But sharp things awaken me or tend to.

Gerard:  The first three times this morning that I remembered the idea that was given, I simply thought, well, what to do?

Mr Adie:   What to do? Exactly.

Gerard:   And there was a thought, well, I’ll just try and take impressions from around me in addition to what I’m doing.

Mr Adie:   But what you said is absolutely invaluable; it’s the whole thing. There’s something to do; and it’s an inner act. I’ve never really realised that I got to animate my inner self in order to do anything. All other doing is nonsense. What have I got to do? That’s really why I introduced this “de-identification,” because it suggests an action. It is an action.

Gerard:   That happened about the first three times, and then the next time the thought was, well, pay more attention to the job. And then I suddenly saw that I’d been identified. I was shaping a piece of stone, and I had been so sucked in by it, that I hadn’t given a single thought to how important that stone was in the whole wall. I can only say is an incredibly brief flash of a sort of an understanding that I can’t really put into words. I saw that my understanding of the word identification itself had been formatory as though it was just one thing. It showed me how one of my habits is becoming very identified with any moving or bodily function. I noticed time and again that I do something fairly physical, and there would be no thought about of how that fitted into a bigger perspective. Just that action.

Mr Adie:   I find that even on the smallest common sense level of a man who comes to build a wall, I’m not working right. Yes, I even lack that. How many times have I said I want more questions about the work itself? I’ve repeated and asked and asked and asked, year after year, pointing out that this is not a group meeting. This is different. We have this very differently arranged work, which we haven’t chosen to do, we’re giving a whole series of examples of opportunities, yes, it is.

Again, what action do I take? All my other activity is automatic. It isn’t activity, it’s passivity. And suddenly I get a glimpse of identification. An action is called for of a very special kind. Not to run away, just to remain, but to observe and to understand, and begin to de-identify. Making an inner action is only possible by taking some of the force which I was losing. All my attention was flowing out. Now I have a little bit for myself.