The waking life, what we cognize to be the ordinary waking state, is a continual drama of these three activities of identification, differentiation and desire.

The "causal" being, which is also the seat of deep sleep, manifests as the activity of identification, or separate self sense, through contraction of the causal center on the right side of the chest.

The subtle body, which is also the seat or condition of dreams, is the internal or subtle organ, and it manifests essentially as the elaboration or differentiation of thought, feeling, energy and sensation.

This is done by contraction of the subtle mechanism, which has many centers or functions in the spine and brain.

Then the waking state adds this movement of desire or manifest vitality, the descending and "frontal" life.

The traditional searches are an attempt to return to the simpler origin.

When they turn inward in the waking state, away from desire, this is religion.

When they turn inward from subtle life and dreams to forms of subtlety or light beyond mind, this is spirituality or yoga.

The intuitive methods of the would be Jnani or Buddha turn beyond life and subtlety into the causal ground.

But in fact all of these are simply ways of going from one state into another, moving from one condition to another that is relatively more subtle, or relatively more free of conditions.

None of these functional movements is the Truth itself.

But when a man comprehends his own adventure, and his search occupies him less and less, when his suffering becomes the only real possibility for him, when suffering or dilemma becomes his essential condition, regardless of his state, waking, dreaming, or sleeping, then there is the possibility of real intelligence, of spontaneous re-cognition, of understanding, of Truth.

The world is seeking, nothing more. And all seeking is suffering and separation as continuous creations. They are created by the perpetual activities of identification, differentiation and desire. These are the mechanism of the avoidance of relationship. And these three are continuously performed in the various levels of being, corresponding to what are called the "chakras" or the circuit of creative centers, and the various bodies, realms and experiences. The consciousness of the seeker is a constantly changing perception of dilemma. And in all that he does he is always only avoiding relationship.

The Knee of Listening

DEVOTEE: You have said this action takes the form of identification, differentiation and desire. In a concrete situation, what happens?

FRANKLIN: The ordinary sense that a man has, sitting, walking, is of separate existence. He doesn't ordinarily say to himself, "I am this body, I am this mind, I am this, I am that."

No mental process goes on that is itself the communication of this sense to him.

He already has this sense.

He wakes up alive, he moves in bodily terms, it just seems very obvious.

And there is the. sense of some sort of subtle limit, size, shape, or difference. That is identification. It is called the "ego."

Differentiation is all the forms, all the qualities of cognition or mind, in which everything becomes an extension of this same thing that he has assumed.

Everything becomes a "this."

Look at this, look at this.

Suddenly, there are endless planes of significance.

The very structure of his thought is "this, this, this."

Spontaneously, everything is already multiplied, distinct.

Having already, spontaneously acquired this sense of separate existence, and while already perceiving, thinking a range of multiplicity, of separate natures, forms and forces, he moves.

And that motion is desire.

This separate one moves.

He conceives a realm of multiplicity in which to move, because he is separate.

There is something, even a world, that he is up against, so he moves.

And that movement is desire.

An endless adventure is possible when these three assumptions are made.

And that adventure is what people are doing.

All men, all ordinary beings who are karmically manifested in the material worlds, are living this adventure.

Each one lives it with different qualities, different circumstances, different ranges of subjectivity, but all essentially are living it on the armature of this same structure, this same form, this same complex of assumptions.

There present state, "me," separate, with everything around me moving.

What you ordinarily perceive to be your condition at any moment is the best example of it.

Now all adventures, all human adventures are possible from that point of view, and all are built on that point of view.

And that point of view is the dilemma.

All accomplishments take place within the framework of that dilemma.

Therefore, all pursuits, all searches, all activities, all accomplishments, spiritual and mundane, are possible adventures within that same framework.

It is not that the spiritual ones are better than the mundane ones.

They are all the same adventure.

The Method of the Siddhas

Said the Blessed One, "Lord of Lanka, seest thou not that the differentiation of things, such as is perceived in jars and other breakable objects whose nature it is to perish in time, takes place in a realm of discrimination [cherished by] the ignorant? This being so, is it not to be so understood? It is due to discrimination [cherished by] the ignorant that there exists the differentiation of dharma and adharma.

Lankavatara Sutra

It is Brahman Itself, which does not admit of any differentiation. The knowledge of the fourth quarter is realised by merging in it the previous three. That is to say, the waking state is merged in the dream state, the dream state in dreamless sleep, and finally, dreamless sleep in Turiya, or Pure Consciousness.

Mandukya Upanishad

The zero of the heart is expanded as the world. Consciousness is not differentiated and identified. There is a constant observation of subject and object in any body, any functional sheath, any realm, or any experience that arises. Thus, I remain in the unqualified State. There is a constant Sensation of "Bright" Fullness permeating and surrounding all experiences, all realms, all bodies, all functional sheaths. It is my own "Bright" Fullness, Which is radically non-separate. My own "Bright" Fullness includes all beings and all things. I am the Form of Space Itself, in Which all bodies, all functional sheaths, all realms, and all experiences occur. It is inherently "Bright" Consciousness Itself, which Reality is even every being's Very Nature (or Ultimate, inherent, and inherently perfect, Condition) now and now and now.

Vedanta Experience

when enquiry has settled in the heart, awareness develops as what Ramana, Ramana Maharshi, calls the 'Amrita Nadi . I call it the 'Form of Reality.' It is the circuit of current from the heart to the head. As a child I knew it as the 'bright'. In the unqualified state all identification, differentiation and desire have ended. There is only unqualified relationship realized in enquiry to be already the case.

The Knee of Listening

If you are always present in relationship, not the avoidance of relationship, and enjoy that radical state under all conditions, you will not assume the forms of identification, differentiation or desire. You will simply be present in relationship, and this is itself perfect control, and I mean this literally. Control of the functions of existence comes about spontaneously, naturally and easily in one who understands. But one who tries to control himself in the midst of compulsions and difficulties never succeeds, because he always gravitates karmically back to the condition itself because he hasn't penetrated it. He hasn't understood.

The Life of Understanding

The forms of identification, differentiation, and desire, the things that one does in reaction to what is Witnessed, are all motions of attention. The beginning of Wisdom, then, is to observe yourself as you are. Forget philosophy, religion, and all the garbage of life. What precisely is your situation in this moment? Even now, you are That Which is Witnessing these arising conditions, whatever That Which is Witnessing this is altogether. Ultimately, you Realize that you are just That, and there is no doubt about it.

The Incarnation of Love

So what I was recognizing here is the primary activity, the prior activity in consciousness, which prevents its fundamental enjoyment. And what is the nature of that primary activity? It has two aspects. The one is separation in consciousness, this continual realization in consciousness, of separation. And the other is contraction in life. And life and consciousness are not separable, but the peculiar qualities in which this activity within us manifests itself are a separative activity at the level of consciousness and contraction in the mechanisms or functions of life. So it appears always as identification, differentiation, and desire.

It appears as a separate self sense, it also appears as a knot in the navel. It always appears as contraction and separation. And I saw that perhaps we can think of this in evolutionary terms as the gigantic organic process of the universe manifests the human function, the human possibility, the psycho-physical entity that may or may not become fully conscious in all that it contains.

The Life of Understanding

So suffering and separation "are created by the perpetual activities of identification, differentiation and desire." Seeking manifests in the forms of suffering and separation, isolation and dis-ease. But the qualities, the various kinds of suffering and separation that tend to manifest are themselves expressions of these fundamental qualities in conscious life, which are the qualities of identification, differentiation and desire, which I have talked about in a number of ways. Identification is this whole drama of separate self-sense, in its subtlest forms, not just as self-imagery. That self-imagery has more to do with the quality of differentiation or mind or thought. But self-sense prior to imageries. Just the self-sense itself, which is always what is dramatized when you become selfish, or working from the point of view of yourself as an entity. So these qualities of suffering and separation are built on first of all, the separate self-sense in all its form but as an essential quality, as an essential activity in consciousness. The fundamental contraction at one level of consciousness is this separate self-sense just as at the physical level it can take the form of a sensation, a cramp of some sort in the psyche it takes the form of the separate self-sense. That is why Maharshi says the "I" thought is the first thought.

The next activity of which suffering and separation are the manifestation is the activity of differentiation. Distinction, difference, other. Wherever there is an other, there is fear. This whole process of differentiation or thought. Examine the process of thought. Thought is just momentum of differentiation. Just as you are never, barely for an instant, without this separate self-sense of an omnipresent condition of consciousness, thought is also hardly ever interrupted in the waking state and it is always in the form of differentiation, that's all thought is. Thought is differentiation. It's the generation in consciousness of the sense of differences, either between two or more things. This over against this. Thought is always in the form of a distinction. So the separate self-sense or what we commonly call ego and now differentiation or thought.

So ego, thought and the third mentioned here is desire, which is generated by these two. What is the activity of the entity, separate one, in the midst of his endless activity of differentiation or thought. It is movement, motivated, desire, always motion. A particular motion. People don't move non-particularly. You always move in a particular way. Movement is always directed. It's always in the form of desire. Motion that is without desire is motion without particularity, without specific direction, or goal. So it's absolute motion. Motion without desire. It's perfect motion. It's without a center, as well as without a goal. So it is the absolute being. The perfect God. That's the only form of desirelessness ultimately. But desire as we ordinarily know it is particular motion, motivation. It's this entity, separate self-sense, acting through some mode of differentiation, some quality of thought. So, the ordinary life from moment to moment is the separate self-sense involved in the qualities of thinking or differentiation. Moving, particularly motivated, living as desire.

The Life of Understanding

At times avoidance is generated through desire. At others through differentiation. At others through identification.

The search created by those attached to desire is the love and service of God. The search created by those attached to differentiation is the way of mystical union. The search created by those attached to identification is the way of Self-knowledge.

But those who fail to overcome desire seek endlessly for that which they do not possess. Those who fail to overcome chronic differentiation are endlessly dismayed by alternatives. And those who fail to overcome the process of identification are endlessly bound to the assertion of qualities that are unlike the things they perceive.

Desire is chronic activity. Differentiation is chronic inertia. Identification is chronic limitation.

But understanding constantly recognizes the pattern of avoidance in each of its forms. It is already free of the search implied in each form. It is entirely free of the consequences of every path. Where life appears as identification, differentiation or desire, the man of understanding is already free of the form of avoidance implied in each.

The Knee of Listening

Identification, Differentiation and Desire

As soon as there is the ego-position - Identification - (or “self”-contraction), there is the entire conditionally manifested universe. When there is no “self”-contraction, there is no conditionally manifested universe.

You are “Narcissus”. You are looking at an - Differentiation - image, and you think the image is actually “there” — as something outside you, as something that has nothing to do with you, except that you are seeing it as an “object”. As “Narcissus”, you are controlled - Desire - by that “known-object”. You have already taken up the ego-position—and, from that position, you even regard Me as a “known-object”, “digitalizing” Me into the checkerboard that extends from your little block of presumption.

Said the Blessed One, "Lord of Lanka, seest thou not that the differentiation of things, such as is perceived in jars and other breakable objects whose nature it is to perish in time, takes place in a realm of discrimination [cherished by] the ignorant? This being so, is it not to be so understood? It is due to discrimination [cherished by] the ignorant that there exists the differentiation of dharma and adharma.

Lankavatara Sutra

It is Brahman Itself, which does not admit of any differentiation. The knowledge of the fourth quarter is realized by merging in it the previous three. That is to say, the waking state is merged in the dream state, the dream state in dreamless sleep, and finally, dreamless sleep in Turiya, or Pure Consciousness.

Mandukya Upanishad

The zero of the heart is expanded as the world. Consciousness is not differentiated and identified. There is a constant observation of subject and object in any body, any functional sheath, any realm, or any experience that arises. Thus, I remain in the unqualified State. There is a constant Sensation of "Bright" Fullness permeating and surrounding all experiences, all realms, all bodies, all functional sheaths. It is my own "Bright" Fullness, Which is radically non-separate. My own "Bright" Fullness includes all beings and all things. I am the Form of Space Itself, in Which all bodies, all functional sheaths, all realms, and all experiences occur. It is inherently "Bright" Consciousness Itself, which Reality is even every being's Very Nature (or Ultimate, inherent, and inherently perfect, Condition) now and now and now.

Vedanta Experience

The forms of identification, differentiation, and desire, the things that one does in reaction to what is Witnessed, are all motions of attention. The beginning of Wisdom, then, is to observe yourself as you are. Forget philosophy, religion, and all the garbage of life. What precisely is your situation in this moment?

Incarnation of Love

At any moment avoidance is primarily in the form of identification, differentiation or desire, and secondarily (effectively) in the remaining two. But these three account entirely for all forms of avoidance.

Unpublished - Adi Da Samraj - 1970

But in the instant of differentiation the most primitive archetype of all knowledge appears. It appears as a simple presumption of independent existence, consciousness, and pleasure over against all kinds of relations or objects, high and low.

The Enlightenment of the Whole Body

0bjective or independent self, world, and God are the conventional illusions. The primal incident is differentiation of the One and Present Reality, which is Infinite Consciousness, from Love, Radiance, Light, and Vibratory Life, or all the Infinite Eternity at once. But in the instant of differentiation the most primitive archetype of all knowledge appears. It appears as a simple presumption of independent existence, consciousness, and pleasure over against all kinds of relations or objects, high and low.

Enlightenment of the Whole Body

So what I was recognizing here is the primary activity, the prior activity in consciousness, which prevents its fundamental enjoyment. And what is the nature of that primary activity? It has two aspects. The one is separation in consciousness, this continual realization in consciousness, of separation. And the other is contraction in life. And life and consciousness are not separable, but the peculiar qualities in which this activity within us manifests itself are a separative activity at the level of consciousness and contraction in the mechanisms or functions of life. So it appears always as identification, differentiation, and desire.

It appears as a separate self sense, it also appears as a knot in the navel. It always appears as contraction and separation. And I saw that perhaps we can think of this in evolutionary terms as the gigantic organic process of the universe manifests the human function, the human possibility, the psycho-physical entity that may or may not become fully conscious in all that it contains.

Life of Understanding

It is in the childhood of man that the idea of God-apart or Reality-beyond is conceived. The sense of dependence initiates the growing sense of separate and separated self through the experiential theatre of growth. The intuition of the Whole, the One, is the ground of birth, but "growing up" is a conventional pattern of initiation in which the sense of difference is intensified. At the level of the life-functions themselves, there needs to be such functional or practical differentiation, but the implications in the planes of consciousness are the cause of an unnatural adventure of suffering and seeking in dilemma.

Garbage and the Goddess