I often wonder when I see crowd of people mixing together, like Brownian motion, about their thoughts. Everybody is thinking about something. Thoughts that are not connected at all. Yet we identify them as individuals. Different individuals. I often wonder, what differentiates them? How come two sons do not show same behaviors with their parents? What makes one businessman a successful one and another completely bankrupt? What constitutes them? What defines us? Soul, body, mind? Soul we cannot see. Our own body we cannot feel. I cannot see my own eye with my eye. Our own mind we cannot perceive. Or is it other people's opinions that we perceive as our image? So called self-image? If I say, the way we define our relation in a group or a role, becomes our identity, then we have multiple identifies! A person could be son at one time, a businessman at another and a so on. This makes me believe that grossly we have plural identities that are sort of unbalanced and biased based on particular need of the group. So our identity now becomes a role we play that is relatively important of our different associations and affiliations in any particular context. And it further reduces to choice we make for choosing a particular role - choosing a particular identity. That becomes our identity at that particular instance of time. And it changes with time.
If you've got what I wanted to convey you can read further…
Now lets concentrate on concept of Soul and Body. Thought I haven't' read the scriptures completely but still I am quoting what they say about soul and body. If you don't believe in it you can take it as an assumption. The soul is some higher dimensional quantity that can chooses to stay in any body for a definite period of time. Its probably the choice of the soul to choose when to come and when to leave because as an individual nobody wants to die! Ok, coming back to the point, we say an individual is born when a Soul chooses to reside in a Body. Ego defines a Soul. Souls chooses a body. Body gets a form. If everything is working perfectly, without any issues, an individual, or say a child is born. A child cannot think about being a child. Together we define the identity of child. And gradually the thoughts develop and child begins to realize his own identity.
And the people that I see mixing together were those same children at one point of time… and the journey continues.
To summarize...
Ego -> Thoughts -> Choices -> People-> Plural Identity
Ego -> Soul -> Choice -> Body -> Singular Identity
Is their any interconnection? I am not sure. But I see a recursion or perhaps circle.
A = {Plural Identity -> People -> Choices -> Thoughts -> Ego} => (Ego -> Soul -> Choice -> Body -> Singular Identity)
{ Ego -> Soul -> Choice -> Body -> Singular Identity -> }
B = { Ego -> Soul -> Choice -> Body -> Singular Identity -> } => { Plural Identity -> People -> Choices -> Thoughts -> Ego }
{ Ego -> Soul -> Choice -> Body -> Singular Identity -> }
{choices} -> A -> {choices} -> B -> {choices}
What is this?
BABABABABABA… ? That floats on carpet of choices!
A Circle of Life - chosen?