Where do you place the feeling of "I"? The place where one puts the feeling of "I" more mechanically is the place where one is more identified. If we could place this feeling of "I" in "self-remembering", we would not identify ourselves. But this action is a conscious act, because nobody can remember himself in a mechanical way. Self-remembering is a conscious act, a conscious positioning of "I" that requires attention.

    A person can be totally identified with his inner state; he can feel simply depressed or angry and being simply his state. Then, his feeling of "I" and his state are one and the same thing. This is called inner identification. He is identified with himself. His feeling of I is placed in his mood. Let us suppose now that he watches his state from a distance, the feeling of I would be placed elsewhere. This requires, among other things, attention. Attention puts us in the most conscious part of the centers. When we identify with an inner state and we observe it, we stop being automatically identified.

    In this work we use the non-identification as a powerful instrument, which can reveal a new feeling of I to us, yet is an instrument that has to be developed by its own use. The transformation or the glimpse of another thing is very difficult if we are continuously identified with what we come across. It is necessary to divide ourselves in two, that is to say, that we are able to observe our states. If this division is possible, if we are able to divide between the watcher and the watched thing, we begin to be able to change the usual position. This is a way to free one from the prison of oneself.

    Regarding being identified with life, as we are able to render attention towards what we do then we will stop being identified. Life is a series of events and states. It is not the things, people, the objects, but the events that put these things, these people and these objects in relation to us at certain times. An event gathers the elements; it puts them in movement and goes on.

    We have to see life as a series of events, not as a set of things, people or mere visible objects. If you could contemplate the situation in which you are involved as a particular kind of event, you would not be able to identify with it and I remind you that, in order to do this, attention and conscious effort are needed. All events are repeated. There are only a determined number of events that can happen for each person. Life extracts our energy by these old and repeated events, which we have always identified with. If we could internally separate from an event with which we have identified all our lives, trying to isolate it and to name it, we would be freer from it.

    A great contrast between the mechanical life and "the life-work " must be in this work. We must enter life and pass through as many dramas and comedies as possible in order to gather great material at the centers, a fullness of experiences, otherwise the necessary contrast between life and this work is not possible. A person who does not know anything about life sees no difference between life and the work, lacks of contrast or tension of opposites in him. That is to say, he takes life and the work on the same scale.