You Are Not Book.indb - Stephen H. Wolinsky Ph. D.

34 / You Are Not
‘. . . abstracting [which] implies selecting, picking out,
separating, summarizing, . . . removing, omitting. . . ’
(Korzybski, Science and Sanity, p. 379)” (Sawin)
At the object level the body, nervous system and I AM
are formed. However, even the I AM is an inference, an assumption.
Nisargadatta Maharaj called it the “Seed of Consciousness,”
because it was from or through the I AM that all
other assumptions appear: The Yoga Sutras say it this way:
“. . . self discipline is to hold onto the “I AM.” (Mishra,
The textbook of yoga psychology, p. 414) “Egoism or
personal “I Amness” is the False Identification of the “I
AM” with mental faculty which is when the I AM gets
identified with the . . . thinking mind. . . . The principle
“I AM” (as THE SUBSTANCE) is beyond time and
space. . . . The individual I am is part of ignorance.”
(Ibid., p. 402)
Here it is important to both differentiate and add to the
standard “spiritual” definition of identification. Identification
in Eastern traditions is—“I” I-dentify myself as something,
like a thought. For example, if a thought goes by, which says,
“I am bad,” it pre-supposes that I AM has this thought.
Korzybski defined “identification” as confusing the orders
of abstraction. To illustrate, the I AM has no thoughts,
memory, emotions, associations, or perceptions. The “I”
(nervous system) then labels itself as peaceful, then describes
peaceful as an absence of conflict, then abstracts-condenses
further to Inference-1: “Being peaceful is good and spiritual;
anger is not spiritual,” then abstracts-condenses still further to
Inference-2: “I want to be spiritual, so I must become more
peaceful by getting rid of my anger.” This “spiritual” idea is
not true; it is not a statement of fact, it is an inference and
has nothing to do with the personal I AM, let alone THE
SUBSTANCE. Simply stated, what Korzybski referred to as