There is a story snuggled in Martin Laird’s inspiring book Into the Silent Land about a young man who did not know what to do with his life. One day he decided that he would enter a monastery, but not just any monastery, a “real” monastery. At the first monastery he came across he asked the porter if it was a “real” monastery. The porter answered that it was a fake monastery, but there was a “real” one down the road.

The young man found it and, to his amazement, when the porter opened the door he looked like the very same monk who was the porter at the fake monastery.

The young man settled into the novitiate and after a while decided to make it his profession. He failed. The abbot told him he needed more time in the novitiate. This experience told him about his “faults and failings and presumption”. He grew in self-knowledge and studied the monastery’s history and traditions.

After a while he tried again to make his profession. He failed. Again he was advised to wait a little longer. He obeyed and took to helping in the garden and serving in the infirmary. He did this for a long time. One day the abbot called the young man and asked if he was still interested as he seemed not as keen as when he was making such a thorough study of the tradition of the monastery.

The young man, his face with the freshness and peace of one taught by his poverty, said to the abbot: “Jesus Christ is my monastery.”

The abbot gazed into the man with utter scrutiny as though gazing into the heart of mystery, wondering whether this man realised the significance of what he had said. The abbot stood up slowly and said: “You have learnt our tradition well. May I have your blessing?”

That’s the story. However, there is a hidden lesson for us. How did the young man learn that Jesus was his monastery? This is the key to our identity.

The second unsuccessful attempt to be professed had a transforming effect on him. His life was in despair and needed help. Father Alypius, a wise and experienced priest, came to the rescue when he asked the young man only one pertinent question: “Who are you?”

In all that had happened in his life — his search for a “real” monastery, his being denied profession, the clothes he wore, his name, where he came from, what he had done, the things he had studied: in all these things, the problem was that the young man did not know who he was.

Father Alypius’s answer to the young man addresses us all. “Let me tell you who you are. You are a ray of God’s own light . . . You say you seek God, but a ray of light doesn’t seek the Sun; it’s coming from the Sun. You are a branch on the vine of God. A branch doesn’t seek the vine; it’s already part of the vine. A wave doesn’t look for the ocean; it’s already full of ocean."

Take a deep breath now. Elizabeth Gilbert in her magical book Eat Pray Love reminds us that the yogis say that human discontentment is a simple case of mistaken identity. We’re miserable because we think that we are mere individuals, alone with our fears and flaws and resentments and mortality. We have failed to recognise our deeper divine character. We don’t realise that, somewhere within us all, there exists a supreme self who is eternally at peace. That supreme self is our true identity, universal and divine.

Our problem is that we don’t know that we are one with God. Hence our preoccupation with labels we think define us: I’m a sinner, I’m a saint, I’m useless, I’m important, I am pretty, I am ugly, and so on. These are all labels, clothing, which cover our nakedness because we do not take cognisance of who we are. We are more than labels. To the extent that we believe these labels, we believe a lie.

What we should truly believe is that we are all incarnate thoughts of God. It is life-changing. We all need to be reminded of what the Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus said: “You bear God within you, poor wretch, and know it not.”

The Right Rev Musonda Trevor Selwyn Mwamba is Bishop of Botswana