Identification is unconscious, but when you use identification in a meditative technique it is conscious. Whatsoever may be the object, if you are conscious it becomes meditation. Try identification consciously - it becomes meditation. Unconsciously, it is a great sin.
You are all identified with many things: "This is mine, that is mine..." You are identified! "This is my country, this is my nation, this is my national flag..." If someone throws your national flag you become furious - what is he doing? You have no nation and all national flags are myths. It is good to play with them like children do; they are toys. But you can murder and be murdered for them, and countries can be created and destroyed for insulting a national flag. And it is just a piece of cloth.
What is happening? You are identified with it. That identification is unconscious. Unconsciousness is sin.