The BIGGEST Case of Mistaken Identity EVER

"The Bondage of Self"

One of the women in my support group wrote:

 “Eden (That’s her term for an Eating Disorder. Most of us call it ED.) is telling me this morning that I need to get thinner. That the food plan I am on won't allow me to get much more weight off and I need to start considering other options...” 

Since we’re all working towards recognizing what’s ED and what’s not, I’d like to point to what I see in the above paragraph as a BIG case of mistaken identity, or what I often refer to as identification. 

I welcome the same thing from each of you!

While it is true Eden is talking to you, it is not true that she’s talking about you. She’s talking about the body and there’s confusion of what is the body and what is ‘you’. It’s probably the deepest neuronal pathway there is, identification to that which we were taught we are, rather than what we really are. What a heist!

Think about it... When a body is born, Self has no identification with it. That’s why babies do not experience separation or time. Indeed, they do not even consider the body ‘theirs’ until they have been taught that. After enough repetition, the body as our identification is believed.

Prior to the creation of personality, no baby claims anything to be ‘mine’, rather it all just is the way it is, being experienced and observed. The observing remained (and always remains) untouched by anything that arises, the sensations of the body, emotions, thoughts, clouds, birds, cars, etc…

The peace that passeth all understanding that I mentioned yesterday is that ‘Ground’ of ‘being’ and has nothing to do with the personality or body or anything we were taught. None of us were taught to notice the intangible. Instead, we were taught to narrow the way attention is being paid. I mean, how many times have we all heard, "Pay attention!"? The more trauma to the body there was, the narrower the lens with which sees the world. What we notice most often is the personality, which is nothing more than a transparent movie made of ghost images and ghost audio tracks that take up the majority of our attention and claim to be who we are.

You claim to be the body in your statement, yet notice - You were here PRIOR to any identification (or bondage) to the body or personality. Indeed, it is the biggest identity heist of all times! Yes, there is a body. It's named Sarah, but the body is not you. It’s a point in the view You look out of and a vehicle to have experiences. Claiming that ghost movie to be you, and thinking that’s all there is, IS the bondage of self.

The goal is to keep seeing what you are not so what you ARE becomes more and more obvious.

And how do we see the biggest picture we can? 

By seeing the point of view that is the body/personality is actually in a much larger view. The seer is seen. The hearer is heard. The feeler is felt. In the Bible (for what it’s worth), there's an expression called a single eye. That’s what happens when attention is relaxed fully. Two eyes become one and you become the View rather than than a point in the view.

It is all an attention issue. That’s all it is. 

When attention learns to relax, everything slows down and starts to be seen for what it is.

When attention relaxes, so does the bondage of self.