This post is an invitation to explore living with an attitude and perspective of “not knowing” as though you are an unbiased observer.
As an experiment, while reading this post, consider the mind as a virtual blackboard and frequently wipe it clean, erase the blackboard, imagine you know nothing at all and are willing to be open to new information.
From my experience, to live with the perspective of not knowing seems easy to imagine at first until we realize the habitual, reactive, and judging nature of thoughts. Most believe the stream of thoughts inside the head belongs to a personal me who is the owner of these thoughts.
What if you understood you are not the owner of thoughts? Would you feel better, lighter, less stressed? Most of us are living constantly in our heads, our thought streams, habitually labeling, naming, and claiming, with the pairs of opposites, what is appearing as belonging to a separate and personal me. I was stuck in an identity trap for decades believing I was a separate person with a personal awareness and ability to make decisions. Of course, believing that I was a separate being also ensured I was often suffering, longing, and discontent with what is.
I define the Identity Trap as a core set of self-referential beliefs and concepts which perpetuate the false sense of a separate and personal identity living in a time-based reality.
Reinforced by family, society, educators, and dogma, these beliefs and concepts veil the natural flow of impersonal consciousness always here, now, like this breath. We overlook and ignore this perfect aware presence, this perfect edgeless peace by veiling it with personal identity and concepts of time and space. Are you stuck in an identity trap?
Anita