When I was a small child I liked to play Houdini. I’d get my sister to tie me up and then I would escape. I was good at it. That all came to an end when both of my sisters hogtied me. I couldn’t get loose and got really upset. My parents put an end to the Houdini game.
The funny thing is I went through my life tying myself to things and ideas mentally and didn’t even know it. Eckhardt Tolle calls this identification in his book A New Earth. It is an important part of his explanation of the Ego. “The unconscious compulsion to enhance one’s identity through association with an object is built into the very structure of the egoic mind”, as he puts it. Any time I call something mine I am tying myself to it through identification to enhance myself somehow. Examples are my house, my team, my career, my belief. Of course the reason for doing so stems from the belief that I am not enough, which I have addressed in other posts.
Ownership in and of itself is not bad. However, enhancing my value from such ownership is destructive to me. Americans celebrate independence day on July 4th. Texans take independence to a whole new level, yet examples of surrendering that freedom through identification are omnipresent. In that process I am relinquishing control of my wellbeing to something over which I have no control. That seems like a form of lunacy.
For most of my life I kept tying myself up in an ever increasing knots through identification. I was using knots to anchor to something that isn’t my real self. These anchors seemed to provide protection, but in reality were self made prisons. Like some knots, they tighten the more I struggle to be free, through ever greater identification.
According to Greek legend whoever could untie the complex Gordian Knot was destined to rule Asia. It was said that Alexander the Great cut the knot with his sword, a unique solution. After reading about identification I discovered a two pronged approach to escape the knots. The first is being present. That means accepting current circumstances as they are before ever trying to deal with them. Let it be, as the Beatles said. The other is meditation, being my real self. For me they work hand in hand, as if they are one. My life improved greatly.
I was still left with one major knot in my life, so complex it truly seemed like the Gordian Knot. I thought I could hack the great mystery of existence and beyond. The more I unraveled the knot, the bigger and more complex it became, tightening its grip on me. I finally cut the knot with the sword of surrender. I came to the point where I knew I would never understand existence and was okay with that. For me that is true faith. I resigned as general manager of the universe.
I had fun playing Houdini as a kid. Learning to be free was the struggle of a lifetime. I was fighting myself, until I learned to let go. Now I am attracted to items and ideas because I genuinely like them, not as an anchor to be enough. That’s incredibly freeing for my time, energy and soul. Nothing more complicated than perception.
May you have enough today, one moment at a time.
THIS HELPED ME 