For quite some time now , well years to be honest I simply couldn’t bring myself to really perform any rites or rituals. But I didn’t have the courage not to follow some of these and as long as my kind had created a higher version or one that’s cognisant with the present truth of me I was happy to swallow these rituals as a part of my make up. But they still niggled at me slowly gnawing at something inside and I couldn’t put a finger of what that something was. I thought ah maybe it’s just my resistance or maybe it’s the “negative forces” trying to push me in a different direction. Still the gnawing continued. I even took up a daily yoga practice, a lot of healing rituals, oh and burnt a lot of sage sandalwood frankincense incense dhoop and palo Santo. I lit candles daily too maybe more than once. I became a ritualistic in part and moved away from the me that was part of the daily grind and commute into the city in my white shirt with black fitted suit, stilettos sleek stockings perfect hair and nails. But the rituals were there then too right? The concept of me changed but the vehicle of how the me was substantiated accomplished and brought to be was again with an association identification and a dependency maybe not so known though to the rituals.
Even after moving into a different zone notion potion idea and make up of you, you still have a limited view of how God is how people are how life is or how they all “should” be. The associations are all still there.
As long as the concept of I remains then the possibility of “I” can never be experienced. Your cup is too full. The conceptualised version of you requires a conceptual God. You will not be satisfied with anything that has no ritual or a symbol or anything that requires a process even reading holy scriptures. You may feel a longing to be just you and whole but you can’t until you break the concept.
It is not in the ritual but in the breaking away of all the dependency on anything outside of you to get to your goals or to your sense of self and purpose that pose the danger of over engaging in all that’s outside of you.
You will need to attach yourself to a type of God or a religion or a way of thought that supports your conceptualised version of you. Concept attracts concept.
What do I do can reflect who I am but not be who I am as I am not limited to what I do at any given point in time space and distance. Let me give you an example of me. I could say I am a spiritual teacher, I am a healer, I am a mother, I am a wife, I am an artist or I am a guide. But I don’t identify myself with any of these concepts. They are parts of how the concept of who I am manifest and that’s all. I identify with spirit and so I manifest all that’s spiritual in my life – and that is everything as there’s no limitation. If I identify with a concept of spirit or an idea that this is how God is then I will have an image, I will need that image, and God will have been reduced to that image.
When we identify who we are with a concept, spirit, or shall we call it universe or God, will be limited to that concept. Without the concept you can enter that possibility of you and that is a state of no mind.
We are introduced to concepts very early in our lives. What can we do but to live to that which was modelled for us. But wait we are more than that. We have and are spirit.
An example of concept is that God exists as a particular deity and requires certain paraphernalia for worship. This becomes so ingrained that to move away from that is a step to huge to take lest we be doomed to go to hell. On some of my travels I asked the question of why not every person dipping them asked in the river Ganges has not attained salvation because that’s what we are told happens. But we will still dip in because we dare not be different or just be.
Back to the story of the rituals and what always gnawed at me was simply because I was adding layers ideas and concepts without any real sense of self. I knew I didn’t need any of it but what kept me hooked was habit conditioning fear. As long as I still identified with a concept of me I would still need a concept of God to connect with.
God spirit universe higher self and all the rest of the nouns that you can fathom are universal. So why do we work so hard to limit that which is universal and endless. Because we have only experienced a limited concept of us. We don’t want to be bold enough to step into the zone of not knowing and of shredding the notions.
Just think what are you without the labels of you?
I made a point not to introduce a concept of a God to my child but rather for him to explore his own spirit and version of what that means to him. He is so whole and open. Why would I say look son this is the name of the God I follow and this is how we worship.
At infancy our children are pure potential. Let them remain so without adding too many concepts to who we need them to think they should be.
The conceptualised you will only ever bring back manifested versions to substantiate what’s in your mind. After all we are what we think of us. And that means even what we don’t know what we think of us and what is not known that holds us hostage to think a particular way of us.
What’s your concept of you?