No One Nowhere.
Who are you when all the labels are gone? When all the descriptions have flown, the labels and self affirmations have fallen away, and you are simply a consciousness, observing the flow of time and matter around you.
Does the thought make you uncomfortable, the idea that you can lose everything that you rely on for an identity…
And yet still be yourself.
You’d be amazed at the pushback I get from some people when I introduce this concept to them. The idea of giving up their titles, their possessions and even a knowledge of where they are is so foreign to them that they experience an existential dread, as though the loss of identity is the death of their selves.
I guess in a way it is, yet it is also the pathway to the highest level of yourself.
The one that serves without selfishness.
But what is more powerful, and ultimately much more healing, is that in giving up everything, you become the person who needs nothing. Imagine the clarity of your thoughts when you can act without need, without a desire to control the moment, simply willing to allow others to be themselves and to assist them in any way that you can.
There’s nothing more affirming than to allow someone to be themselves without having a desire for their behavior or their beliefs.
I’ve written before about how humility is not to think less of yourself, but to think less about yourself. When you can achieve the principle of “no one nowhere”, then nothing is really about you. Insults directed at you become a mere reflection of the pain from the one who issued it.
Attempts to hurt you emotionally become clear as a cry for help from a soul who has not yet found the peace within that transforms into a desire for peace without.
When nothing is about you, you see with eyes unfiltered and a heart open to help.
Yet all of us, especially me, seem to struggle with letting go of who we think we need to be, and what we think we need to accomplish. We cling to the idea that our value is a direct correlation to our achievements or our attractiveness.
In holding on, we bind ourselves to the lies that bring us sadness, unable to see the truth of who we are, and what we are worth.
The worth of the human soul is not a derivation of its assets, but rather a statement of its existence.
We all have different gifts, yet these do not define us. We all have strengths and weaknesses, yet these need not determine the purity of our soul. Our experiences shape us, but they need not describe our totality.
When you are no one nowhere, you can be the truest expression of yourself.
You can be love.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings