Abandoning who-you-think-you-are gets easier the more often you do it. It's the same thing that's expected from the dead person when the Tibetan lama reads to it from the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
The problem in both cases is that the dead person or idea of yourself doesn't know it's dead. It's a big deal in the now defunct Tibetan culture because they claim the spirit of the dead person will be approached by a series of globe-like lights by which the spirit is supposed to let itself be absorbed into the light, but any resistance will stop it from happening. The biggest problem is that the spirit of the dead person can't accept that they're dead, and pay attention to what's being offered on a one-time-only basis.
I'm saying there is who-you-think-you-are, and neither were or will be. If the dead person's spirit refuses to accept that it's past life no longer ex-is-ts, but now, only is, and no more, chamber doors not withstanding...
That's why some pundits preach against the sin of needing to feel like an important person. Writers like Carlos Castenada claim that desire is the biggest impediment to spiritual understanding there is. Spending any time at all attempting to convince the other the world owes you a living is time you could have spent waiting for the colors to be-co-me with in order to matriculate to the next quest. "Abandon hope all ye who enter here."
It's the same way I interpret The Fool card in the Tarot deck. It's the zero card. It's neither high or low. But, if those in the high arcane to pass to the low arcane, and those in the low arcane wanna pass to the high arcane, both parties have to find a way to change who-they-think-they-are into who-they-thought-they-were.
They have to abandon completely their old way of doing or it gets in the way of where they're trying to go. They have to let the dead past bury it's own dead in order to attend to the light at the end of the tunnel, and in as fully conscious a mode as possible. It's only when the living spirit of the dead man realizes that what he was is now a mere carcass, that it can let go of what it was and let itself be absorbed unknowingly into what it can be. Maybe it's not just a species flaw. That the part that has to be overcome. The spirit not only has to let it's dead past bury it's own dead, but it's got to let itself be absorbed into a future of which it knows not.
It's pretty much the same story with the Grail quest. Percival, the country bumpkin tried to obey the laws of a gallantry instead of simply asking the Fisher King where it hurt when he was carried before him on a litter.
It's my ill-considered opinion that these myths and fairy tales depict the same story as that of the first Saturn Return in the system of astrology. The Saturn Return happens when the planet Saturn completes it's first orbit around the Sun 29 1/2 years after the native draws they first breath. It's reputedly when men let go of the personality they were raised to have and take on their own individuality.
The first part of life is a process of individuation culminating in the Saturn Return. It was written that the age of thirty is when the boyhood life of Jesus got in his way, and he offered it up for crucifixion as baggage to be abandoned. He had to become something else, and being his Father's son could be a real drag. So, he did the suicide-by-cop routine to put it all behind him, then retired with Mary Magdalene in the south of France the wine industry was well established, and he wasn't obligated to turn water into wine except on special occasions.
It's how the native reacts to the transformation wrought by their Saturn Return that determines how the rest of their life will go subjectively. That's because it's at this juncture that one realizes their fate is in their own hands, and that facticity can be a curse as well as a blessing.
I just got through watching this TEDtalk video by this woman percussionist on how to listen:
http://www.ted.com/talks/evelyn_glennie_shows_how_to_listen.html
She is a great communicator and she knows her subject. I was astounded by her skills with her hands and how she plays the drum and the vibraphone. She uses them throughout her talk, but at the end of her talk she plays the vibraphone, and it truly astounded me. I wanted to grab somebody by the elbow and direct them to look at what this woman was doing. I wanted to scream at my children, "Look! Look at what's she's doing. That's what God is like!"
I do not attempt to tell the God's own truth here because I don't know what the truth is or hardly ever. I try to capture the drifting thoughts that randomly appear in my imagination for reasons I may not understand. I don't know if the content I capture with these words is true or false. The Comments settings are turned off to prevent me from having to defend what amounts to little more than fanciful, sometime crude speculation. Great moments in our lives never return.
