Without Ourselves

3/9/2024

Here is my reflection to the poem of 10 year old Afton Wilder :

Who am I? What is my true identity? Why am I here? What is my original face? What is my original voice? What is my authentic self? What is my purpose of being in this world? What if nobody walks with me on the road with me? What is my vision? These are very important existential questions for me. There is one SELF. There is one FACE. There is one VOICE. There is one authentic ME. If I lose my true identity, I become a multiple personality. I lost my real self. I lose my real voice. It is not that easy to be myself but it is essential for me to listen to my voice and sing my own song. As I am reflecting on this question Rabindranath Tagore's song Ekla Cholo Re comes to my mind. Walk alone if no one is standing by. Open your mind and speak all alone to be in harmony with all existence. This kind of authentic identity is not against universal identity. I am a part of the whole, not apart from the whole, oneness in manyness. There have been times when I have served people going beyond the limits of myself. I follow the spiritual path of living called Karma Yoga. As a counselor, I provide my free service to people who do not have money to pay for getting counseling from me. Doing such selfless service brings deep joy and fulfillment in me. As I was growing up, I saw my parents doing selfless service and living a truthful and simple life. We were outwardly poor but inwardly rich. They showed me the path of living without the burden of the world, living lightly and fully. I am deeply grateful to them for teaching me the spiritual path of living, Karma Yoga.

Namaste!

5 Comments

Dave Mulbarger link

3/9/2024 10:50:32 am

Two weeks ago Elaine Noonan asked if you would allow me to join the group Saturday afternoon to hear Dr Dave . I have been ill and could not attend.
I would like to attend this afternoon. Please let me know how to join if it is acceptable. Thank you.
Dave Mulbarger

Ankit H. Shah

3/9/2024 11:39:41 am

Being ten years old is absolutely wild.
It seems like a really fun party in the author’s head and i cant seem to understand anything she is saying other than maybe we can do more if we didnt hold ourselves back?

Elaine K. Gotfryd Noonan

3/9/2024 04:35:55 pm

Dave,
Did you receive the information you needed to join the group? Check your email and search by name. Ramya.

Debbie Podwika

3/9/2024 02:52:46 pm

First of all I'd like to say this is just an amazing piece of hypothetical thinking for a 10-year-old. Next I'll comment on the piece itself. The first part of the poem the author views the orb as our self, our conscience, and it is glass. That is significant because glass is fragile and the author is very concerned that it will break and not just break where you could put it together again, but then become ice and melt and disappear. This makes me wonder if the author is worried about losing him or herself. Thinking about that age range and depending upon gender and thinking about my childhood, this can be a time period where one's sense of self is a big focus. One may be starting to think about what they believe in and what they don't believe in, contradictions in life, perhaps what people, especially parents, say versus what they do. As I read it, I also tried to think about the environment the author may be in, as we know there are quite a wide variety from one extreme to another. Losing one's conscience, keeping a foothold as the author says, "I'm fighting for our conscience" makes me think perhaps the environment may not be all that great, but of course I don't know for sure. The stepping lightly idea is certainly what we hear about for sustainability and knowing at that age range some messages and viewpoints from one area can confuse into another area of life, I'm wondering if the author is mixing things or applying things in different areas. The author then talks about being more without limits and that is interesting and significant to me what are those limits?Is it limits of what I can do for my age range? Is it a limit of perhaps culture or social economic class, gender etc. that they are questioning. And the last part to me is also significant of stating "trouble after all" and "burdens of the world." It makes me think that the author feels like they're in trouble a lot and wondering about their purpose.

And now to reflect on your comments Dr Dave...

I think the beginning part is very interesting because there are people that never even ask those questions, they just live. They do the stages of life as society tells them to. They may not even question whether they're happy or not and whether that unhappiness is because they've never asked those questions to know whether what they are doing is what they want to do. At the same time, for some they may also be spiritual and ask is what I want to do what God wants me to do. Perhaps they are not listening to God, much less themselves and doing only what others want them to do. They may also have not really thought a great deal and formed their own set of beliefs or morals and again just do what others tell them to do. Perhaps it is with the desire to fit in and to be liked or even loved. Some people sacrifice their true self and purpose for that reason. I don't believe that anybody really walks fully with us on our path. I think I've mentioned before how much I love labyrinths. I think people walk with us a bit and then diverge, and others come in and then they leave or go down their path a little more which might diverge from yours. I hope you get that idea. That can be reflected by people perhaps moving or not having as much time for you in their life at a certain point in your life or people passing away and others being born and coming into your life. And sometimes, if we have the courage, we may want to take the path that others are not willing to go down or we may want to create a path where there was no path before. I'm in Jamie Kern Lima's second book that just was published a couple weeks ago called Worthy. She has a poem called, you're not crazy you're just first. It is the idea of everybody telling you what you want to do is crazy, but that's only because in their viewpoint they've never seen anybody do it before because you're the first one doing it and we have to have the courage to do that. It is also sometimes the viewpoint that they don't think you can do it or you are worthy...who are you to think you could do something like that? I think it's sometimes is a bit of fear in those people as well because if you could do something like that that means I could and what does that mean if I'm not doing it? Hmmmm

Elaine K. Gotfryd Noonan

3/9/2024 04:33:52 pm

Love "you're not crazy, you are just first"

Walk mindfullly and dive into life

Mindfulness

Without Ourselves

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