It took me 30 years to realise. The fortunate thing with insight is that it is not about when, but about if it happens. But this idea changed my life to such an extent, that I can’t go back to my old beliefs again.
Ownership is an illusion. Property, a thing or things belonging to someone, gives you the idea that you actually ‘have’ something. That something is ‘yours’. And our society is entrenched with this very thought. Consider our legal framework; completely built on property rights. Our economic beliefs. The way we do business. Our borders. And even our beliefs about identity.
Ownership is a control mechanism that prevents us from embracing the new and from experiencing ‘oneness’. Clings us to the safe & secure, the past, clings us to old thought patterns. It thrives on fear of loss and promotes fragmentation. Forcing us into a protective mode, creating a void between you and me, between what’s yours and what’s mine.
Consider your relationship. Does your partner belong to you? That he or she, or even the love you share, is something you own or have? Is your name your name?
…Suddenly, a feeling of happiness overwhelms you. Do you think it is your happiness? Or the opposite (yet the same); when you’re sad, do you think you own your sadness? Or is it just merely ‘there’, or better, is it merely ‘being there’, as a frequency to tune into or out of?
If you feel this is so, the only thing that rests is to harmonize with the frequencies out there. And life becomes like a lingering melody that wanders around capriciously, hitting a dissonant every once in a while yet always resolving to the keynote.
A final thought: your body. Do you ‘own’ it? Or is it a temporary means that allows you to do the things you want to accomplish in this small fragment of time you have on our humble little planet?
Because then the fundamental choice you’ll face is the following; Do I want to take or give?
We unfold our true potential by what we give, not by what we have.
“Do you ‘own’ it? Or is it a temporary means that allows you to do the things you want to accomplish in this small fragment of time you have on our humble little planet?”
Or to say it like in the movie Avatar: “All energy is only borrowed and one day we have to give it back.” :)
Can we really leave our deeply imprinted feelings of “owership” behind?? Even monkeys claim property over toys, food, locations etc. They win it, defend it and lose it again, same as homo sapiens, the most socially complicated animal we know of. Sure, we tried to reset our thinking about the right to property in the early 20th century, but it was’t the utopian succes it was ment to be. I agree that owership is an illusion. We borrow, and then try to hang on to it for as long as it serves us, or our loved ones! Perhaps a certain level of egocentricity is an essential part of our evolution…