Here on Earth, we as people participate in the great Game of Life. We find ourselves in the most physical reality on the Game board. The rest of the Game board, in which the higher realities and players are to be found, is something we cannot yet see. Our baggage has helped us to get here.
The game of life
The baggage that we carry with us is directly or indirectly the result of unprocessed emotions that we have gradually built up as a result of traumatic events. This stored baggage has weighed down our bodies and blocked a great deal of our initial qualities and options.
Fear has drawn us out of our senses and into our heads. Fear and insecurity feed the need for power and control, leading us to cling tightly to each other and to material things.
The following parable, shared from ‘Illusions’ by Richard Bach², teaches us something about this:
The Master answered and said: ‘Once there was a village of creatures at the bottom of a great crystal river. The current of the river silently ran over them all – young and old, rich and poor, good and evil, the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self.
Each creature in its own manner tightly clung on to the twigs and rocks at the riverbed, for clinging on was their way of life, and resisting the current was what each had learnt from birth.
But one creature finally said, ‘I am tired of clinging on. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. If I continue to cling on, I shall die of boredom.’
The other creatures laughed and said, ‘Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you shall die before the boredom disappears!’
But the creature disregarded them, and taking a breath, he let go, and at once the current tumbled and smashed him across the rocks. Yet in time, as the creature continued to refuse to cling on, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was no longer bruised and hurt. And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, ‘Look, a miracle! A creature like us, and yet he flies! Look, it’s the Messiah, come to save us all!’
And the one who was carried by the current said, ‘I am no more a Messiah than you. The river delights in lifting us free, if only we dare to let go. Our true task is this voyage, this adventure.’
Just let go
This quote describes abandoning the battle and the resistance against everything good that life can and wants to offer us.
We’re so used to holding ourselves and one another back and to fight for whatever gives us the best hold. How many people cling to a relationship or job that doesn’t nurture them, just because they’re afraid that nothing better will come in its place? This takes so much effort and exertion.
We want to let go so badly, but we’re afraid of the consequences. We don’t realize that life can take good care of us as long as we allow it to do so, and trust it. It is like with a parachute; you have to trust it to open properly and unfold beautifully when you jump from an airplane.
When we’ve had enough of struggling, suffering and swimming against the natural flow of Life, one day we’ll give up resisting of our own accord. Believe me, just let go, Life will catch you!
Go with your flow
In the flow of Total Life, every person has his or her own unique life flow. This leads you towards your destiny, has your ideal life tempo and gives you everything your heart desires. Effortlessly, you link up with the people and experiences that correspond to your specifications, wishes, qualities and characteristics, without having to consciously create them. As soon as you let go and, by surrendering, let yourself be carried along by your flow of life, life takes care of you and lets you see who you really are. Problems and conflicts are nothing more than rocks in the river and you simply pass them by, without a fight, without exertion, effortlessly! Surrendering is not a passive attitude to life. It is an active attitude, full of trust with which you live and act according to what your positive feelings tell you.
On with the game
The aim of the Game is to increase our awareness and be able to release our baggage. This enables us to gain more trust and we can let go at our own pace of that to which we have clung out of fear and insecurity.
Our environment is a reflection of ourselves. If don’t like what we see, then we must let go of whatever it is within us which has attracted this, in order to then once again be part of the flow of Life. In this way we consciously experience the journey and, step by step, find our way back to where we come from: our Source.
Our excess baggage determines how we play the Game and how we see and experience ourselves, our environment and our reality. Our excess baggage influences the way in which we act and the degree to which we cling to our reality and our way of life. Our excess baggage gives colour to our thoughts and individual characters and also to the way in which we deal with the challenges and setbacks in life. Our excess baggage has helped us to stimulate one another to grow in this reality.
What are you wearing?
We can choose to simply let go of the excess baggage that is accompanying us. Or we can carry on struggling and continue along the route taken. The choice is ours.
The Jacket Technique will help you let go of your excess baggage when you want to. You’ll become lighter, you’ll gradually gain more confidence and you’ll learn to follow your feelings.
It’s time to take a close look at our old jackets and, when you want, to take them off and throw them away. Then you can stand up and let yourself be seen again. Point your finger to the referee and say ‘I want to play.’ This will make you visible again, just watch it happen!
From The Jacket Technique © 2012 by Hans de Waard, published by Ayni Books.