Isn’t it true that, even on a good day, most of what we do and think is about Me and Mine vs Them and Theirs?
Though we are but souls disguised as humans, the notion of our separateness from others permeates most of what we do and think. It is visceral.
Not only do we separate ourselves from the other, a stranger, but we often separate ourselves from our *loved* ones, too, when they go on pushing the wrong buttons for too long.
It’s not our fault – really it’s not.
This way of thinking has been passed on to us through the millennia and, tragically, it would appear that this patterned thinking is perpetual.
To make matters worse, current culture keeps reminding us, regardless of our age, that we are *special* and that we are *unique *and that self-indulgence is a just reward.
Clearly though, we, as individuals, are about as unique as are cookies on a baking tray.
If these cookies came from the same batch of dough then yes to an extent a cookie is a cookie. But cookies, even if from the same batch of dough are unique as in, some which were baked at the front of the tray and the top of the oven turn out a little harder, maybe even have a bitter-after taste, others baked in the center of the tray may be soft and moorish whilst some remain half-baked and unedible. If you don’t mind bitter after-tastes, burnt choc-chips or half-baked dough that sticks to your pallette and just enjoy everything cookie just because it is a cookie, they may appear to be the same.
Imagine one cookie from the batch looked small, no choc-chips were visible on the surface and as usually happens with cookies it is left in the cookie jar till last, fingers in and out choosing the nicer cookies, sounds of mm mmm from the cookie choosers and although left in the jar the lid is sealed tight each time a cookie gets chosen and mmmm and ahhhhed then back on with the lid time after time untill there is just that small single cookie left that no-one wanted…a solitary cookie it has become, all the others have been eaten…this is now a unique cookie…isn’t it…and still fresh, still containing its sweet choc chips which incidentally there were more of than in the larger cookies…but hidden inside!The cookie knows it is a special cookie, it could become a tough-cookie or accept that as long as it knows its a nice cookie…accepts itself “as is” it can remain living sealed in the jar for ever such a long time because its different, a unique cookie.
If it doesn’t believe in itself then what if one day a hand reaches in and actually chooses that particular cookie amongst others that have been piled ontop, will the cookie crumble, comfirming it deserved to spend its life at the bottom of the jar. If we were only about as unique as cookies on a tray then that cookie is the one I would choose to be…the unique cookie which I am.
Tina, good evening/bordering on good night/sweet dream
I absolutely LUV your response. It’s fun, quirky and fresh. But, no matter how moorsish, laden with choc chips, nuts or oats, or cheap and nasty it is, a cookie is basically only a cookie.
A cookie can only dream of ever becoming a birthday cake and doing the moonwalk adorned with many a candle
So, yes, we are all individuals in the sense that, like the hero of your cookie story, Tina, we come in somewhat diff shapes and in somewhat diff colors and with a marginally diff dough mix.
True, too, is the fact that, we, in Cookie kingdom, have an obscure but common fave pastime – that of puffing our cookie-chests till … for a brief moment … some of us manage to sound and look like a muffin. And that’s usually done at the expense of pretty much all other cookies.
Cool, but when the heat gets turned on or when the cold sets in or when time does its thing or when we get cracked into – it makes no diff what sort of cookie stuffing we have inside our cookie-shape, we end up a hard little crust of nothingness and the best thing we can hope for is to be gobbled up by someone … who doesn’t cough us back up cos that’s seriously a bad look for us, cookies.
You: it could become a tough-cookie or accept that as long as it knows its a nice cookie…accepts itself “as is” it can remain living sealed in the jar for ever such a long time because its different, a unique cookie.
Me: Oh, Tina, this is not about become self-assured or more independent or more self-sufficient. That sort of preoccupation belongs to the realm of self-help psycho-spirituality – and that’s not at all what i’m into.
Having said that, when you say, “it can remain living sealed in the jar forever,” that is usually what we do from inside the wall of our persona.
We act and we react quite predictably – en masse – a good 6 billion of us – trapped inside our M.O. as if inside a sealed jar.
You: If we were only about as unique as cookies on a tray then that cookie is the one I would choose to be…the unique cookie which I am.
Me: yup, we all are marginally different but, truth is, we are much more than cookies. We have a soul that gives us our humanity. Soul gives us our karma and our ego, the only tools we have to evolve beyond our mere cookie status.
Our soul is a greater soul than that of our wonderful dog, cat, pet snake or mouse. So we have to be even better, more loving, less conditional than they are.
Having said that – the dog, a healthy dog, has got to be the most accepting, the most forgiving creature on the planet – after us, if only we cared to raise to the challenge.
The thing is, being in the moment and being loving by nature, the healthy dog accepts What Is and it forgives, whereas we do neither – not really – not deep down – not in a heartfelt way.
When it comes to us, humans, unless we refrain from patting ourselves on the back because we can do pirouettes – what we are doing does nothing for the greater good of all and … the greater good of the Self.
All we are doing, again and again, is what every Tom, Dick, Mary and Jane are doing, which is indulging the *lowish* end of our ego.
The more altruistic responses happen when we react from the *highish* end of our ego, knowing that Ego is neutral – as neutral as the rain or fire or sun rays.
Not only that, but it is in Ego that are reflected the messages Soul intends for us.
Ego reflects Soul’s energy just as the moon reflects the sun’s light. Be it through ignorance or mental laziness, most of us choose to pretend there is no *high* end to our ego and we keep playing the low notes.
Ego is also as neutral as a horn, a harp or an electric guitar. It just is. Up to us how we choose play it – smooth or discordant.
Back to puffing ourselves to muffin proportions – that does nothing to help us actively accept What-Is.
Instead it keeps us in our groove, in our comfort zones. It keeps us in constant re-acting/reactive mode and this mode gets tripped every time something/someone pricks us.
Thinking I am an individual. I have needs and these needs need to be respected is what keeps us asleep at the wheel.
It is what keeps us, nicer people, reading books and more books – on spirituality – but not moving beyond reading. Reading and doing rituals.
It is what keeps us off the spiritual path that could otherwise, one day, in this life or in the next, give us real soul-power – real soulffullness – the stuff that would make us react towards our *loved* ones from the heart chakra, no matter what they got up to – it’s the stuff that would make it easier to actively accept What-IS, as it is – in the moment under our feet, the only moment that truly exists.
Kind thoughts from me