Losing The Baggage

The mind is consumed with its problems and the grind of daily living. These problems along with the monotony of living creates a being that exist, it seems, just to carry around baggage. The baggage of the past which weighs one down with its worrisome fears of not achieving or not having whatever it is that the mind desires. We may try to escape through the various distractions that seem to give relief. One may seek relief in recreational activities or spiritual pursuits. Or one may just give up and find relief in drink, drugs or sexual promiscuity. But those problems do not go away and in some cases our escapes only deepen our sense of hopelessness.

When we carry around the baggage of the past it invariably affects what we do and do not do in the present. In essence we are not living in the present we are just using the moment to renew the past. So we get caught in a never ending circle of reliving our baggage, the past as memory. We are under the illusion that we are dealing with the problem but all we are doing is reviving what should have died long ago. To let go without trying to get some "thing" or some "closure" is the way that one "moves on". To see that what is held on to is just the minds need for security and a sense of self. Life takes care of its self. It really does not need your doing or not doing. Things have a natural order that is the reality of what is. But the moment the self inters the picture life becomes complicated. The self wants reality to conform to its own image, so it creates the problem of what should be and is unable to accept the reality of what is. Change is always in what is, not in what should be. What should be is the repetition of what was as the conflict of projected self image. When the self is not there is already change.

Because we carry around this baggage of disconnection and discontent we are unable to see the truth of the moment. One does not see that the self is the problem and that the baggage is its defining element. In reality we know that the baggage is the problem of self, what we do not realize is that we cling to it because it creates a sense of self. The self finds security in problems and there projected solution. Even if the self solves the problem it still continues to be a problem in absentia that is relived for the definition that it provides. One does not really desire the freedom of the moment, because it is without the self as the definition of what is. So one is caught in the repetitious bondage of self created problems.

The first thing is to realize that the baggage you carry around is you, it is not separate from you. So to deal with it one must see how that the mind clings to problems and issues that give it a sense of identity. The mind is constantly projecting the image of the content of its own consciousness. The baggage is its conditioning. A conditioned consciousness cannot realize beyond its own defining elements. When one realizes that it is possible to be aware in the moment of this whole activity of mind/thought, then something new may happen. That which is unconditioned may flower into an understanding that causes all that baggage to fall away. Not as a result of something that is learned or gained through some sort of teaching. But a clear realization of the self that is the outcome of freedom and the subsequent dissipation the conditioned self.