Ben Jones, author of “Ash and Truth (The Road of Ashes)“
We often hear that self-image is a restriction, egoic belief, or a distraction to true self-news. This is true, but at the same time, the image, dream, desire, or expression we create or perceive ourselves is the way our true nature moves into form.
This true nature can be said to be intangible, empty, and always present. Nevertheless, the perception of human life with the images that are not fundamental, but accompanying it, is the same intangible as expressing itself, rather than an independent, clear experience.
For this reason, our image is important. It is a kind of imprint that guides us and guides us to follow the joys our lives desire. It’s not about becoming anything, but about expressing something that already takes shape.
In my book Ash and Truth, after the hero leaves the town, crowds and the world, he encounters a blank in search of truth that resonates through his existence.
The bridge across this void connects his present path to what he appears to have left behind.
On this bridge, he sees an image of himself and smiles at him. He meets it and merges with it in doing so. The void is no longer another void, but the source of his own smile.
When he encounters this image of Boyd, he meets not only his sources but his expression. Not only is his true presence, but his true play.
Our images are influenced by false beliefs in the world, but when we have the courage to be like the blank spaces in our empty image, we see that our images are not destroyed and updated.
Our real images are no longer distorted by false identities and roles, and are not guided by our true representations.
Therefore, the hero realizes later in his journey: “The imagination of self-image is not an illusion. It is the way we encounter an indelible mark of our uniqueness, and they are spreading in shape.”
People who have never really covered their bodies
When you imagine who you are, how you act, how you will dress, how you will dress, how you will look, indulge in these dreams, or make them sway with beliefs that are simply egoic desires, the images reveal your deeper desires. How does it feel to imagine yourself like that? If it feels exciting, grounded and fun, is this an echo call? Is that a memory, not a premonition? Do you remember who you are under what you might have gathered along the way? Does this image resonate with your childhood self? If so, you may seem troubled by “adult” things as an adult, but I believe you have to leave them behind.
What if our true path is not even a new, shiny or successful endeavor? What if we resigned to seek an imaginary future role? What if our true path is much simpler than grand discoveries, new efforts, or previously undiscovered pursuits? What happens if we find our passions and forget the passions that we have always been with us? What about the boldest and most powerful moves we can make, just as we did as children, taking that simple step towards what we enjoy?
What happens if life leaves us with clues?
Do loving parents want their child’s happiness to depend on one effort, one tracking, one passion, one milestone? Or do they deeply hope that every effort, pursuit, passion, or milestone that a child encounters or undertakes is a more expression of that happiness? – Always-present happiness.
“Your job” is that Rumi (broadly quoted!) “is not to seek love, but to find out all the barriers that declare an apparent absence.”
Similarly, we do not discover true desires, passions, or paths. They emerge from under the entangled grapes of still widespread beliefs, like ancient roads preserved under the forest.
Our job is not to wash the forests high and low for our own signs. Because the forest is a maze of false ideas and predictions in the world. Our job is to recognize dead branches that cover the ground and see the false predictions they make when they unravel. This will reveal the joy of the child.
This in itself is not a different goal or desire for the future. It hears our own imprint echoes.
To return to the character in the book, at some point after his first encounter with the Void, he finds himself facing this simple truth. He sought naked – free from everything he had gathered – but he made this his goal. By realizing this, he becomes a simple return point –
“Was naked a requirement for someone who sought a goal, a worthy pursuit, a peak? No, it was the innocent of the boy who lived within him. It was the simplicity and bare now. It was not the achievement he reached after he was out of a troublesome work day. Someone who has never really covered his body.”
What we gather together seems to dress us, but our lives seem to wait from time to time, but our clothes have not truly overturned our bodies. Our fears and beliefs never truly erode our joy. Also, the path we took as children, or perhaps at the moment, simply felt truly alive and happy, did not disappear under the leaves of soil and obligation, trauma or belief.
When we search for our paths, we don’t need to see exhilarating nights or whimsical ventures. They are passing the procedure, even if these could play a role in it. The path is not a step, not a line that follows the steps, nor the ground they walk. The road is someone who needs someone who dreamed of joy before dreaming of the future. The path is one where images and ideas are already fully formed before the world says that these images need to grow and evolve. The road is “someone who wakes up, works, sleeps, breathes. Someone whose clothes really don’t cover their bodies.”
Source: Spiritual Media Blog – www.spiritualmediablog.com
