Breaking Free

I had this insight the other day while walking.

I imagined that I was a creature that was inside an egg, ready to hatch. 

I was struggling inside the egg to crack the shell. My muscles were getting stronger and I was growing larger but I still hadn't broken free.

Suddenly I was mesmerized. A movie began to play on the inside of the egg shell and it occupied my whole mind. I simply became absorbed in the movie. 

The movie was about me and my worries, fears, future and past. How was I going to make it? What will I do? Where was I going? Why didn't I do this or that? It was an endless stream of self-centered thinking.

The creature that I was forgot all about cracking the egg. The movie was so important to it. If it cracked the egg the movie would stop playing and it would never know what to do, where to go, and how to be. It had to keep watching. It felt its survival depended on it.

The creature eventually became weaker, its muscles atrophied. It forgot all about breaking through the egg. But the egg was not enough. The creature still grew within it and it needed space. It needed another kind of food. The egg was running out of resources. 

The human dilemma is like this. Our concerns are projections of the mind. Our emotions are what keeps us rooted to watching the movie, keeps us attached. 

However, no matter how real it seems, the movie of our mind can be seen for what it is, and our perception of life can transform instantly like clouds being blown from the face of the sun.

Break free of the egg.