Without Ourselves, by Afton Wilder

“स्वयं के बिना”
आफ्टन वाइल्डर के द्वारा ,

एक शुद्ध कांच का गोला उड़ रहा है
चट्टान के ऊपर
बस, जरा सा धार के परे
हमारे अंत:करण, अंतरात्मा और स्वयं का प्रतिनिधित्व कर रहा है
अगर यह बिखर (टुकड़े टुकड़े हो) गया तो ?
बर्फीले शीशे की उलझन बनना ,
और फिर कोई बात नहीं?
अगर यह लुप्त (गायब) हो जाए तो ?
हम किसके लिए लड़ेंगे?
क्या हम तब भी स्वयं को जान पाएंगे
ऐसे स्नेहमय,
पीठ पीछे छुरा घोंपने वाले,
सुंदर,
भयंकर,
भावुक,
हृदयहीन,
सहानुभूतिपूर्ण,
धूर्त,
अनोखे लोग हैं हम?!
क्या हम अपने स्वयं के बिना आगे बढ़ सकते हैं?
बिना किसी आधार के?
वे कहते हैं, हल्के से कदम बढ़ाओ
अपने आप को दुपट्टे की तरह जंगल में मत छोड़ो
समुद्र तट पर एक चप्पल की तरह
इसे सुरक्षित रखो
इसे मुक्त मत करो
इसे मत खोओ
एक कठघरे (रेलिंग) के बाहर मत जाओ
लेकिन क्या हम और विशाल हो सकते हैं?
बिना किसी अपनी स्वयं की
सीमा के ?
अगर हम जोखिम ले सकें
तो क्या आख़िरकार हम परेशानियों से बाहर नहीं आ जाएँगे ?

मनन के लिए मूल प्रश्न: अपने स्वयं को त्याग कर अपने आप को मुक्त करने का आपके लिए क्या मतलब है? क्या आप कोई निजी कहानी साझा कर सकते हैं जब आपने अपनी स्वयं की सीमा से परे जाने का जोखिम उठाया हो? दुनिया के भार के बिना आपने जो सीखा उसे पहचानने/समझने में आपको किससे मदद मिलती है?

Afton Wilder is a 10 year old, who recently started a blog of her poems.

Seed Questions for Reflection

What does freeing ourselves by letting go of our SELVES mean to you? Can you share a personal story of a time you took the risk of going beyond the limits of your own self? What helps you have an identity of what you have learned without the burden of the world?

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Add Your Reflection

20 Past Reflections

Diane Sutton

Mar 5, 2024

"I am that I am" a spiritual being, growing in the finite, toward Infinity. I am not an ego. I am not "of the world". I am. I Am ... an important part of Infinity.

Jo Mar 6, 2024

So beautiful Diane! I love!

Yvonne

Mar 5, 2024

Letting go of the Selves- the mystery that bookends life. The before birth and the after death. It is indeed a mystery

Mar 6, 2024

It's also there in between

Mia

Mar 5, 2024

A chronic Lyme condition was my teacher. Going from lots of activities to a mostly non-active life was the teacher to let go of previously known identities. It was seven years of redefining what matters and part of that was to get clear about the choice of people that were able to be with me right where I was versus having to take care of their discomfort at my condition. The issues that used to trigger grief or anxiety may still happen but my response is more of curiosity instead of feeling the need to respond in ways that are not energetically kind to myself or others. When I get snagged on an issue now, (because that's a reality too) I love reframing everything by remembering that this isn't even my body and I am here due to the collaboration of cells from my mother and father. Then curiosity can take me to a new place, maybe even opening the confinement of identity to allow more investigation.

Ute Arnold

Mar 4, 2024

I observe without end, myself, the world…
then go to the woods and let them speak, returned mostly cleansed with no need to add anything

Mary Thomson.

Mar 4, 2024

My immediate response to this was a series of situations in which I volunteered to do things I was afraid to do. I seemed to do this a lot growing up.

One example was having a nasogastric tube (a tube through my nose to my stomach) inserted in nursing school in front of my class. A memorable experience in many ways and not just for me. It took me outside of my experience into seeing things from different angles.

When I read this and look at the picture what springs to mind is the separation of the orb and the fullness of it all that being broken open would open one up to.

This is what happens when one lets go and is open to an expansion of consciousness - it’s less of ‘letting go’ in my mind as opening up and seeing things differently in order to be connected to the whole.

Anil Pandit

Mar 4, 2024

Prefer to consider my glass orb merging with the universal space, and the energy therein drawing upon the universal energy to propagate as directed. Shattering will then actually be blooming up.

David Doane

Mar 1, 2024

From the mouths of babes -- triggering for me heavy thoughts. I believe I have a social image or self, called my ego, and am a real essence or self, called soul. Letting go of ego self is letting go of my image including the roles and trappings by which I am identified. If I freed real self of all that, I'd be untrapped except that essence or soul would still be embodied. If I let go of body too, I would be just essence which is Ultimate Existence and no longer of this world. For me the risk in my learning what I have stated here is to not be part of the thinking and beliefs of the mainstream. I don't understand the third question. What helps me is that my understanding is how I am, it's my truth, and being together with that is satisfying. For me, the world is a burden in some ways and a joy in some ways, and overall I feel freer of the world with the beliefs or vision that I have.

Jagdish P Dave

Feb 29, 2024

Who am I? What is my true identity? Why am I here? What is my original face? What is my original voice? What is my authentic self? What is my purpose of being in this world? What if nobody walks with me on the road with me? What is my vision?These are very important existential questions for me. There is one SELF. There is one FACE. There is one VOICE. There is one authentic ME. If I lose my true identity, I become a multiple personality. I lost my real self. I lose my real voice. It is not that easy to be myself but it is essential for me to listen to my voice and sing my own song. As I am reflecting on this question Rabindranth Tagore's song Ekl Cholo Re comes to my mind. Walk alone if no one is standing by. Open your mind and speak all alone to be in harmony with all existence. This kind of authentic identity is not against universal identity. I am a part of the whole, not apart from the whole, oneness in manyness. There have been times when I have served people going beyond ... View full comment

stream Feb 29, 2024

I love your share Jagdish P Dave. I relate to so many parts of it. I could have written it.
Maybe that is part of letting go of MY SELF, by recognizing that I am you and you are me.
Stream

Jo Feb 29, 2024

We are walking on the road with you! You are a teacher, leader, Lover, friend … You are a planner, a project manager and one that sees a vision to completion. You walk with people … and we take your hand. We see you…hear your voice… so much to glean in thinking about YOU! Amen🌱

Mary Thomson. Mar 4, 2024

I made up a word ‘onemany’ to describe what you perfectly describe as oneness in manyness!!

Jo Mar 11, 2024

❤️

stream Mar 11, 2024

Ahhhhh! I am revisiting this conversation and going a bit deeper. Reviewing all those questions with the mind that thinks and represents itself as me most of the time. Then I wonder who the I is that thinks. When that I quiets or steps aside, there is something else that feels , something that feels or experiences more or at least differently.
Hmmmm? is that my soul?

David B

Feb 29, 2024

Beautiful, Afton! From my experience, I would add that our consciousness, souls, and selves are subtly different things. If we can let go of those little selves, allow them to shatter, we will fall back into our souls, our pure consciousness, our essential being. We would indeed then be without burden but we would continue in our infinite, eternal nature. We would fulfill your vision, and more. Thank you for sharing.

Cholena

Feb 29, 2024

Delightful poem and inquiry.
"but could we be more
without the limits
of our own selves"

I attempt to get to a place of letting go of self to find myself by dancing with the polarities of the Uniquely Personal and Universally Divine.

Within the dance is stillness and moments where I am me, yet not me.

Non dualism takes practice. I'm grateful for the awareness and ability to practice

Eisha

Feb 29, 2024

I am in a space where I prefer oblivion and invisibility over the ambition to network and attain glory in my fields and it has been most freeing and unburdening to have an identity that doesn’t define me with work or the people I meet.

stream

Feb 29, 2024

Wow! I recently reflected on days I spend doing yoga, burying myself naked in warm sand and taking long floating swim in ocean. That seems like the closest I come to letting go of my self. Even singing the other night in a harmonic 100 being choir , I was aware of MY sound.
Those are times I am close to being without "the burden of the world" however I suspect that all these wars going on and other violence and personal trauma were still lurking in my consciousness even when I am close to lost in bliss of nature or song. I am now imagining truly letting go into selflessness.

Mary Thomson Mar 4, 2024

Perhaps to let go in nature is to recognise that in nature their are cycles and times of destruction as a part of these for example in the falling of leaves in autumn and the bursting open of a seed in spring… some that lead to growth and others that lead to nourishment. Thank you for your reflections. I really vicariously enjoyed the oneness of yoga in the sand and the experience of the sea.