Stories and Labels (Part 1)
Author Byron Katie often asks people who are caught up in the drama of their lives this question: Who would you be without your story?
I’ve found that it’s one of the most important questions we can ask if we are truly interested in spiritual growth.
When I refer to stories, I mean the descriptions and labels we apply to ourselves. Your story includes your gender, your nationality, your religion, your occupation, your emotions, your beliefs, etc.; your story also includes your life circumstances, such as the things you’ve experienced.
Everything that makes up your life story has one important characteristic – it CHANGES. One day you’re a wife or husband, the next day you might be single or widowed. One day you’re a salesperson, and two years later, you’re a teacher. Perhaps you were an atheist at one time and then became a Christian. You might have been depressed at one time in your life and now you describe yourself as a happy person.
Something as rock solid as your gender will even change – upon your death. One thousand years after your physical body dies, what is left of your gender? It evaporates.
Even if you don’t change religions, your story about your religion IS changing. You may say you’re growing in your walk with God, that your understanding is deepening. This represents a change in your life story.
Your story keeps changing. The labels keep changing.
However, there is something about YOU that never changes – and that is the Awareness, Beingness or Spirit that has been the witness of all these changes. Something has always been there to know the happiness and sadness, to know the you that was an atheist and is now a Christian, the you that was a salesperson and is now a teacher.
If you change political affiliations from Democrat to Republican, does your spiritual essence change? Of course not. It’s the same you.
Yet human beings tend to spend almost all of their time concentrating on the changing events and labels. They are obsessed with the life story; it is the way we are conditioned, and we see everyone else living from their labels and stories.
You may not like to hear this, but even your religion is a label that can change. You may say, “I am a Christian” or “I am Jewish.” Is that really who you are – or is that a belief you currently have about yourself?
Let’s take an extreme example to illustrate this point. Assume someone named John says “I am a Christian” today. Tomorrow, John falls down, bumps his head and suffers from amnesia. When asked tomorrow about his religion, John replies, “I don’t follow any particular religion.”
Is John still a Christian? John may have a different belief now but nobody would say that the essence of John has changed. The same essence that we associated with his body when he said “I am a Christian” is the same essence associated with his body when he claims not to have any religious affiliation.
The labels of “American,” “European” or “African” are just part of our stories. They can come and go. If I change citizenship during my life, have I become a different person? Does this create a “new” spiritual entity? I don’t think anyone would say that my spirit or essence changes. I just adopt a different label and while it may have significance in my overall life story, it has no enduring significance on the spiritual level.
Although difficult to define, I would say that what has significance on the spiritual level is what doesn’t change, what is eternal.
I’m not saying that we should deny our labels or stories as we go through this amazing mystery called life as a human being. Descriptions such as nationality, occupation and religion play an important role in the material world.
The “problem” is that we believe these labels or stories have a significance that they don’t have. We believe that we ARE our labels and our stories. These labels and stories are thoughts in our mind.
In addition, we tend to give all our thought to the things that are changing – and virtually no attention is put on what doesn’t change.
You are NOT your story. You are NOT your labels. You are much more than that. And what you are is not changing and has no form. It is recognized in the body/mind as the sense “I AM” or “I EXIST.” This is always with you. Nobody can deny this sense of their own existence.
Recognizing this changeless Awareness has been invaluable to me on my spiritual journey. I realize it will not resonate with some of you.
I’ll continue this discussion in the next issue, including my own observations about what happens when less emphasis is put on our stories. I welcome your comments as this series progresses.
– Jeff Keller
© 2009