LIGHTENING THE LOAD...

(Click on photo for Story about Marines.)

This morning the thought appeared about "Lightening the Load" and then like usual I searched for a picture to go with what was coming up to write about.  What was coming up was to write about how "beliefs" are like baggage, like the above picture, we are carrying so many "beliefs" that we cannot live properly.  We carry so many ideas and beliefs about how or why things are that we cannot see what is in front of us because we are bent over and looking at the ground...not looking up and seeing the wide open sky of possibilities.  

So I went searching for a picture that would describe this and what kept coming up was to search for a "gunny pack."  Because my Teacher had used it as an example once of how we carry our "judgements, ideas, and beliefs" around like in a gunny pack and how when we come into a situation we have this big bag on our back of prior experiences that write upon a present moment that is free of all past experience but that we cannot see that because our bag opens up and dumps on the present moment.  So what does one do, one begins to put the bag down, look and see what is in it and what no longer serves.  You wouldn't keep something that is spoiling or going rotten in your gunny sack, you would take it out and throw it away.  That is what can be done with beliefs that you are carrying that are no longer serving you.  Take them out....look at them, do they help you to be in this world or keep you from experiencing this world fully and do you really need them at all to be?  If you feel you still do...but them back in the bag...if they don't throw them away.

So I came across the picture above after quite a bit of searching because nothing I put in Google was pulling up a description of what I was looking for I put in "gunny pack, WWI gunny pack, WWII Gunny Pack, lessoning the load)...and usually I find a picture quite quickly...however that wasn't the way and I kept searching.  Then I came across the one above after typing in "Vietnam Carrying a Large Load."  It really stood out for me and I actually on first glance thought it was a picture of a man in India carrying a load of things but when i clicked on it...it was a Marine and there was a story about how they are having tremendous back problems because they are having to carry so much on their Gunny Packs.  So maybe this is a beginning of lighten the load for them too.  If you are touched to get involved, maybe we can all lighten loads for one another.  We all are carrying Gunny Packs...everyone in the world, except for those few that have begun to See that they less they "know, believe, judge" the less weighed down they are and the sacks become emptier and emptier until all that is left is the Truth of who they Are.