If you are like most people, you’ve been trained to think that you’re a name. Upon the arrival of a child on this planet, knowingly or unknowingly, the adults in the life of a child consistently drill into their young developing minds that the child IS Johnny or Suzie or Michael or Jennifer, etc. Your parents would call your name, and most likely, you thought that they were calling you.
The schools then reinforce this notion. Perhaps your teachers in school would call your name and you would yell “here!” or raise your hand to indicate that you were present. It seems to be just the normal order of the society we’ve been brought up in. But, when we inquire passed the surface level one can clearly recognize that the idea that I am Jane Doe is an erroneous one. It is a false belief because the truth of the matter is, if you are reading this, that you exist whether you have a name or not, don’t you?
If its still fuzzy consider this; how could you be a name? Were you not nameless before someone attached a set of letters and sounds to you? Think about it. You arrived via your mother’s womb on the land somewhere, maybe like most of us in a hospital, and until your parents or someone else called you a name you didn’t have one. You just were. And you were, with no name. So, there was clearly a time in your life when the being that you are did not have a name, yet, you were in existence and still are now that you have a name. The distinction is that you have a name, or several names, but you are not your name(s). You ARE, regardless of your using a name or not. This concept can take a bit to sink in, and the more you engage with this piece of truth, the more you play with the concept, the deeper it will sink in.
Name- The designation of an individual person, or a firm or a corporation. Word or combination of words used to distinguish person or thing from others (Black’s Law Sixth Ed. page 1023)
Name- A word or phrase by which a person, thing or class is known; title. appearance only, not reality (Webster’s New World Dictionary)
Nameless- Not having a name; not publicly known; obscure; indescribable (Webster’s)
We can look at this from another angle. When you’re in ‘Dad’ mode does your son or daughter call you John? More likely than not, they call you Dad or some other variation of it and you respond to that. So sometimes your name is Dad. Sometimes you appear and act as Dad. If you’re with your boyfriend or girlfriend your name might be honey, or baby or sweetie. You are calling out for your partner’s attention and maybe her name is Lisa but she responds to sweetie just the same. You may call yourself Joseph and for your Facebook profile call yourself Sexy Beast, but does anything happen to the man behind the name Joseph when he opts to operate as Sexy Beast? Perhaps the way he acts might shift but he remains and he exists the same no matter which name he is using.
The man or woman, John or Jane Doe may be acting and appearing as Judge but is he or she not just like you and I, once they are without their robe and title and back at home with their spouse acting and appearing as husband or wife or mom or dad?
In our lives we play many roles. We act and appear as a variety of things. But WE remain, existing, regardless of how our titles change and how many times they change. A title is a fiction, it is impermanent. It is a changing thing when applied to living beings. The name is like an outfit. You wear it when you want to for the purposes of your choice but its not YOU, the name is not ME, and at no point within our lifetime will it be.
So what the heck are you then? For one you are indescribable. This right away removes any ideas that you can be explained away or labeled. Your roles and intentions are shifting moment to moment and as such, cannot be boxed in and locked into any one role. If one asks you “who are you?”, no matter how many different labels we can come up with to describe ourselves, at some point, we run out. One reaches a dead end. You can repeat yourself or recognize that you can’t say so easily who you are, you might actually not know.
If someone asks what you are, it’s the same thing…how do you describe it? And if you do, you’re still using labels/names/titles/fictions to do so. The truth is none of them are you-they are what you have, and how you are being…how you act and appear. And that’s what makes it fun! We can shift our role(s) at any point, at will. We are masters of our own energies, the director of our roles. Many of us have been doing some unconscious directing and creating less than what’s pleasurable for ourselves. The more conscious and aware we can be in the observing and directing of our lives, the more we can morph in and out of our roles with ease because we know who we are and that is, Nameless.
I cannot be liable for a title unless I agree to be that title (name) because at the core I am nameless, I literally, physically, biologically cannot be the name. So it’s a choice, my consent is needed. My life force is needed to bring any title to life; it has no life without me and exists in contemplation only. Without my breath of life to infuse it with, the title is flat, dead, not moving, exists on paper, in a computer, or in the mind. It needs a living agent, an authorized representative for its existence.
Know that this is a big mental leap to make, so be patient and kind with yourself, keep studying and discovering who you are and you cannot go wrong.
We can more and more accept that we are nameless and do so with wonder and curiosity. We can and should help each other along the way on this journey of freedom, so keep in contact with a community that you can discuss with whether online or in person, keep around like minds and your journey will be that much more assisted as we all learn from each other. Peace to you and your journey, fellow amazing women and men.
