Gollum and his Ego

 Christian de la Huerta analogizes our fixation on the ego with our focus on a baseball when in reality, we are the entire stadium.  This comes into play when someone tries to take our baseball away, or criticize our baseball.  We think we are under attack because we identify with the baseball.  But in reality, we are much more expansive.

Enter Gollum.  He is focused on his ring.  He calls it his precious.  He is horrified that he may lose it.  In this way, he is the personification of the aberrant egoic attachment.  I agree but for me the problem for Gollum is not his focus on the ego, it was that he was not able to create a large enough container to accept his gift of the ring.  For me, we are all given the Ring of Power, it is the wonderful gift of our life.  Our life is a gift, but it is not really ours to possess.  Indeed, it has nothing to do with possession or control, it is much more expansive and grand than anything we could imagine.  The question then becomes how much of the gift can we actually receive?  Can we expand our container?

This is somehow related to that sense I had at Nipper Wildlife Preserve several months ago that I'm looking at my life wrong.  There is this entire different perception that is right in front of us, that you can get a glimpse of.  And I suppose that you call this an expanded awareness, but even that is looking at it the wrong way because its not about expanding.  And its not about increasing the size of the container, but that is the only concept I have to describe it now.  Because it is an awareness that is not accessed by the head, it comes from the heart.