Excess Baggage

People frequently travel with excess baggage. In a worldly sense, there’s a fine line between planning for the unexpected and taking what’s unnecessary for a particular trip. This is paralleled in the inner process as people are often burdened with an excess of emotional baggage that they carry from one situation of life to another.

A strange anomaly happens when faced with the opportunity of discarding emotional baggage, such as resentment or anger towards another. As illogical as it sounds, the overriding feeling is to hold onto the pain of the past as some kind of perverse memento. The energy of this emotion is carefully stored with the rest of the excess luggage in the holding area of the subconscious.

As life unfolds, the personal drives and ambitions tend to recede and the excess baggage is distributed throughout the fuselage or personal space of the body. The direction of the life vehicle levels out at a cruising speed comparable to the weight of the emotional body, the penalty for which is the heavy background vibration of uncertainty. Sometimes there’s an emergency and a rapid descent into the pain and unhappiness of the past. The person fears the unknown and clings to their most treasured possessions (which represent their deepest attachments), keeping love and the fulfilment of life at a distance.

The journey between birth and death is a gathering of experience, which is necessary to provide the practical skills to survive and function in a society that is intolerant of true individuality and creative freedom. Excess baggage is a downgrading of consciousness which strengthens the herd mentality to find security among the masses. True individuality is discovered in travelling light or, put another way, in the light of self-knowledge.

The world exists to perpetuate itself as a global spinning wheel, driven by its own momentum to preserve some measure of equilibrium. Excess baggage acts as emotional buoyancy for convenient access on the long haul of life. Without these artificial props to keep afloat on the surface of existence, people would sink into the depths of the psyche before it is time. The spiritual challenge is to willingly offload the excess baggage and surrender to the delight of life within.