When I was young I used to look for big spider webs and throw little leaves on them. I watched carefully as the spiders hurried over, hoping for a tasty catch. Little did they know they were victims of a boy’s prank. Yes, this post is about our eight-legged friends. But do not worry, no animals were harmed in the making of this article.
Itsy bitsy spider…
Spiders always rest in the middle of their web, where all the threads come together. Whenever something gets caught in the web, the spider feels instantly which of the threads are moving. Instead of looking at what got stuck in her web, the spider always crawls instinctively to the right location with good hopes of finding something yummy to devour.
I was very fascinated by tricking those spiders and making them move from here to there. Every spider always hoped to have caught a juicy fly or bee but instead, they were the victim of a little boy with slightly sadistic traits. Well actually, they were lucky with me because my small brother was more into setting them on fire by using his magnifying glass, no mercy shown.
Stuck in the spider web
Imagine yourself sitting at the center of a huge spider web. Many threads are connected to your lovely behind, constantly tickling you every time something gets caught in your web. Imagine how tiring it must be, having your peace disturbed by the slightest blow of wind, falling leaf, or even worse… an annoying child making a fool of yourself.
But you don’t have any other choice. You don’t want to miss your supper, catch a neighbor spider stealing your newspaper red-handed, or any other opportunities or catastrophes. As a spider, you depend fully on your web until my little brother releases you with his magnifying glass. Yes, that’s life for you my poor little spider!
The life of a spider is dominated by her instincts. She will follow the trembling threads blindly no matter to what end. A little leaf, a bee, a lover, a blow of wind, an enemy,… it doesn’t matter. Even if she wanted to ignore everything that was going on in her web, all the threads would tickle her ass to an unbearable degree until she finally submits to her urges.
Our invisible web
Can you see where this is going? Pull enough arms and legs out of our poor spider’s hairy torso [my brother equipped with tweezers can show you how] and she is just like you! We are in the midst of a huge invisible web with many threads directly connected to us. These invisible threads are triggering us constantly, preventing us from having inner peace, and even discovering who we are!
Let’s sum up some of the infinite examples urging you to crawl around your web non-stop:
• Your boss expects you to finish a project next week
• Not having a partner and being afraid to end up alone
• Maybe you have an unread message on your phone
• Someone mocked your religion or political opinion
• What will the neighbors think of the length of your lawn?
• That exotic holiday is really what you need right now.
• You can’t let go of a bad remark from a friend
• The teacher punished your child today at school
• You have cookies in the house waiting for digestion
• Your favorite sports team lost again!
• You feel guilty for not calling your mom
• Your biological clock is ticking
• You didn’t get your wage yet this month
• You don’t want to go to this party
• There is a war going on far far away
• It’s your wife’s birthday and you don’t have a present yet
• There is a movie out you really must see!
• You can’t forget what happened last time on holiday
• Your partner comes home with a lot of stress from work
• You want to have that shiny new car
As you notice, we can sum up countless items that may get caught in your invisible web and possibly trigger your attention. You feel the threads tickling you, pulling you, grabbing you,… never leaving you alone, and always keeping you from having inner peace. It just never ends!
How far can you reach?
As long the spider lives, it’s there in the midst of her web. She attends diligently to whatever tickles her ass. We all get born sitting on our invisible webs and responding to every trigger we energetically feel. You can feel it in your belly, on your shoulders, and in case you catch a very big bug in your web you can feel it in your entire body… not even mentioning here the countless urging thoughts in your mind.
There is no limit on the size of your web. You can catch things from the outside borders of the world when you watch the news or check the internet. Your web can even contain the webs of the people around you. If your children or partner or anyone close to you catches something in their web, it feels the same as if you would catch a fat bumblebee in yours. When a neighbor puts out his garbage on the wrong day, suddenly it’s everyone’s problem. Luckily we can’t read in our newspaper yet about the affairs of alien worlds, which spares us of a lot of worry and pain.
It never ends
And yes, it never ends. When you complete a project and finally get paid, there is still no way of inner peace. You will need to attend another project and another and so on. When you finally find the ideal present for your mother-in-law, God may grant her another year and the same problem arises. Finally, you saved enough money for that luxurious holiday on an exotic island. But after two weeks of relaxing, you are home again and you need to get back there again to escape your dull life at the office.
My web and I
How come we are so sensitive to the tickling of these invisible threads? We are so personally affected by everything. Could it be we are a little bit confused? Is it possible that the spider sees her web as a part of herself? Whenever something happens in a spider’s web, the threads tickle her ass. As long as a spider keeps herself on her web, she can’t realize she is a separate being.
A spider might live in the illusion the web and herself are one being. Even if a strong wind blows her off, she keeps hanging from a thread and climbs up again. Only when the spider is desperately hanging below her web and you cut the last thread disconnecting her, she is finally free. She realizes her true self. She was a separate and free creature all along but she just could not see it. There were too many threads holding her to an illusionary and exhausting world, dragging her continuously from here to there without end until ending up in a cruel experiment of my little brother.
Can you imagine yourself being free from your invisible web? Disengaging from all these matters that you put on yourself, but have nothing to do with you? Can you imagine yourself not needing to act upon fears and desires anymore, not to defend your beliefs or opinions, not to keep up an identity to keep up appearances? Imagine you could be free from your web and choose which actions you want to undertake out of free will and not because you think you have to or because fears and desires urge you.
Getting loose from our webs
Imagine if a spider could just cut herself loose from her web, wouldn’t that be much easier? She would not have to crawl from here to there whenever some rascal throws leaves in her web. She could be free, roaming around, and enjoying inner peace. She could finally discover her true self without being attached to all those threads confusing her with a false identity. Whenever she would be hungry, she could just hide behind a corner and surprise an unsuspecting dung beetle or helpless little ant.
We can also realize our true nature and free ourselves from our webs. All we need to do is realize the fact that following our fears, desires, and beliefs will not lead us to happiness. Attending to one tread pulling us, will just lead us to another one. Following desires, trying to escape suffering, and becoming the person that we think we should be is a never-ending endeavor. It will never become the foundation of inner peace or lead us to wake up to our nature. The only way to have peace is to disengage from our web and let go of our self-illusions.
Hanging on a thread
When we realize we are not our web and therefore we don’t need to let it tickle our asses, we take distance from our hectic world asking our attention, feeding our desires, and feeding our fears. It’s like the spider being blown off her web and still hanging below it connected merely by a single thread. How can we push through and cut ourselves off entirely and be free?
Falling into your true nature needs the ultimate realization of what you really are. For thousands of years, spiritual seekers devoted their lives to attain this state. But at this moment in human history, people like you and me are perfectly capable of acquiring this ultimate self-realization thanks to all those wise people who attained it before us.
Cutting the final thread is to disengage with our ‘I am’ or with our body-mind. Whatever lies within the boundaries of your body and mind… has always been another part of your web. Your body-mind is the last wire you are holding on to before being free. What you are is beyond your body and your thinking mind. It is a radiant, free, and eternal consciousness lying right now dormant in your human form. What you are, is the consciousness observing your thoughts, feelings, and every other sensation. You are capable of waking up in this consciousness and living your life entirely free.
Waking up and self-realization
Whenever we cut one of the threads of our web, we free ourselves a little from the grip of our own illusions. Whenever we gently remove threads tickling our honorable behinds, we wake up to our true selves. Little by little, we see through our false identity and we dis-identify from things we are not. We disengage from an ego ruled by fears and desires until we ultimately realize what we truly are by cutting through the final thread.
The purpose of self-development is not so much about changing or transforming yourself, but it’s rather about discovering what you already are by letting go of what you are not.
The purpose of the work we can do together is to let go of identifications, beliefs, fears, and desires until the moment has come our consciousness is ready to shift its perspective and we wake up to our true selves and enjoy its power and freedom.
With the right understanding and genuine intention, we can all be courageous spiders coming down from our webs and be free from the tickles. Whether we get set on fire by a magnifying glass or squashed by my little brother’s boot, it no longer matters. When we wake up to our true nature, we wake up for good. Enlightenment is eternal.
