DW's Blog

Beyond Having: The Symphony of Being

by DW Green — January 15, 2025

When we experience ourselves as life rather than its owners, we begin to sense our deep connection to everything around us.

When We Stop Possessing Life and Begin Living It

We spend our lives talking about “my life” as if it were something we possess, something we could misplace or lose – like keys or a wallet. This simple phrase reveals a profound misunderstanding that shapes how we move through the world. What if, instead of having a life, we recognized that we are life itself? This shift isn’t just semantic – it’s revolutionary. When we stop clutching at existence like something we own and begin experiencing ourselves as expressions of life’s endless dance, everything changes.

The shift is subtle at first. Perhaps it begins with a moment of complete presence – watching sunlight filter through leaves, feeling the rhythm of your breath, or being moved to tears by a strain of music. In these moments, the boundaries between “my life” and life itself begin to dissolve. The illusion of possession falls away, and what remains is pure being.

The consequences of this recognition ripple outward. When we experience ourselves as life rather than its owners, we begin to sense our deep connection to everything around us. The stranger on the street is no longer truly “other” – they’re another note in the same cosmic symphony. The trees, the birds, even the stones beneath our feet become fellow players in this grand orchestra of being.

Science affirms what mystics and artists have long intuited. At the quantum level, the neat borders we draw between “my life” and “everything else” dissolve into a dance of energy and possibility. The hydrogen atoms in our cells were forged in ancient stars – we are, quite literally, the universe experiencing itself. Our individual consciousness becomes like an instrument in an infinite orchestra, each playing its unique part while contributing to a harmony beyond our full comprehension.

Art emerges from this understanding not as something we create, but as life expressing itself through us. When a painter stands before a canvas or a musician loses themselves in song, they’re surrendering to something larger than individual identity. They become a channel through which universal consciousness celebrates itself. This explains why powerful art moves us so deeply – it’s life recognizing itself through the medium of human creativity.

The irony is that when we stop trying to possess life, we begin to experience it more fully. As we release our grip on the idea of “my life,” we find ourselves participating more deeply in life itself. Each breath becomes not an act of sustaining something we own, but a dance with the infinite. Each encounter with another being becomes an opportunity to recognize ourselves in a different form. Each moment of creativity becomes a chance to let universal consciousness sing through our unique voice.

Perhaps this is the greatest liberation – discovering that we don’t need to clutch at existence because we are existence itself. We don’t need to fear losing our life because we are life. In this understanding, even death transforms from a feared enemy into another movement in the cosmic symphony. We are not temporary owners of life but eternal expressions of it, playing our unique notes in the endless song of being. And in this awareness, we find ourselves naturally moving in harmony with the greater whole. Not because we’re trying to, but because we finally recognize what we’ve always been – not life’s possessors, but life itself in momentary, magnificent form.