I recently completed L12.
It was VERY… Freeing. Restorative. Awakening. Awe-inspiring. Adventurous. Powerful. …And to those words, add any and all similar words that one would use to describe the experience of an amazing inward quest of self-discovery, undertaken to find out who one truly is. It was simple -even though, at times, it did take a bit of very rewarding confronting.
Contrary to what I initially “thought”,for me, L 12 was not getting more ‘gear’ or ‘stuff’ or ‘magical wizard powers’ or ‘additions to me’ to make one a bigger, stronger, more able being. It was not an ‘additive process’ per se. It was more along the lines of the removal of ‘things’ that were Not me. It was a gradual stripping away of things that I was not. The removal of things I picked up, or stuff that was ‘given’ to me along a very long journey. Stuff that I had forgotten about and stuff that was an unknown burden upon me.
The ‘things’ and ‘stuff’ above, being more specific, meaning roles and characters that I was playing or being in life: Knowingly or unknowingly. Willingly or unwillingly. Which, when ‘removed’, did actually make me more ME than I can recall in quite a long while.
So, to make all that above vagueness more reality-based, an analogy here:
Imagine starting out on a long journey, a hike perhaps. You start out with just you and a backpack. An idea of just wanting to wander about, explore and heck, just have a good old adventure with a bit of fun and excitement.
Along your way you see an interesting thing -a stone- and put it in your backpack. Why? Only because you found it interesting and think it might be a nice keepsake or reminder of where you had been, for later on. Further along you find another and pop it in your backpack. Then another and then something else. And, every once in a while you meet and join up with a stranger, and he gives you stones or tidbits or stuff that you stick in your backpack again, as a keepsake -even if you didn’t actually necessarily want it.
Later on, more stuff and other strangers. etc.
Well, eventually your backpack gets pretty darn full. Lots of stuff that tends to slow you down a bit and make the journey a tad more sluggish. You do get tired a bit more quickly and things seem to get more efforty. But hey, you’re on this journey!
You get used to it and you just trudge along your way still mostly enjoying your journey -but sometimes, ehh, not so much. Yet still -almost automatically now- you’re still picking up more and more things, for not really any certain reasons, but just because it’s become a habit.
One day you’re resting on a rock, backpack by yourside, pretty tired and feeling sort of blah. A new stranger comes by, stops, says hello and says “WOW! That’s a pretty hefty backpack. Whatcha got in there?” You look up at him in a bit of a daze and say “Oh lots of stuff. Not sure exactly. Mostly stones I think”.
Conversation ensues and suddenly, You wonder and then ask yourself, “Hmm, what exactly do I have in here?”
You open the backpack, look inside it and start taking stuff out. Stones; some pebbles; a few bottle caps; gum wrappers; a really big jagged rock, a broken watch etc. And strangely enough, you don’t even remember where or why you collected some of this stuff.
Long story short, you look at these objects and begin to realize you don’t need them, nor do you actually want them. They seem to be a bit useless now and have become a burden. So you toss them. When you later pick up the backpack, you notice it feels lighter. Like, way lighter. Feels good.
Then realizations follow, and you are quite happy about these realizations and you are once again, newly, very interested in your journey and have a refreshing new attitude about it and are suddenly more energized,etc, etc, etc. -especially because you have somehow realized that your enthusiasm for your journey had noticeably dropped over time, but NOW it’s way back up and you’re sort of getting excited to continue -as you were when you originally started! “WOW!!!” you think.
You feel more like YOU again because all that stuff that you had collected and were given, is now gone. You also realize that all that stuff you thought you needed to remind you of where you were, was never -or at the least now- necessary. As a matter of fact, you, as I did, may also realize that you don’t even need the backpack! This is quite a relieving feeling. Whew! Freedom!
And with that, your journey continues and magical things may or may not happen but, it doesn’t really matter because you now know that you have the one and most important thing you could ever truly have on such a journey -you have yourself -as you purely and truly are -with really no need for anything else.
So, this is my simple analogy of my win from L12.
But, if I still didn’t communicate it well enough, let me just say this: IT WAS FRICKING AMAZING TO RE-BECOME ME!… without having to add anything to me, to become ME.
(Insert Big Happy Face icon here !)
One last note: There was that ‘new stranger’ above. Well, there’s a tiny bit more to that: there were actually 2 ‘new strangers’. LRH was the stranger I never met, but his magical work and wisdom was conveyed to the stranger I did meet -via the question that LRH posed. The stranger who directly asked me the question “Whatcha got in there?” That was the amazing Mr. Trey.
So to both LRH and to Trey. THANK YOU SIRS! … for noticing and for asking.
Sincerely and Gratefully, Myron