This sense
of spaciousness is often misinterpreted as emptiness. We are conditioned to be
full: our minds are full of ideas, our bellies are full of food, and our homes
are full of possessions. When we let go of them we feel the opposite of full. Since
we have believed for so long that fullness is a good thing, we might believe
that not being full is bad. So we view our sense of lightness as negative and
seek to fill ourselves once again. We do this by sustaining our old ideas, or
by grabbing gratification in the form of food, alcohol, television, sex, possessions,
compliments, or whatever we feel we need to “fill” us.
We are not
empty. We are spacious. There’s a huge difference. Emptiness implies a lack of
something. Spaciousness is a wonderful lightness of being that does not need
anything to fill it. It is the pure, unburdened, unconstrained self.
