Break Your Jug
(Excerpted from “The Avatar Journal” and printed with the permission of Harry Palmer)
The following is an excerpt from The Avatar® Path: The Way We Came by Harry Palmer.
There is an old story about a farmer who finds a pumpkin that has just started to develop. To protect the little pumpkin against the elements, he slips it inside a jug. Then he goes on his way and forgets about it. When harvest time comes, the pumpkin has grown only as large as the jug. The jug that once protected it, eventually limits its growth.
Many people are in the same situation as the pumpkin. To find protection, they have embraced sheltering beliefs about who they are, what they can do, and what they can become. For a time these beliefs offer comfort and protection, but beliefs, particularly limiting beliefs, soon lose their usefulness. Limiting beliefs form a jug. It is a person’s own considerations that limit his or her potential. Once the “truth” of a limiting belief has been realized, a person stops growing.
The harsh reality is that when the pumpkin in the jug stops growing, it starts to rot. The mother vine, following its divine nature, shifts its life-giving energy to the fruits that are still able to grow.
Sometimes limiting beliefs are transparent and sometimes they are solid as a rock; sometimes they are acquired by accident and sometimes they are adopted by design; sometimes they are modeled and sometimes they are indoctrinated. They often seem true, but on close inspection, they turn out to be just one possibility among many.
I recently suggested to someone who had lost their job that they should start their own business. “Oh, I couldn’t do that,” was the reply. I pushed the idea. “No, I’m just not cut out for it,” they insisted. “My brother-in-law started his own business and he lost everything.”
That is called being trapped in your own jug of considerations.
Sometimes life will break your jug for you. An unexpected promotion will demand that you assume responsibilities beyond your comfort level, or a personal tragedy will have you coping with things that you didn’t believe you could handle. Suddenly you are out of the jug, growing again.
Plan to use a belief as long as it serves you, but when it starts to limit growth, reconsider.
Yes, there are times and circumstances that favor limiting beliefs, staying jug-bound, but they are chapters in your life, not the whole story. Bigger-than-your-jug opportunities come with risks. If you base your life decisions simply on avoiding risk, you may never leave your jug. There is rot in your future.
Adaptability is wise. Plan to use a belief as long as it serves you, but when it starts to limit growth, reconsider. Maybe what you thought was impossible can actually be achieved. Limiting your own power with inflexible beliefs is unwise.
The value of the Avatar Materials is that they enable you to break your own jug before you begin to rot. How big, how powerful, how successful can you grow? You will never know the answer if you don’t break your jug.
