Moving Beyond Limitation

In the 1960s, a rare white Bengal tiger arrived at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. The tiger, named Mohini, was a special gift to President Eisenhower and the people of America from the government of India. Mohini was placed in a temporary 12 x 12–foot cage, while the zoo discussed plans to build her a magnificent enclosure. The enclosure was to resemble her natural habitat, with lush forests, rolling hills, and everything a tiger could possibly need or want. During the construction period, Mohini paced around her cramped cage, in a figure-8 pattern, day after day. Unexpected delays in building the new habitat turned months into years, as the young tiger continued to pace around her small cage.

Finally, Mohini’s new, spacious enclosure was completed and a large crowd gathered to witness the big event. At long last, she would be able to experience her freedom. To the crowd’s great surprise, however, on entering her new home, Mohini headed straight to the far corner and started pacing around in the same figure-8 pattern, just as she had been forced to do for several years. Sadly, she spent the rest of her life in the small far corner of her enclosure, moving in the same figure-8, 12 x 12 pattern, completely oblivious to the paradise surrounding her.

This story illustrates what happens when we allow our earlier programming to dictate the limits of our awareness and of our experience of life. My question to you is: What is your self-imposed, 12 x 12, figure-8 pattern? How are you living within the confines of an inherited belief system that still appears to be “real” for you? The truth is that you have the capacity to experience infinite freedom from within. You live in an infinitely abundant universe. It is only the limitations of your thinking, and the stories you tell yourself, that keep you tightly contained in a life that might feel smaller than you would like it to be.

I invite you to take a look at the places where your understanding, your human consciousness, feels limited and restricted. Any limitation that you are currently experiencing is not ultimately “real.” It’s only as real as the 12x12 limitation Mohini the tiger experienced when transferred to a larger enclosure. Mohini didn’t have the self-awareness to deconstruct her limited inner reality. But as a human, you have the ability to take your self-imposed limitations and see them for what they are—illusions based on past experience. By letting them go, your consciousness naturally expands to encompass a greater reality.