Exodus 33:5 · World English Bible
Yahweh had said to Moses, “Tell the children of Israel, ‘You are a stiff-necked people. If I were to go up among you for one moment, I would consume you. Therefore now take off your jewelry from you, that I may know what to do to you.’ ”
To be stiffnecked is to be rigid, unwilling to yield, the whole body of the ego braced against the present moment. And the ornaments are the added identities we wear, the decorations of self we mistake for who we are.
From the Ego v. Being reading below.
The same verse, read by one tradition.
EGO & BEING
To be stiffnecked is to be rigid, unwilling to yield, the whole body of the ego braced against the present moment. And the ornaments are the added identities we wear, the decorations of self we mistake for who we are. The instruction is to take them off, to lay down the acquired image and stand as you simply are.
When you stop defending the rigid self and remove what you have hung upon it, something can finally move. The consuming presence is not out to destroy you; it dissolves the false additions so that what is real in you can be met and led. Soften, unadorn yourself, and become open enough to be changed.
Ego v. Being lens
What part of how I present myself am I most afraid to go without?
What is living is soft and yielding; what is dead is stiff and hard. The rigid thing breaks, the supple thing survives.
A cup already full can receive nothing. Empty it, and it becomes useful again.
The self builds a wardrobe of names and praises and wears it as if it were skin. Strip the borrowed clothes and what remains is the one thing that was never acquired.
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Ego v. Being