Ezekiel 29:3 Meaning Speak and Say

The great beast lies coiled in waters it did not dig, in a life that arrives and moves and passes on its own. Still it says, this river is mine, I made it for myself. Every breath the man draws was given. The current he calls his own runs through him the way it runs through everyone, and he did not start it.

When the mind claims to be the author of the flow, it hardens into something opposed to the flow. That is the whole struggle of the small self. It grips what was only ever passing through, and in gripping it makes an enemy of the very source that keeps it alive. What loosens the grip is seeing plainly that the water was never his to begin with.

Pride tells the same lie in every age. The great beast lies in his river and claims to have made it himself, as though the current that carried him were his own invention, owing nothing to anyone. Every tyrant reasons this way. He mistakes the gift for an achievement and the achievement for a self.

The man who calls his river his own has forgotten he was placed in it. Nothing you command was made by you alone. Acknowledge the source of what sustains you, or be broken loose from it.