Your first names were given you by others, and even your personal identity was formed in part by how others saw you. They most likely didn’t see the real you– the you that’s one with Being itself– and so the self they reflected back to you became a kind of prison, both limiting you and imposing unrealistic demands.

You can react by changing your name or by defying everyone’s expectations, but you’ll still be building a false self with all the illusions and irrational judgements that come with it.

When the Abrahamic religions pray, “in His name,” they’re not limiting the sacred to a moniker but rather drawing us out of the false constructs built on our own names and into an awareness of our oneness with Being.

What we call a rose thus grants us an abiding joy in any language, separate from all of the cultural traditions we’ve attached to it– and from whatever name we’ve given it.