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TONIGHT...
Tonight
I want to shout to the world
Never hold back your ecstasy,
Never hold back your light,
Never hold back your deep, deep love
For what you truly are.
Why not become a crazy
Lover of God,
A Madman of the Divine.
Why not drown in this
Ocean of your Absolute Ecstatic, Blissful Nature,
Why not disappear into God.
--Gawain
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Maui 2009,
A Free Life
On true Freedom
The question of freedom is a very important issue for all of us personally and collectively. Wars have been fought in the name of freedom or because of the lack of it. People have sacrificed their lives in the fight for freedom, Many books have been written about it. People have left continents in the search for freedom or because they felt oppressed in their homeland. So we can say that freedom is a very important issue close at heart for most human beings.
When one looks at this issue closer one can question: What do most people mean by freedom? I guess we can all surmise that for most people freedom means: In the pursuit of happiness all avenues are open to me. And the only thing that can stand in the way of my reaching my goal are my own limitations. Of course this is an idealized stance. There are always obstacles to overcome to fulfill ones dreams, but in general in the Western World they are not institutionalized. It is not like in Eastern Europe before the fall of the wall that you might want to become a doctor but some bureaucrat decides that there are too many in the plan and tells you to become a school teacher. So in general freedom for most people means: I can follow my dreams to the best of my abilities. I can choose where I want to live, choose my profession, the mate I want. Freedom means to most people that I can think what I want to think, say what I want to say, criticize the government without fear of prosecution. It might mean I can express my feelings, my points of view, my attitudes and opinions and so on.
These are some of the issues around freedom that are on the surface of the human experience. Freedom also means the possibility to inquire, to ask questions, to confront without fear of retaliation etc., and that is an important aspect of what is called a free society. The founding fathers put this aspect into the American constitution in the form of the first amendment (an amendment to the Constitution of the United States guaranteeing the right of free expression; includes freedom of assembly and freedom of the press, freedom of religion and freedom of speech) and it is something that many people in this country are very proud of and it has become an example to the world in its idealized intention.
Without these outer manifestations of freedom it would be difficult to go further, So it is a given that these conditions mentioned are part and parcel of being able to continue the journey into what real freedom really is because this is just the beginning.
Sooner or later, if one is inquisitive, one realizes: Well I live in a relative free society, I can say what I want to say and think what I want to think, express what I want to expressÉÉ..but am I really free? I might realize that my behavior is conditioned, compulsive. For example I might often get angry when I donŐt really want to and create all kinds of difficulties for myself and others. I might have an addiction of some kind, to food, alcohol, shopping etc. I might always get into a relationship with someone who is not good for me, men who are married and are lying to me, or women who seem to always leave me. I might be critical of others or myself and donŐt seem to be able to stop myself expressing it. I might be afraid to speak my mind when other people are around. I might not be able to relax when things donŐt seem to be perfect. I might fear that I might not be able to make enough money to live on. I might not ask someone out for a date because they might say no. I might get upset and distraught when people I love donŐt seem to acknowledge my love, I might get affected when people donŐt see what I have done for them, how much I have given of myself. Those and thousands of other behavioral patterns that we might notice in ourselves beg the question: Are we really free when we display these patterns and are at the effect of them, meaning we would like to behave differently but are not able to?
If we explore this line of thinking and observation further, if we start to acknowledge that we all, at times display behavior that is compulsive, meaning we do something although we try not to do it, we have to acknowledge that there we are not really free. Freud coined a very useful concept almost a hundred years ago: That is the concept of the unconscious which basically states that impulses and behaviors that are part of our nature and that are not allowed by society to be expressed and lived, move underground, into the unconscious, until one is no longer aware of these impulses. Although we might no longer aware of them they will still affect our behavior to a very large degree.
Now if that is true, and everybody who has done a little inner work knows that to be true, we are really not so free as we might have thought. Without going further into FreudŐs concept of the unconscious a good question to ask oneself is:
How do I know what I know? Why do I like what I like? Why do I think what I think, why do I feel what I feel, why do I do what I do? For example I worked with someone whose father was often violent, screamed at her and hit her, often unexpectedly for no reason that she could understand. This went on for most of her childhood. In one of our sessions she suddenly realized that she moved in the world as if the world was her father of which she was still afraid. The world was a dangerous place that you had to watch out for. People were basically bad people who wanted to harm you and might unexpectedly turn on you. Because of this experience in her childhood she made certain conclusions about the world and acted as if they were really true: Like the world is dangerous - you always have to watch out - you canŐt let you guard down - you canŐt trust anyone - you cannot feel save. As part of that stance her body was always ready for a perceived danger which resulted in difficulty sleeping, always being on edge and always being on the lookout for a potential disaster.
You can see how this experience in childhood colors someoneŐs perceptions, colors what the person thinks and feels and sees. As long as that pattern is unconscious, the person will think without questioning that this is how the world is and will live a life according to it. There is no freedom in this. We are just responding to a veiled perception of reality.
Now this student of mine after a while woke up to this perception during one of her sessions with me when she started to suddenly realize: ÔWow I still behave as if the world is my fatherŐ. After some work and release of some of the fears and anger stored in her body and mind she begun visibly to relax. Slowly her perception of the world / reality changed. She no longer holds the perception that the world is a bad and dangerous place. She is no longer on guard 24/7, She can allow her body and mind to relax more and she can now discriminate between the places in the world where you actually need to watch out and the places where you donŐt. That in turn changes what she sees, how she sees it, what she thinks, how she feels, what she does and how she experiences the world.
Now we all have patterns like this that color our perception of the world and ourselves. That in turn leads us to see the world through a particular lens and that lens usually distorts the way reality and the world really is. (In Indian philosophy this is called 'Maya', or the world of illusion and delusion) The depth of the distortion depends on our upbringing and how much in touch our parents and care takers were with how things really are.
When we are born we carry within us and embody the seeds of truth and reality. We loose that aspect of ourselves more or less through the inevitable conditioning of the mind. The more our environment, when growing up, sees what reality is really like and lives according to it, the more they can reflect that part back to us and it becomes part of our awareness. The less they are able to do it the less it becomes part of our experience and the more it moves into the unconscious.
That it moves into the unconsciousness is good and bad news at the same time. Bad news because we have lost something essential and it is no longer available to our awareness. That loss is experienced as a particular kind of suffering. It is painful because it is a lie. For example many people think deep down they are bad. When you are in touch with reality you realize that is really not true. Deep down people are good. Remember the baby. Nobody would call a baby bad, Everybody who has been around a newborn knows it is precious and good. But if in childhood that innate goodness is not reflected to the child. If the environment tells the child verbally or energetically that the child is bad, then after a few years of this the child will assume that stance and either outwardly act accordingly or try to be good (depending what good is deemed like in the society it grew up in), which is crazy: A person who knows that what they really are is goodness, doesn't need to prove it to the world or themselves. Both cases are actually very painful experiences and they donŐt reflect who and what we really are. It is a distortion of our self image which will affect what we think, what we feel, what we do or not do ect. ect. I think you will get the picture.
The good news is that the awareness of who we really are is not lost. It has just moved into the unconscious and can be retrieved. When it is seen and retrieved, it is a wonderful celebration of Being. You realizes that you are a radiance of love and light, and from that point of view the idea that you are bad is preposterous. Then you will think differently, feel differently, act differently and see and experience the world and yourself differently. You then will see the light and love also in others although they might not see it themselves.
It doesnŐt really absolve people of bad behavior. One has to see where someone is at and act accordingly, but deep down you know who they really are and sooner or later, when you hold that vision people will start to see it themselves.
In those moments you are more free. You are free from the delusion for example that you are a bad person or that the world is a bad place. You see things the way they really are. And that changes everything.
There are many more examples of these veils that we have about ourselves and the world. Many people think they are weak, when in fact they have strength beyond anything they might have imagined. Many people think they are joyless and need a reason to feel joyful when in effect our true nature is pure joy which doesnŐt need a reason to shine. We are pure love. Nobody needs to love us for us to know that we are love. This love, as it is true of all these essential aspects of our being, is independent of conditions. Love is our nature. Can you see how that experience would change the way we live. If we would really know that our search for love (in all the wrong places) would stop. We would know it is right here and now and not only that, we would know that we are that.
When that is more and more realized we become more and more free. It is the freedom to be who we really are and that freedom is a dynamic experience. It means we are free of our prejudices and preconceptions of the world and that it true freedom. Then even if we are locked up and someone puts us in prison we are still free. You see the world for what it really is and it is wonderful and glorious.
Gawain
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