How would you like to live from a nature where no matter what happens, no matter what comes at you, as soon as whatever it is lands on you, it’s changed into something good?
“Oh gosh, wow! You mean I could live from a part of myself where it wouldn’t matter what it was that came to it – no matter how dark, fearsome, hateful, worried, angry, no matter what it was – as soon as it touched me, it would be transformed into something that was good for me and everyone else? That kind of freedom would be priceless!”
So, let’s start by asking a question. When you think of freedom, what do you think of?
You think of your palace in Spain, some possession, some authority you’ve gained. But all of that isn’t freedom. Every one of those thoughts is a lead brick painted gold that you carry around with you and worship but that is drowning you. Why? Because who you really are is freedom. That’s why you can’t find it, and that’s certainly why you can’t possess it. Who you really are, your true nature, is the nature of freedom, the nature of love.
And if you want to know what it means to be free, you have to be free, and to be free, you must see freedom – not imagine it, not hope for it, not have faith in it. You must see freedom. To be, you must see. Now the seeing that we’re speaking about is something that we’re created to do. It’s our gift. You and I are given the most priceless gift any creature can be given – the gift is to be able to be what you see. And more importantly, to be able to choose to be attentive to what you see instead of being driven to pursue things you imagine you should see so you can have a derivative sense of self.
So how do you see freedom?
When you see something that frightens or worries you, it is your mind that imagines, creates, projects an image, and then fears the image it has created. To see the truth of this is to be free because you see for yourself the entire relationship you have with the mind asleep to itself. But most of us aren’t willing to see that. Because when you meet the moment in which it’s possible for you to realize something new and true, you run into something that stirs in you this mechanical reaction that says: “I can’t go there;” “There’s no way,” and all the other ten thousand reasons why you should avoid what you need to do and see and be… because you’re not going to let someone or something get the advantage over you; you’re too big for this; you’re too good for that. All the lead bricks you carry (and worship), that are drowning you, have kept you away from the treasure of freedom because you won’t stand inwardly long enough to see the truth of yourself.
Image by designecologist from Unsplash
For a long time, this lower emotional part of you that says, “I can’t handle this,” will always want to run away from what your mind is showing you. You will feel the fear, the stress, the anger. You will fear the presence of something that seems greater than you are. That reaction is built into this nature. But you also have in you something that can know that what you are being shown in the moment is not real, but is imagined.
To see the truth, which is to be it, you must stay long enough in that interior world where all this is taking place and watch closely. Stay there while your heart is pounding. Stay there while the anxiety is mounting. Stay there, directly looking at whatever it is that your mind is convincing you is real about yourself. Stay there until you see the only thing that’s real in that moment is the part of you that shows you unequivocally that the only captivity you bear is self-induced.
If you’re willing to be present, you can feel the first interior movement of the thing that is going to frighten you. You notice this, and you start to become conscious of it instead of running away by hating, blaming, or justifying. Any action thought takes toward what torments or troubles it is a form of running away because it separates you from seeing what is actually taking place. And if you want to be free, what you want to do is to see the nature of what binds you. Freedom is now. It isn’t something that happens. It’s not something you find. It’s something you are.
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