HJ: The illusion is the struggle with forces outside the self. What is outside the self is but a reflection of the true self. Chasing reflections will leave you tired and frustrated. One must look to the source of the reflections if they wish to change them. Our perceptions and beliefs define and create the world around us, and so, if we do not like what we are experiencing, then we must go within and alter the conditions causing these outward manifestations.
Freedom cannot be given by outside forces — it is not a reflection. The potential for true freedom always exists within the individual and in fact is always given to the individual, because they are free to choose their beliefs. The conundrum lies in that they may choose to believe in less than total freedom. They may choose to believe in the reflections — the illusion. It is their choice. Therefore, at any time, they may decide to choose a different reality… to choose different, more expansive beliefs. And so it is that we are the only ones that can grant ourselves true freedom.
– Truth
By Osho | Osho.nl
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The freedom from something is not true freedom.
The freedom to do anything you want to do is also not the freedom I am talking about.
My vision of freedom is to be yourself.
It is not a question of getting freedom from something. That freedom will not be freedom, because it is still given to you; there is a cause to it. The thing that you were feeling dependent on is still there in your freedom. You are obliged to it. Without it you would not have been free.
The freedom to do anything you want is not freedom either, because wanting, desiring to do something, arises out of the mind — and mind is your bondage.
The true freedom certainly comes after choiceless awareness, but after choiceless awareness the freedom is neither dependent on things nor dependent on doing something. The freedom that follows choiceless awareness is the freedom just to be yourself. And you are yourself already, you are born with it; hence it is not dependent on anything else. Nobody can give it to you and nobody can take it from you. A sword can cut your head but it cannot cut your freedom, your being.
It is another way of saying that you are centered, rooted in your natural, existential self. It has nothing to do with outside.
Freedom from things is dependent on the outside. Freedom to do something is also dependent on the outside. Freedom to be ultimately pure has not to be dependent on anything outside you.
You are born as freedom.
Freedom from is ordinary, mundane. Man has always tried to be free from things. It is not creative. It is the negative aspect of freedom.
Freedom for is creativity. You have a certain vision that you would like to materialize and you want freedom for it.
Freedom from is always from the past, and freedom for is always for the future.
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Freedom for is a spiritual dimension because you are moving into the unknown and perhaps, one day, into the unknowable. It will give you wings.
Freedom from, at the most, can take away your handcuffs. It is not necessarily beneficial — and the whole of history is a proof of it. People have never thought of the second freedom that I am insisting on; they have only thought of the first — because they don’t have the insight to see the second. The first is visible: chains on their feet, handcuffs on their hands. They want to be free from them, but then what? What are you going to do with your hands? You may even repent that you asked for freedom from.
Basically you are totally free to choose, but once you choose, your very choice brings a limitation.
If you want to remain totally free, then don’t choose. That’s where the teaching of choiceless awareness comes in. Why the insistence of the great masters just to be aware and not to choose? Because the moment you choose, you have lost your total freedom, you are left with only a part. But if you remain choiceless, your freedom remains total.
So there is only one thing which is totally free and that is choiceless awareness. Everything else is limited.
Channel of Light
January 27, 2013
An interesting perspective. For me, freedom has always been an issue of attachment and accepting WHAT IS.
Attachments, we as humans make, can be very strong and the attachments can create loyalties, and attachments and loyalties can form bonds, and the bonds can turn into bondage.
It is suggested that even an attachment to freedom creates limitation and removes the very freedom we so desperately desire. There are those individuals who say “Well, I do not wish to be attached to anything or anyone”, except freedom.
And that, even these individuals in their attachment to freedom may
find themselves being held in bondage to that freedom. It is important to understand that true freedom comes not from being unattached to objects, locations or individuals, but freedom comes rather in the inner feeling one has toward life and toward what one is doing.
Most importantly, if one truly seeks freedom, one must accept ‘What Is’.
To accept what is as being the way it is at the moment, with the realization that everything can change, and in accepting what is, one
can turn inward and feel the reality that no one can imprison one‘s soul without their participation in that imprisonment.
It is important for individuals to know what they truly want from life and to make sure that they do not get themselves attached to something that they do not really want but which they think they want.
With respect
Light
ForwardFacing
January 28, 2013
How is one supposed to conduct his or her life without making choices? If I just allow myself to run on auto pilot all of the time, I will end up not going to class, not going to work, and just doing what I want all of the time until I can’t pay the bills and starve to death. Are these responsibilities just parts of my reality that I am not accepting, and thus do not complete them naturally? Am I supposed to just let go until my parents disown me at the point which I hit rock bottom. Am I supposed to experience starvation and poverty so that I incorporate it into my reality? At what point does one’s auto pilot drive sustainably without conscious choice/intervention?
How does one go about identifying and reconciling the internal conditions that create enslavement to the reflections of external reality?
I struggle with these questions very much.
CB
Britt
January 31, 2013
CB – what you are talking about is the Paradox of life, which is found within any major “truth” we must face of a dualistic nature.
I could try to explain it to you, but this reading really does a much better job than I could possibly do:)
I truly hope it helps!!
http://cosmicawareness.org/html/the_paradox.html
Britt
esp
March 11, 2013
Normally I wouldn’t got against the training so many have given me to attempt to surpress my internal red alter, but this signal is loud and clear. This sounds like exactly what I would expect to hear from people who want to keep me enslaved. Don’t take this the wrong way but being unaware of the world around me and the extent of what’s going on in it sounds to me like a rather draconain agenda.
KW
March 28, 2013
Hey esp, this article is not saying anything about ‘being unaware of the world around’ oneself. It is the awareness of the world and the boundless love around that can help us become to be completely free. The author talks about freedom of expressing oneself, i.e. giving freedom to one’s true self, as the ultimate freedom.
To ForwardFacing I can add this: we can visualize the reality we want for ourselves, and then just live our life to the best we can and the Universe will provide abundance that we want. It’s a very easy concept – all great equations of the Nature are very simple, indeed. However, it is a constant work to actually keep oneself free – exactly in the sense this article describes: free to express one’s true identity, one’s pure heart, and one’s pure love. Everybody has pure heart, but so many have it hidden underneath a manifold of wrappings, trappings, and fears. When you are faced with choices – follow your heart not your ego that tries and tries to be rational. Our rational egos can never do a better job than the Universe, than our true hearts. So trust the Universe and all your choices will turn out to be miracles. Trust me (I am the Universe 🙂 – as you are!): I’ve gone through a lot of amazing experiences filled with coincidences – so many coincidences and amazing happenings they are statistically improbable. I’ve finally come to the point where I don’t need to focus on problems and making choices. The fact is that when I am faced with a choice I go with the one that makes me feel happiest – I listen to my heart, not to my mind that tries to calculate things without knowing so many variables and tries to make choices based on past hurts and therefore present fears. By listening to my heart I have come to make the best choices ever and I feel happiness and joy not simply each and every day but each and every minute – it is almost palpable, it does not depend on anybody or anything, it’s inside me. I do what I love to do: my work and helping others to learn how to love themselves and others and how to achieve the freedom of expression. Never before I had such rich experiences and never before I felt that my life has so much purpose. Good luck with your life and your journey! Trust the Universe 😉