33. Are you going to San Francisco?
Flower power has been. People of my generation were born just too late to be its children at that time. That’s not fair, is it? So maybe it’s time for a new ‘flower power’ to hit this planet. Why not? And in order to accommodate me and my generation, and in fact any generation, let’s immediately make everyone forever young. I like young people. I like myself. I like you too. Are you coming with me?
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But first, since there has already been a period of flower power, let’s take a look and try to learn from it before we make the most evident mistake. If you want to be ‘reborn free’, be sure you don’t carry your own jail within you. This requires some thinking. I know: the thinking too can become a jail. We have to be careful.
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Whether in the earth or in a vase, every flower is a free flower. I think this freedom of the flower can be a nice symbol for our endeavor. The idea of freedom surely was important in the sixties: free education, free sex, free choice of music, free living, free anything. Yeah. There’s nothing wrong with it. Let’s give ourselves freedom. Let’s give ourselves deep, inner freedom. Let’s also… avoid the confusion between real inner freedom and superficiality. Since the latter is enslaving even before freedom is possible, please take care.
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Inner freedom comes from very, very deep inside. You see it in the eyes of a person if for instance you are in love with those eyes, or if that person is in love. Everything flows. It’s like the universe being present here. Which, in fact, it always is. Where else would it be?
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When I look at the sixties, I see this flower freedom. However I also see a lot of pseudo-freedom: people hiding behind it in order to be more selfish, more ego-centric than ever. In fact, this is quite the reverse of freedom. It’s the biggest jailer of all… I guess there were many old grumpers back then who were after all reacting against this, not that, even while not knowing what. That is pitiful indeed.
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Let me put it in a rather unusual way: real inner freedom lies in being complete. I mean: completely there, completely present. In order to attain this, one does not get rid of his ego, but invites his ego as well as his whole person to grow, to open and to ‘be’: the ultimate question from life. When the flower opens, the ego opens. It remains present but at the same time dissolves into a much wider whole, namely a complete human being. Such a nice word: being, just being there. But in this being, everything is present.
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So, one way or the other, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair. It’s even better if you grow your flowers. It’s even better if you grow them with care and abandonment. There lies the true power of the flower.
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