The Goal: Freedom

April 26, 2018 AURELIS, Freedom, Mental Growth No Comments

… of the total person. This may assume a serious commitment, a firm attitude, discipline. It judders and clashes with all sorts of … and yet.

A good starting point may be: “nothing changes me.”

So also: “nothing stops me,” because if one is changing from within, then that change itself is the situation and stopping this would be changing the situation. So it is sufficient to say: “nothing changes me.”

Nothing changes me if I am who I am. Nothing changes me if I change from within. I’m totally free

We know that this is not a freedom in immorality, but a freedom in depth and respect.

It is the freedom to give without expecting anything. It is the freedom to expect without giving.

All things considered, it’s like the ‘freedom’ of a newborn. But a mature newborn. Or maybe better said: a newborn adult?

What you give that way, is not ‘free’. Also a Christmas present is not ‘free’. It’s beyond ‘free’.

Also people who strive for political freedom for example (‘stop the oppressors!) do essentially aim for freedom-from-within. The deeper self wants to be free. The conquerors introduce a different kind of culture, unknown ‘gods’, possibly a different organization, different rules. These are all things that are not the own familiar paths that one can walk ‘back and forth’ on. They are no open doors. It is not inviting.

What asks for openness, is the own deeper self.

Where one needs openness is : in oneself.

Why

People who think money and power are most important

have often even forgotten why.

Of course there is always something that complicates things. In this case: the idea that freedom can be obtained through power: control over oneself, and because that never really gives the desired result, also control over others. The dominated becomes the tyrant. That’s a relief, but not for long. The power (with small p) referred to, will soon be a form of addiction. One never gets enough of it because it does not satisfy deeply. It is money. It is status (towards others and still much more compelling: towards oneself). It’s physical affliction. More, more, more. But what it is not, is freedom. How would it be! Freedom is the opposite of addiction. Addiction even makes you forget what freedom means. Addiction makes people aggressive towards freedom.

Modern man in all his ‘freedom’ is less free than ever.

Admittedly, something is ‘free’ but unfortunately it is not the total person. Even people who sometimes have a taste of that freedom (e.g.: they fall in love) but often forget it soon thereafter like a dream that vanishes between bed and front door.

It is however a beautiful dream: about freedom that gives Power, the Power (with large P) to be free of addiction.

Freedom at last!

It happens within, even if it happens on the outside. And vice versa of course: it happens from outside, even if it happens from within, like a joy that colors the world.

It is like the sun over the sea and the sun is ‘You’ and the sea is ‘I’

Or vice versa. Meditation…

It’s such a beautiful dream that it is always a pity not to be dreaming it in reality, not to be the dream in reality. Now: sometimes people do show that it is possible. The reality is just the prison one makes of it, or not.

People are also free to block themselves.

Once they are stuck, however, they are no longer free. Realizing that you do that yourself, is not enough. You need to experience that you do it yourself. Once you are experiencing it, you start to live like a newborn ‘adult’. Then comes the possibility of change. Or call it ‘Change’ (with large C).

People often (always?) consult a coach seeking Change, but with a head full of search for change.

About this last point it needs to be said that it sometimes looks like quicksand: the more one is wallowing in it, the more one sinks into it.

Soon all kinds of people come up with the promise to change.

All sorts of people make use of this quicksand and call it ‘freedom’, unencumbered by insight or morality.

All things considered, all kinds of people are this quicksand themselves. This is in most cases not a ‘stepping stone towards better’. For a lot of people this is, altogether, the last step for the rest of their lives.

Well, first it’s this and then it’s that. And then it’s this again or again something else … But all things considered, it is always the same quicksand.

AURELIS is about the freedom to Change

from smoker to non-smoker for example, being something else than ‘throwing away the cigarette’. This is not easy (and also not easy to understand) for someone who is stuck in change (with small c), but the reward is big, namely: oneself.

People need freedom to find freedom and to find themselves in this freedom. That may sound banal or just paradoxical, depending on how you look at it. But it might be the only way. It is a way of putting things into perspective, but not of putting things into perspective so that there is eventually nothing left.