Skip to main content

unconditional freedom


Unconditional freedom can be found amidst a river of intense emotions and the hectic current of life, when we make a conscious decision to stop all forms of activity, dropping our habitual tendencies to push on through the ceaseless waves of dramas.  It asks that we stay put in the fray, knowing that even more challenges may arise spontaneously from underlying depths.

Unconditional freedom arrives when the momentum unwinds and we investigate the fears and craving that push us around, rather than act on their behest. We begin to understand how the view that there is something missing from this moment is what creates our discomfort. There is nothing missing.

Unconditional freedom runs against the flow of human activity, the activities promoted by what is taught, advertised, marketed, and often agreed upon by the horde. It provides us leeway despite the demands placed on us by work, family, friends and our own, incessantly judgmental minds and physical stresses. It relieves us from the belief that life is just not good enough.

Unconditional freedom requires diving into unknown depths in our relationships with others, stripping us of the certainty of our views and opinions, demanding that we open our hearts and listen closely even amidst conflict, finding new ways to relate to others, for they may be in over their heads, struggling as we may be. It is the breath taken during disagreements, just before words are said that cannot be silenced. 

Unconditional freedom demands that we speak from the heart, which means expressing the emotions and feelings that underly what we want to believe are “facts,” but, in actually, are just the way we’ve framed our experience.

Unconditional freedom allows us to discern how fluid and dynamic life truly is, rather than seeking false illusions of stability that the mundane view of life provides. Money, power, approval, fame, health are all conditional and can cease suddenly. We find security from spiritual tools that are built from the truth of life itself: change, uncertainty, leeway.

Unconditional freedom can seized at any time, but it should not be put off into a future, we are in bodies that offer us no warrantees.

Unconditional freedom can a temporary stop on the journey towards accomplishment and distant destinations. Or it can last for an unlimited duration, depending on how much we are willing to put aside. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

fear

There are times in life when intrusive, fear based thoughts latch hold of us, filling the mind with swarming, buzzing thoughts, distracting us during interactions with others, muting the sensory richness of each moment—the sounds, body sens ations, aromas, feelings and on. Such dire visitors—generally based on past resentments or speculative fears—can easily bait and hook us, threatening us with annihilation, repeating constantly; given how constant the messages can be, releasing such thoughts can feel like ignoring ‘the world is going to end’ new flashes on CNN or city sirens announcing impending hurricanes. The mind can really play tricks that make it all to easy to abandon the present, which is, of course, the only place of true safety and utility. When we find the mind latching onto these narratives, images or moods, and we can’t reassure, reason with or let go, sometimes the only solution is to give up the battle and actually write down what our fears are trying to tell us. If ...
1 comment
Read more

Imagination And Creativity as Spiritual Practice

It’s worth noting how few of childhoods’ freewheeling exercises—the entertainments that were once synonymous with youthful delight—journey through to adult life. To a great degree, we’ve moved, en masse, toward consuming entertainment via television, video games and social media rather than creating our entertainment: drawing, making pottery, dancing, singing, and other inventive endeavors. Those same kindergartners who sing, draw, dance, and engage in all kinds of play, will, in only a few years’ time, be streaming their content via iPad screens, which requires less imagination and effort.  Consider the mind’s two dominant cognitive networks: the first is the default mode network (DMN), a mental state wherein we can visualize possibilities or solve problems, but where we often wind up speculating about unknowable future outcomes or ruminating about interpersonal conflicts. DMN is largely activated by subregions associated with inductive reasoning centers of the brain (t...
9 comments
Read more

yoniso

In the 1960s Michael Gazzanega noted that: the human brain is organized in terms of a “mental society.”…alongside our verbal system, there resides any number of “mental units” [that each] have memories, values, and emotions, and are expressed through any of a variety of systems.’ What makes this process so eerie is that these systems may not be in touch with each other but rather, have their own existence outside of language and our logic.’ • reptilian brainstem: homestatic body regulation; breath, digestion, shutdown freeze autonomic systems (digestion, appetite, sleep) are disrupted; hold breath • midbrain: survival impulses that activate core emotions (amygdala); heart racing, terror, panic, addictive craving RH/Emo mind , processes experience emplicitly; impulses lie outside of cons. control; context, connection & security . Early, pre-verbal memories are stored in oFrntl & amygdala; the emotional mind largely sends non-verbal signals • Emo facial cues: tears afte...
Post a Comment
Read more