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.
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.
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.
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.
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