Living as the Freedom You Already Are

We all want to live in the most alive and free way. No matter what we are searching for, no matter what tradition or religion. Really we are searching to live as the freedom that we truly are. We go around searching for a way to break down the boundaries and restrictions that we feel in our lives because we already know the freedom that we search and long for. This is how we know when someone is speaking the ‘truth’ or not or whether something resonates or not. It rings a bell of recognition. Energetically it opens a little window in our belief of who we are, and we experience a deep relaxation and sense of freedom. However, then we usually think that we need to do something to maintain or repeat this experience. We give this experience all kinds of explanations and meanings. We begin to search to find ‘outside’ what we know ‘inside’. And we get very confused…

Some of us believe that if we tow the line and live in as safe a possible way then we will get through life unscathed. Life usually does not allow that to happen. Whether it is an accident or a loss, life proves again and again that nothing is really safe or known. Towing the line and trying to fit into society is something people do when they innocently don't know anything else or when they are scared. When the possibility of breaking free hasn't occurred to them or if it has, then the fear of losing everything they know, is too great. But if you have had a longing to break free or to live more fully ‘alive’, then this usually will lead you to push the boundaries in life, and in doing so life becomes more risky and can be uncomfortable at times. It takes great courage to step out of the box, to leap into the unknown and face all your fears. And to not only leap once but to continue leaping again and again. You leap once but then quickly the mind finds a new landing foothold. Before you even realise it you have found a new more spiritual or more non-dual identity. You have become someone who is more open or more free. You then develop a mental image of someone who is free and imagine how they might behave or feel or think.

The mind is constantly comparing your daily behaviour with the image of someone who is completely free. Of course you really have no idea about this imagined ‘free-person’s’ experience, and yet the mind goes on comparing. Most of the time your experience will not fit the ideal image and there will be a lot of negativity felt and generally berating yourself for not being free enough. Occasionally there will be an experience that does fit your idea of what it is to be free and then there will be much mental congratulation and the feeling that you are getting closer. Closer to what though?

This is the only way that the mind knows to achieve a goal: to imagine something that is missing that needs to be achieved, to try hard to achieve it, to compare your progress to the imagined goal, and to conclude that you have either achieved it or not yet. However, much to the mind’s dismay and frustration, freedom is not achieved at all.

The reason why some teachings resonate and some don’t, is because you know what you are looking for. You may be confused as to how to get there, but you know ‘there’ is real freedom. You spend years searching ‘out there’ to find an experience that fits what you know ‘in here’. Although there are many experiences that come and go, there is no experience of freedom that lasts forever. The living as if there is separation comes back, and with it, the pain. No matter how hard the mind works, permanent freedom is not achieved. It is not achieved because it is not missing. The mind is trying to achieve freedom because it believes that it is missing. The mind believes that the pain that is felt in the daily life actually means that something is missing. But maybe the pain is because the freedom that is already, is being overlooked and denied.

So how do you know the freedom that you search for? I remember that I knew this freedom as a child, long before I read any books about enlightenment. You have always known this freedom because it is who you are. It is who you have always been and who you are right now. You know this right now and so when you notice that you behave in a way that is restricted, the contrast feels painful. You know the boundlessness and unconditional love that you are right now, and yet there is a living as if there are boundaries and conditions. This contrast is painful and so the mind tries to find a way to reconcile this dichotomy. You try various spiritual practices or paths in order to bring this freedom into your daily life. Although this can seem to be helpful to a certain extent to unravel some heavy belief systems, it is all based in a misunderstanding.

The mind assumes that ‘I’ am the separate person who is living a life in time. However, when you see beyond what the mind says, you already know that you are the boundlessness and openness that is right now. Trust and rest in what you already know beyond the mind. The mind may hear this and try to do that. But I am not suggesting that you should (or could) do anything. I am suggesting that you are, in fact, already at rest, simply noticing everything happen. No matter what the mind may come up with, it does not mean anything about who you are. The mind says ‘I am separate’ or ‘I am restricted’ or ‘I need… in order to be free’. When these thoughts are not believed to mean anything, then what do you know? If you don’t believe the thought that insists that you are separate, then are you separate? See that nothing the mind says ever refers to an actual separate person because you already know right now that there is only freedom here.

In seeing that you are not the separate person that the mind assumes you are, then it doesn’t matter whether the life plays out as if you are separate or restricted. Whatever happens, it is not happening ‘to me’. Emotions are felt, responses or reactions happen, and none of it mean that I am further from or closer to the goal of being more free. Nothing that happens in this play of life means anything about who I am. I am free no matter what ‘I’ do, say or feel. This is radical freedom that does not depend on living in a more free way. This means giving up all hope of ever reconciling the way you live your life with knowing of the freedom that you are.

The dichotomy is never reconciled and does not have to be. It appears that there is a separate person living a separate life of being completely touched by the boundaries and restrictions of this life and paradoxically and absolutely simultaneously there is the boundlessness that is always untouched and free. The pain is when this paradox is not accepted as the paradox that it is.

And funnily enough, I notice that in seeing the paradox for what it is, there is a relaxation experienced in the play of life. There is a relaxing of boundaries and beliefs. But this is a never-ending effortless unraveling, without any need or hope to be fully and finally unraveled.

Unmani