What is Freedom?

“Vaguely I began to realize that she was my double – myself as a five-year-old girl. As she kept walking slowly toward me, I knew that she was approaching to give me some kind of special message. She stopped in front of me, stood silently for several moments, then spoke in a young voice that surprised me with its authority.

‘Be free,’ she said. ‘Be free. That is my message for you.’

Still deep in these memories of childhood, I was surprised by the prickling of tears that her message released in me. ... I knew my tears were those of recognition – of being seen and known at a deep level. Tears awakened by the simple wisdom of a child – myself as a child – the one who knew my love of secret, inner worlds, the one who knew the longing of the soul to be free.”

Olivia Ames Hoblitzelle. “Ten Thousand Joys & Ten Thousand Sorrows. A Couple’s Journey through Alzheimer’s.” Penguin, NY, 2008.

How "free" can we be while slavishly catering to a relentlessly demanding master? A part of us - our small self (ego, "pain body") - constantly squawks for attention, and we anxiously rush about, trying to satisfy its every demand. After all, it's: afraid, sad, anxious, stressed, tired, sleepy, upset, angry, sore, cold, too hot, hungry, too full, lonely, bored, uncomfortable, unworthy ... BUT we can't satisfy it, because the ego (via "self talk") craves attention. This is life as most of us know it, at the level of "ordinary mind".

Meanwhile, our true spacious nature ("awakened consciousness") waits peacefully, patiently, in stillness & silence, for us to outgrow (fully process) this "mini me" phase.

“There is no passion (nor freedom!) to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” Nelson Mandela