How to be free? It seems to me this is one of the most important questions in life. However, what I’ve noticed is that very few people ask this question “how to live free?” or “how to be free?” Very few people, very few, ask that question.
What actually happens? Why don't people yearn for Freedom? Why does it happen since everyone appreciates Freedom, yet doesn’t ask the question “how to be free?”
The truth about this is that, in general, we have ways, means, and mechanisms to escape suffering or to escape the condition of limitation and prison in which internally and psychologically we are. So, people don't ask the question “how to be free?” because they can find one way or another to temporarily relieve themselves from the pain of being, psychologically, in prison.
We want to investigate this here with you in the next few minutes and show you this possibility: the possibility of going beyond suffering, beyond psychological pain, conflict, contradiction, and subjection, which is being trapped, being inside a prison constructed by thought and the conditions of the mind.
The egoic mind carries this structure, the structure of a prison, the prison from which we temporarily escape because of this or that escape mechanism, a mechanism we already know, in fact, from childhood. We always have ways to escape, to escape suffering.
The whole point is that when you escape suffering, that escape is always temporary. You escape, but the problem wasn’t solved, the situation wasn’t resolved; it’s still there and you're still escaping. Over time, over the years, we get used to, we get used to this psychological condition of suffering and escape, suffering and escape.
Few of us have a real interest in Freedom; few of us suspect the possibility of going beyond suffering. At most, what some people do, many of them, is to seek through spirituality something beyond this common condition of life, which is the distressing life created by thought, the distressing psychological life that human beings live, is to search, along the path of spirituality, for something beyond that.
And here I want to talk to you about this, about the real possibility of being Free, of living Free from all psychological suffering. Here I refer to a Life in Love, a Life in Happiness, in Peace, in this Consciousness of the Divine Truth, the Truth of God.
God is this Reality, the Divine present in each one of us. However, alienated from this Natural State of Being-Consciousness, of Being-Presence, we are inside this model of the egoic mind, egocentric mind, and, therefore, inside a prison. As I’m now saying to you, we have temporarily escaped this. There are several escapes! We have created several escapes: we have it in drinking, food, sex, the entertainment industry… We always have a way to find, in one way or another, a temporary, transitory escape from this psychological pain.
This psychological pain is grounded in the concept of “me.” It is this “I” in the relationship with the world, with others, with life, in suffering, in conflict, inside this prison.
Few of us realize that this model, for example, of thinking, within each of us, is not something natural. Indeed, it is an affliction, an inner dysfunction of profound disorder, profound contradiction; it is this chaotic model of accelerated thinking within us. Thoughts that we can't deal with. They cause various forms of internal suffering within each one of us.
Anxiety, anguish, fear, the various fears we feel, depression, hatred, indifference, guilt, regret, sadness, loneliness, and this pain present in loneliness, the pain of loneliness, all this is present within us as a psychological condition that we get used to, get accustomed to, and when it becomes unbearable, we escape. So, let’s eat, stroll, travel, have fun, date... All kinds of situations we create to escape from the inner restlessness, from all the inner confusion that thought, inside us, produces.
And we don't ask ourselves: “Is this possible? How to be free? How to live in freedom?” This question could also be put in another way: “How to be happy? How to realize happiness? How to live free from this existential emptiness? How can I live free from all this psychological storm of thoughts, which I can't deal with? They won't let me sleep well, eat well, or get along perfectly with other people.”
We are constantly, within ourselves, creating suspicion in our relationships, creating enmities. There is a restlessness within us, which makes us speak when unnecessary. We talk too much because we think too much. We think too much and we don't know what this “thinking” is. There’s no control over it, and this is a prison, an affliction, it is a psychological condition of insanity, psychological confusion, psychological disorder, and internal disharmony. That’s where we need to understand the importance of Self-Awareness – understanding ourselves.
So, let’s no longer escape from psychological distressing states, and psychological conflicts, since we are now going to look at what the mind is producing within each one of us.
Notice that thought has produced in us this whole notion of the present, past, and future: what I lived in the past, all the experiences I went through, what I’m living here and now, in the present, and what I’ll live in the future. This notion of the present, past, and future, of an “I” present in these experiences, shapes this illusion of psychological time thought has produced.
This psychological time is where we, as separate entities – this is an illusion, but for us, it’s a very real thing – are living. We’re living in this psychological time condition. We have unsolved problems from the past, problems to solve in the future, and we are always dealing with this present moment, and finding in it a problem to deal with, to get rid of. And in what way? Running away, escaping.
The psychological condition in us is distressing, because we basically don't know ourselves. This “I” passes for You. This “I” you believe to be is an idea, an identity created by thought, which is nothing but an image, the image you make of who you are. From this image, you are dealing with others, with the world, and with life, and naturally carrying all the problems linked to this image, to this “I,” to this “person,” to this model of ego consciousness – this is the sense of the ego in the actions.
Thus, our actions in the ego are always egocentric actions and activities, which are based on an illusory “I,” continually interpreting life here and now from this background, which is psychological time, this idea of “yesterday, today, and tomorrow,” the idea of “someone” present dealing with the world.
Putting it to you in a more objective, more practical way, this: your relationship with your husband, wife, children, and family, with yourself, is a relationship based on this duality, this separateness and therefore conflict is present.
When a thought arises in you, the illusion is that you are producing that thought. When a feeling arises, the illusion is that you are producing that feeling; that an emotion is something part of you and separate from you, something you can deal with.
Watch closely and you’ll find this is not true. When an emotion arises, it completely takes over the body and mind, but a thought arises and says “I need to control this.” However, you don't control emotions; they control you. You don’t control a thought since you are not the one who produces those thoughts; they just show themselves, they appear, they are born from a psychological background, from the past. When they appear, the illusion immediately arises that it is you who is thinking and that you can control the thoughts. Try it! Get rid of thought when you see it is making you suffer. Is it possible to get rid of a thought?
When thought is present, it takes over your body and mind along with the internal state it brings, and you can't do anything with it. You lie down to sleep and you can't sleep! And you try to ward the thoughts off and you can't! The thoughts repeat themselves in your head and they are unwanted, intrusive thoughts, and you can't ward them off. You make an effort to take them away and you can't.
When an emotion arises, you want to get rid of that emotion because it’s painful, and the more you try, the stronger it becomes. The only way you find, at such moments, is to escape. So, you try to escape the thought, you go to your cell phone, turn on the television, watch a movie, you do something else to take that thought away, and, apparently, it seems it’s no longer there at that moment… when you're drinking, eating, dating, watching TV or doing something else, but in fact, you're just escaping from that state – it’s the state of ego-identity.
So, that sense of “someone” in control doesn’t exist. Then, when a thought arises, there’s the idea of “someone” present; when a feeling arises, there’s the idea of “someone” present; an emotion, a sensation… that “someone” is continually separating oneself from that experience. When you do that, you uphold the sense of separateness, the sense of duality.
Here, I am explaining something to you: there’s no such sense of “someone” present! This is a trick, a prank of ego consciousness. It is deceiving you, playing with you, but it’s a very dull joke and you are taking it too seriously – this illusory psychological condition of being “somebody” – and therefore suffering, without Freedom. There’s no Freedom in this ego identity.
Hence, Self-Awareness is to perceive the illusion of this identity present in this experience. Being able to perceive this is Self-Awareness. How do we perceive this? How do we become aware and conscious of this? Observing. Direct observation, without giving an identity to it, in this experience, be it a thought, a feeling, an emotion, a sensation, a concern, a story from the past, a memory, a story from the future, an imagination... To look at what appears here and now, without giving an identity, can vanish this illusion of separateness.
As you do that, that space between the observer and the observed thing, which is that “I” and that experience... that space disappears. This space between the observer and the observed thing sustains the ego identity. We are living within this space of separateness, which is duality. In that space is conflict, the psychological prison; this is where the whole problem of the human being lies.
Self-Awareness nullifies this space, it shows that this space is a fraud, an illusion, and that this observer with his or her experience doesn’t exist. What is present now is the experience, Ok. But this experience vanishes when there’s no experiencer. This observed thing only remains when there is an observer. In other words, anxiety needs an anxious “someone,” fear needs a “someone” in fear, sadness needs a sad “someone,” and thought needs a “someone” as the thinker.
When there is no thought, where is the thinker? When there is no element for anxiety, thought, image, or frames, where is the one anxious? Here, if one is eliminated, the other is also eliminated. So, how do we get rid of this prank? How do we unmask this prank?
Notice that when they play a prank and you find it out, you laugh; you always laugh, when you are the victim of the prank. If you're the victim of the prank and you find out it was a prank, you laugh, because you perceive the joke, you perceive it wasn't real, it was a joke.
The mind in its egoic state, the ego in its psychological state, this false identity, is a great cosmic prank. The illusion of separateness, the illusion of duality, is a trick. Free from the thinker, there’s no thought; free from the one who feels, there’s no feeling; free from the image, there is no “I.” Then, here we get rid of the illusion of the prank, of this joke; while you are mistaken, identified with it, it’s very, very dull. Even because it’s not a joke, it’s a very, very serious thing.
The Realization of the Truth of God is an encounter with the acknowledgment that there is nothing other than God, the Divine Consciousness, in a great game. It is difficult for the ego to accept this as being real, because the ego is the victim, is involved, not being able to see the whole game, so it’ll never accept that this is a joke. And it'll even get angry if we say to it: “See, that doesn't exist.”
You, in your state of egoic identification, firmly believe in your experiences, desires, attachments, fears, conclusions, losses, disappointments, and frustrations. Suffering is very real! I'm not saying it’s not real. It’s real until Reality shows itself. So, as we approach the problem, which seems to be real – and it’s real to us – we have to approach it without escaping, to look at what arises here and now, any thought, feeling, emotion, sensation… to look at this “real,” to stay with what is.
When you remain with what is, without taking conclusions, rejecting, without fighting it, judging, comparing... This is how we have to learn to deal with life as it happens: you don't judge, don't compare, don't evaluate, don't identify yourself, don't give an identity, you just acknowledge what it is. And when you do that, the acknowledgment of what is, which is the reality at that instant, becomes a gateway to something beyond what is. That something beyond what is, is the Unspeakable, Indescribable, Unnamable, the Happiness of your Being, Freedom.
That’s the subject we deal with here with you. Some people call this “the Awakening of Consciousness” or “the Spiritual Awakening.” Therefore, this is our work together within this channel.
If this is something that makes sense to you, leave your “like,” and subscribe to the channel... Reminding you: we have online and face-to-face meetings, where we are working on this together. Ok? And here is the invitation.
See you next meeting.
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