Some seem to seek awakening because they think it will give them freedom.
It’s never been much of a motivation for me, but it’s interesting to explore.
CARROT
At a surface level and in a conventional sense, it’s one of many possible motivations for exploring awakening.
It serves as a carrot, so it has a function for a while until it eventually falls away.
WHAT KIND OF FREEDOM?
What kind of freedom do we think awakening will give us?
Do we assume that the imaginary separate self will find freedom?
If so, that’s part of the carrot.
ANY MOTIVATION REFLECTS A SENSE OF LACK
Seeking freedom, or anything at all, tends to reflect a sense of lack.
If we feel we are not free, we seek freedom. If we feel unloved or unlovable, we may seek love. If we feel unsafe, we may seek insights and understanding. And so on.
We can use our motivation to identify a particular sense of lack in ourselves and befriend and get to know that part of us. We can find healing for our relationship to it, give it what it feels it lacks, help it feel seen and nourished, and allow it to relax a bit.
THE FREEDOMS THAT COME WITH AWAKENING
Awakening does bring a few different kinds of freedom.
Awakening brings freedom from blindly assuming we most fundamentally are this human self and any content within the content of experience.
The awakening process can and does fuel a process of deep and profound healing at a human level. Although this process can be anything but gentle and is often not very comfortable, it does give a certain type of freedom. It gives a kind of freedom from being inevitably caught up in whatever issues we have found healing for.
As Adya says, what we find in awakening is mainly the freedom to more consciously allow what’s here as it is, and to experience whatever we are experiencing. It’s a freedom to experience the full range of human states and experiences, from heaven to hell.
AWAKENING HAS ULTIMATELY NOTHING TO DO WITH FREEDOM
Ultimately, awakening itself has nothing to do with freedom.
If anything, we are released from the idea of a separate self that’s free or not. (Apart from in the most conventional sense.)
Awakening is an awakening out of the dream of most fundamentally being a separate self which can be free or not.
AWAKENING AND FREEDOM
So how does awakening relate to freedom?
The idea of finding freedom can be a motivation.
This motivation can be a pointer to an identity of not being free, which is something we can explore.
Awakening is a kind of freedom from blindly taking ourselves to most fundamentally be something within the content of our experience, this separate self.
Awakening can initiate a deep healing process, which is often not comfortable, and which gives us a kind of freedom around issues we previously were caught up in.
Awakening is a freedom to consciously allow what’s here as it is. It’s a freedom to allow and experience the full range of experiences, from heaven to hell.
Awakening is to find ourselves as capacity for the world as it appears to us. To find ourselves as what the world, as it appears to us, happen within and as. We find ourselves as oneness.
We may also notice that anything we are, experience, and do has innumerable causes. What’s happening here is the local expression of the whole of existence. There is more fundamentally no separate self.
And we may explore any issues we have around freedom, find healing for our relationship with it, and invite in healing for the issue itself.
DRAFT
FREEDOM AND AWAKENING?
I have never quite understood why some seem to seek awakening because they think it will give them freedom.
What kind of freedom do they think it will give them?
I understand that some, who have an issue around not feeling free, create a fantasy around awakening and freedom. It’s a kind of wishful thinking.
And I also understand that awakening can and does fuel a process of deep and profound healing at a human level. Although this process can be anything but gentle and is often not very comfortable, it does give a certain type of freedom – from being caught up in issues and so on.
As Adya says, awakening is mostly freedom to more consciously allow what’s here as it is, and to experience whatever we are experiencing. It’s a freedom to experience the full range of human states and experiences, from heaven to hell.
Awakening itself has little to nothing to do with freedom. If anything, we are released from the idea of a separate self that’s free or not (apart from in the most conventional sense). We recognize that what’s here, what this human self is and does and experiences, is the local manifestation of the movements within the whole.
DRAFT TWO
Some seem to seek awakening because they think it will give them freedom. It’s a kind of carrot which drives their exploration, so it serves a function.
What kind of freedom do they think it will give them?
Do they assume that the imaginary separate self they think they are will find freedom?
I understand that some, who have an issue around not feeling free, create a fantasy around awakening and freedom. It’s a kind of wishful thinking.
At the same time, awakening does bring a few different kinds of freedom.
Awakening brings freedom from blindly assuming we most fundamentally are this human self and any content within the content of experience.
The awakening process can and does fuel a process of deep and profound healing at a human level. Although this process can be anything but gentle and is often not very comfortable, it does give a certain type of freedom. It gives a kind of freedom from being inevitably caught up in whatever issues we have found healing for.
As Adya says, what we find in awakening is mainly the freedom to more consciously allow what’s here as it is, and to experience whatever we are experiencing. It’s a freedom to experience the full range of human states and experiences, from heaven to hell.
Beyond this, awakening itself has little to nothing to do with freedom. If anything, we are released from the idea of a separate self that’s free or not. (Apart from in the most conventional sense.)
We recognize that what’s here, what this human self is and does and experiences, is the local manifestation of the movements within the whole.
…..
We recognize that, in our own first-person experience, we are capacity for the world as it appears to us. We are what this human self, the wider world, and anything else happens within and as. Our nature is oneness whether we notice or not.
Similarly, we recognize that what’s here, what this human self is and does and experiences, is the local manifestation of the movements within the whole. Anything that this human self is, does, and experiences has innumerable causes stretching back to beginning of time and the widest extent of existence. (If there is a beginning and boundary, which there may not be.)
We also recognize that any idea of freedom is an idea. We may investigate these ideas and assumptions, find what’s more true for us, and — ironically – find some freedom around them.