Our Challenge With Freedom
Posted by otryba | Filed under Uncategorized
Our challenge with Freedom today is that we think of freedom as an idea, perhaps an ethic, an ideal, a morality, a philosophy. Listen to what people say about freedom today: almost as soon as they speak of it, they speak of confining it. They affirm freedom – but with fences – and they want to reassure you that they are not advocating freedom without fences. Oh no! “We are ALL agreed that we don’t mean THAT kind of Freedom!”
Our challenge with Freedom in the modern world is that genuine Freedom is not an idea, philosophy or ethic, regardless of how many books have been written on the topic.
Freedom is a neurology. Freedom is a state of unconditional trust in our Beingness. It is a way that the defensive & vigilant structures of the brain grow into connection with the right-now knowing of the heart when we are welcomed at birth, into the arms & skin & breasts of our mothers and the trust of our people. They grow to warn us of true danger and to invite us into the delight of true connection, rather than growing to alert us perpetually that we are a danger to ourselves, which is what happens in the West. Please reread this last sentence, and then TASTE it experientially.
Freedom is the neural link between the Heart that Knows and the Brain that Thinks. This heart-brain-mind neural link, established in our first hours, day & months after birth, is that which will determine whether we live Life in the Freedom to Know from the Heart, or if we live Life trapped in the beliefs our Brains get filled with.
©2009 Olivier “O” Tryba
Tags: Freedom, Freedom For, Heart Knowing
September 4th, 2009 at 6:01 am
O,
This wondrous! Thank you, causes me to stop and thing and to be thoughtful of how I express freedom, which is not a word or action I think consciously of all the time…
September 4th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Big O,
You are brilliantly clear on this. Freedom is a neurology!
People are terrified of freedom. We learn that our base natures, appetites, desires must be fettered for our own good, and society’s good. We are so dangerous when we are natural.
I value freedom more than anything, more than love, relationship, money. It is a prerequisite for my enjoyment of any of these. I am still growing into a real experience of freedom. I no longer feel hopeless because I was born into a family and culture that taught bondage, The neurology of freedom is in our DNA, and we don’t lose it, we just have to relearn to use it. You have helped me with this.
September 4th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Freedom, all ideas that speak of it is not actually freedom. There is only one place where freedom is, and this place is upon us. Open the mind, release the heart, let life flow… Now!
September 4th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Carla & EMSEE,
Thanks for your comments. Yes. We embody the world that we grow into and our yearning for Deep Freedom calls us to venture into knowing ourselves AS the world. This journey requires the courage, co-opted on all fronts in many modern cultures, to actually FEEL our experience, ALL of it, including Grief. Then we are challenged to move beyond the shame that so much of the culture would like to isolate us in, as so much of current culture, mainstream, “new age,” “transformational,” remains predicated on the premise that a portion of our experience is holy and a portion unholy, in persistent denial of our WHOLE experience, as-is, without manipulation or correction.
October 19th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
Olivier,
Thank you for describing freedom as the link between “the Heart that Knows and the Brain that Thinks”. This is very deep, something that I almost need to feel to be able to understand because thinking about it only confuses me. I really feel that it is not so much that link that determines if we live a life of freedom but the culture and beliefs of that culture that determine if we live trapped in this life. If I look at my life, I see that I was born into a culture that dictated how I was to grow up with the expectation that I needed to follow the rules of all three strong “subcultures” in order to not shame the family and grow up to be a “proper” adult. What does that mean? It has been a long journey, looking for and wanting Freedom so bad, that now I am just beginning to be able to let go of all the constraints that have held me back–that have kept me not just from freedom but also from striving to be free. But, Olivier, I do think it’s possible to be free and live in the moment, to experience life through our senses without thinking, just feeling–to experience it all, fully even if we were born with the link that was to keep us trapped forever. Then, what would be the purpose of the journey?