You Are Free Already

Worldly things have their place, of course, achievement has its place, but neither can set you free or make you happy. It often takes some sort of mid-life crisis to see that you’ve been looking for freedom and happiness in all the wrong places. Happiness and freedom are not found in the world. They are found in your heart where they have always been. Don Joseph Goewey’s talk is about how you come home to yourself.

Transcript

Hello,

This is Don Joseph Goe and this is a short talk on what I see as the heart of what all the great mystics have been telling us forever.

Their basic teaching is stop fixing yourself.

They say to be still whenever you can.

That a still mind takes no doing or efforting or fixing to be free.

Often what people don't get is that they are free already,

Right here,

Right now.

You're not going to become free at some point in the future.

You're already free now.

You just don't know it.

You're enlightened already.

You just don't know it.

We just need to quiet down to see it,

To know it.

Ajay Shante says that enlightenment depends to a large extent on believing that you are born for freedom.

Born for freedom in this lifetime and that it is available now,

In this moment.

The mind which creates the past and future keeps you out of the moment where the truth of your being can be discovered.

That means this moment,

Right here,

Right now.

In the moment when there is stillness,

There is always freedom.

There is always peace.

There is always happiness.

Every moment we have everything we need to be happy.

And the only reason we're ever unhappy is when we are focused on what we don't have,

Instead of what we have,

Right here,

Right now.

We were born with a free and joyful nature.

We came into the world that way in order to live happy and free lives.

Once I was talking to a man I consider the wisest human being I know,

And I was complaining that God had forgotten me.

That he had somehow lost my file.

Because here I was doing what my ego considered to be spiritual work,

That it considered to be God's work.

And at that time,

I wasn't succeeding at it.

I had hit a patch where my books and my workshops were not selling.

Well,

When I was finished complaining,

My wise friend said to me,

These things you think of as success measures are just widgets.

Do you really think that God cares how many widgets you sell?

To which I answered,

Yes,

I do.

No,

My friend said,

God only cares that you are happy.

His words penetrated my heart.

They got through.

I'm the father of four children and seven grandchildren,

And happiness is what I want most for them.

So why wouldn't my Creator want that most for me by placing the capacity for it within me?

If we have what we might call spiritual DNA,

Then God put in it the spiritual gene that expresses happiness.

If you need proof that you were born happy and free,

Just look at children.

That is who researchers look at when they study basic human nature.

And what they have found in children is amazing.

A child's sense of wonder,

Their spontaneity,

The way children are simply and totally themselves,

Like flowers are,

Like creatures of the earth are,

Not trying to become something other than what they are.

Children are naturally open and innocent and honest.

They lean out for love,

Never rejecting it,

Completely open to giving and receiving love.

They flow with creativity.

They have a genius for making fun and for seeing what's funny.

Einstein once said that creativity is intelligence having fun.

I believe that was the adult in Einstein recognizing the child inside of him.

Innate creativity comes out of the child inside of us communicating with the adult inside of us.

Picasso knew this.

Picasso said it took him 10 years to paint like Raphael and a lifetime to paint like a child.

We have to rediscover those innate qualities so apparent in a child.

They are still there.

However,

For most of us,

They are in mothballs.

I'm not talking about becoming a child.

I am talking about becoming alive again to those qualities that make life joyful.

As Christ said,

Not until we are as little children can we enter the kingdom of joy,

The kingdom of God,

Meaning the experience of heaven on earth.

That is what a child experiences when they are allowed to be what they are and not being crushed beneath the wheel of society.

If you want a glimpse of the kingdom so called,

I invite you this coming week to be a scientist studying human nature by observing children,

Observing them laughing,

Playing,

Creating,

Connecting,

Exploring.

If you aren't around children,

You can watch a video I made for you.

It's online at bit.

Ly backslash kingdomofjoy.

That's bit.

Ly backslash kingdomofjoy.

After observing children,

Ask yourself,

How much of the innocence of a child do you still retain?

If the answer is not very much,

Don't judge yourself.

It isn't your fault.

Come to understand how your beautiful given nature was programmed out of you by society.

I keep saying this over and over again in my recordings here at Inside Timer,

But it can't be said enough.

It is so important we understand how we were programmed to trade our God-given soul for the world,

To seek happiness that's all for us out there in the world,

In things where it does not exist,

Producing within ourselves that frustrating condition of always seeking and never finding.

We have been programmed to equate our worth as a human being with money,

With power,

And status and possessions.

We have been programmed to believe that without this outcome or that person or this thing we cannot be happy.

It's called an attachment,

And the Buddha said that attachment is the source of all suffering.

It separates us from our given nature,

And we always suffer when we're separated from our given nature.

The simplest way I know to see what the Buddha meant is to watch yourself or another person at a sporting event where there is an attachment to the outcome.

Recently I had occasion to do just that.

I was watching with friends the final Wimbledon Championship tennis match between Djokovic and Alcarez.

One of us in the group was passionately attached to Djokovic winning,

And as a result this person suffered with every shot,

Flinching when Djokovic lost the point and forlorn if he lost the set.

It was five hours of high stress for my friend.

As the match went on it became clear that Alcarez was serving better and hitting more of the tough shots,

And that he had gained the momentum.

As this happened my friend's face darkened with the agony of impending defeat,

And when Djokovic finally lost,

My friend was grief stricken.

In contrast,

The others watching with us were not attached to any outcome,

And because of that they enjoyed the match.

They cheered for both players when either player did something amazing,

And at the end they were happy with their energy still intact.

That's what non-attachment will do for you.

There was another thing my friend's attachment caused him to miss.

During the ceremony at the end of the match,

When each player receives a trophy and are interviewed before the crowd.

During his interview Djokovic was suddenly caught off guard by the simple truth of how sweet life is.

It provided a spiritual moment to the 11 million people around the world watching on TV,

Although clearly that was not Djokovic's intention.

Here was a man who had just a few minutes before lost what he had been fighting fiercely to achieve,

That is advancing through two weeks of tough matches to the championship game that would have crowned him the undisputed greatest tennis player of all time.

And in the middle of praising Alcarez for his victory,

Djokovic looked up to the stands and saw his two boys,

One 8 years old,

The other 5,

Looking down on him,

And he witnessed one of them smiling innocently at him,

Free of any pain,

Of any loss,

Of any grief,

Just loving his father.

And Djokovic stopped with the formalities for a moment and said,

It's nice to see my son still there,

Still smiling.

The sight of it rendered him speechless and he looked down towards the ground to privately shed the tears that it brought to his eyes.

They were tears of gratitude for what he had that transcended what he had just lost.

I love you,

He said to his boys when he looked back up.

Thank you for supporting me and I'll give you a big hug when we're together and we can all love each other.

Thank you,

He repeated before returning to the formalities.

There in the midst of what our culture sees as a terrible loss,

He was appreciating all he had.

Worldly things have their place,

Of course.

Achievement has its place.

But neither one is what makes us happy.

It usually takes a midlife kind of crisis to see that we've been looking for happiness in all the wrong places and to finally discover what is actually true,

That where happiness and freedom are found is in our heart.

So the question becomes,

How do we come to know and experience this beautiful nature that society is trampled on?

The answer is,

You don't have to do anything.

You just stop and be still with what is.

If you're happy,

Feel happy.

Feel that.

If you're feeling some form of unhappiness,

Like anxiety or depression,

Feel that.

You start there with what is,

Getting in touch with what is happening on the inside as you are relating to the outside.

Bring your present state into awareness and just let it be.

Simply observe yourself.

Observe it from the understanding that whatever you are feeling is in you,

Not in an outside situation.

Begin to see how when your heart is open,

You're happy.

When your heart is closed,

You're in some form of upset.

And it is usually because you are in conflict with what is.

So let it be.

Don't interfere.

And observe that as you do this,

Whatever negativity is there will pass.

Begin to get that your upsets pass when you embrace them and they fester when you fight them.

Be sure you heard that.

Upsets pass when you embrace them and they fester when you fight them,

By trying to control your experience,

By suppressing it or trying to change it.

When you stop fixing yourself,

The inner conflict passes and you quiet down and you begin to see that who you are is the awareness,

Is the observing of all the comings and goings inside and outside of you.

As you get in touch with that quality of awareness,

You understand it's the same as getting in touch with who you are.

You are awareness.

That is where you will find yourself.

Now you can simply be still in awareness.

You don't have to effort for the stillness.

Stillness will come to you.

All the stress and unhappiness that you were suffering from will drop of its own weight and it will just be you in the quiet infinite space that is you.

In stillness you and what we call the present moment become one,

To quote Eckhart Tolle.

Then when you look back out at the world,

You will be looking through the innocent eyes of the child and what you will be seeing is the kingdom of joy.

Enjoy it until it passes as everything passes.

Reviews

Thank you for this insightful talk Don

Beautiful, thank you 🙏🏼💚

It’s always good to hear your words in the morning. Several points in this talk are very inspirational and encouraging. Thank you. I’ll be listen to this again.

Meaningful as always! Thank you 🙏

A really wonderful, uplifting talk, again! Thank you! 💙

Excelente. I love the reference to the tennis finals and that sweet moment when the perspective is shifted. So relatable. Thank you