We're Here For Freedom

In this guided meditation, Eli uses the metaphor of slavery to see if we are willing to put our attention one hundred percent on freedom even if that means losing whatever relative freedoms or comforts we may currently have.
This track contains ambient sounds in the background

Transcript

Hi.

Welcome.

Thank you for being here.

My name is Eli Jackson Baer.

And almost over 30 years ago,

My final teacher gave me an assignment.

At that time,

I'd been on a spiritual search for 18 years and it finally ended at his feet.

I gave up everything.

I didn't want to go back to the world.

I just wanted to sleep outside his door,

Take care of him.

I loved him.

I just wanted to spend time with him.

And at that time,

He knew that I'd been training therapists.

And he said to me,

He gave me an assignment.

He said,

Let both client and therapist wake up.

So for the past 30 years,

That's been my assignment,

To have both the client and therapist wake up.

And I'll assume that's you.

Neither a client nor a therapist here.

So what does it mean to wake up anyway?

Since this place is,

This site is called Insight,

We can have insights about everything,

Internally or externally.

If you have insights into the world as it is today,

You see the nightmare that we live in.

You see that human-caused climate change is here.

We see the beginning of the consequences.

Heat domes,

Fires,

Floods,

Everything that was predicted.

And it's just the beginning of it.

We see that the social order which was in place since World War II is collapsing.

The old order doesn't hold.

Everything is falling into chaos,

Factualization,

And the rise of dictatorships to calm people's fears.

Now,

I suspect if you're on this call,

You have already had that insight.

So the question is,

What do we do about it?

I know some people have tried to find safe hiding places.

Others just have eat,

Drink,

And be merry.

It doesn't matter,

We're all going to be dead anyway.

But we're here for something different,

For the possibility to wake up and be free.

This is not a casual affair.

It's not about relaxation.

It's not about meditation.

It's not about any kind of practice.

It's the direct realization of the Truth of who you are.

To know that is to be free.

To be free means turning away from slavery.

And this is not always such an easy thing to do,

Because we're attached to our slavery.

We're attached to our fears and our desires.

We're attached to our projections.

We're attached to our limbic bonding.

We're attached to our identity as a somebody.

And in that,

We're afraid of turning away.

So I thought for this short time that we have together,

I'd try an experiment,

Something I haven't done before.

And that's to guide you into a situation that will give you a sense of what choice it means to be free.

So if you're here now,

Let's just take a moment.

Ahh.

You can just breathe with me for a second.

Let's all breathe together.

Ahh.

And let it go down even deeper.

Let's one more time breathe in.

Ahh,

And down even deeper.

It can feel so good for the whole body to relax.

So that you may notice if there's any tension in your body right now.

Put your awareness there and notice what happens.

That's very good.

And if there's no tension in your body,

What if you can discover what's happening with your breathing?

You may notice the very act of observing your breathing changes it.

And that whoever notices that has an important job to open,

Relax,

And fall in even deeper.

It feels so good for just this time to leave everything behind.

Because you know what it is to wake up.

Every morning you wake up from your dream.

And what happened?

The dream didn't go away.

You woke up from it.

You went away.

And when you wake up from the dream,

Was it ever really there?

It's only there in the dream world.

In the dream world it's real.

When you wake up,

It disappears.

So now as you listen to my voice,

And you let everything become very quiet inside,

I'm going to try a little experiment.

Because we're going to drop down deeper and deeper to a very safe,

Comfortable space.

Your eyes can be open or closed,

It doesn't matter.

If your eyes are open,

You may notice that they're blinking.

And that's a signal that they're tired.

You can let them rest now.

You can keep them open or closed,

It doesn't matter.

But it can feel so good to let everything down.

Eyelids,

Facial muscles,

Thoughts,

All can come down even deeper.

That's very good.

As you allow yourself permission to fall into someplace unknown,

I'd like to suggest a little story to you.

I'd like you to imagine in this moment that we're standing in front of an elevator.

And I don't know where that elevator is in your mind.

But let's suppose that that elevator has a dial that you can see the floors and a button.

And let's push the button now.

And it lights up and the dial starts to come down deeper and deeper.

From 5 to 4.

That's right.

And the sound of the elevator,

And the sound of the s.

.

.

Whatever is going on around you can be a signal that when everything stops,

You can drop down even deeper.

And the elevator is coming closer as it comes deeper and deeper to our floor.

And then the elevator is here and the number on the elevator shows 2021 and the door's open.

So you're going to step into the elevator right now.

And it doesn't matter if you can see it or not.

Imagine that you can.

You can make-believe.

It's a good time.

Make-believe you're stepping into an elevator.

And as the door closes,

You can see all the numbers on the panel in front of you.

And maybe you can see the mirror that's there.

And I don't know if you can look in that mirror and see yourself in this moment.

It doesn't really matter.

But if you could imagine that you could,

What do you believe you will see now?

That's very good.

And now when you look down,

You'll notice the elevator has no bottom.

Fear and then falling down,

Deeper and deeper into the unknown.

At first the terror arises,

Perhaps,

Or not,

It doesn't matter,

And then it disappears as you feel your body free and floating down deeper and deeper into the unknown.

And when the elevator gets to the bottom,

Because there is a bottom,

After all,

And the door's open,

You are now,

The light on the door shows,

1860.

You open the door and you walk in to 1860.

And you're going to walk into a kitchen in a great mansion on a plantation in South Carolina.

As you are there,

Looking around,

Smelling the hot,

Steamy smells of the kitchen,

Perhaps you see the slave African cook and her little girl next to her as she's cooking.

And when you recognize,

That's my little girl,

You look down and see you're dressed in white gloves and you're dressed as a butler.

And this is your space.

This is your life.

So just imagine for a moment,

You're in the kitchen and the sounds around you can come and go,

But the smells of the kitchen are so familiar and the steam.

And you realize what a lucky life you have in this moment.

You're working in the house.

All your brothers and sisters are out in the cotton fields,

Sweating and slaving.

You have a woman who loves you.

You have a young child.

And you're happy.

You've made it for your life.

You were born a slave,

You will die a slave,

Your parents were born slaves,

Your children are born slaves.

But you've made it in this world.

You're in the house,

Loving partner,

Beautiful child,

Not having to work,

Getting good food.

Pretty good life and you're relatively happy.

But then one day,

An escaped slave sneaks into the kitchen and says,

There's a freedom train.

There's a freedom train.

You can leave your slavery and get on the freedom train.

Well,

First,

There's disbelief.

Not possible.

Can't be.

I never heard of it before.

And many people hear it and they don't believe it.

They carry on.

But then you think,

Well,

What if there is a freedom train?

And maybe it brings up enormous fear.

Fear first for the animal survival.

What will you eat?

How will you survive?

You don't know any other way of life.

This is how you know how to get food.

This is what you know how to survive.

And suddenly,

To leave it for the unknown,

Most wouldn't do it.

But if you get past the terror of survival,

And the call of freedom is stronger,

The next will come up will be the attachments of your emotional body.

But what about my baby?

What about my beloved?

What about my family here?

Most will stay with the family.

That's a stronger drive than the drive for freedom.

But let's imagine for a moment that for you,

In this moment,

The drive for freedom is stronger than the drive for survival or the drive for relationship.

Let's imagine,

In this moment,

That you choose freedom.

You choose to find the freedom train and discover what happens.

All of your cares are gone.

All of your worries,

All of your fears disappear in this fire for freedom.

Nothing can stop you.

They hunt you down and kill you,

So be it.

I don't want it.

I'll do my best to escape,

But it won't stop me.

Discover for yourself what would hold you back and what's the experience if you choose to be free.

That's very good.

You're doing really well.

And I don't know if this made sense to you or not,

Or if you had the experience or not,

It doesn't really matter.

What does matter is that the message has gotten through,

Deeper than your conscious mind,

Deeper than the heartbeat.

There is a message of freedom and it's calling you.

How will you respond?

Some ignore it.

Some fetishize it,

Make it into an object that they can worship.

Some conceptualize it and they believe they're already free because they know that we're all one or they know that they're God's children or they know something.

And the knowing itself is the trap.

What will you do?

What will you choose?

Now that you know the possibility is here,

If that becomes your life focus,

It will teach you,

It will test you,

It will take you all the way to freedom.

I can promise you that.

It's all in your intention and willingness.

No technique,

No master,

No method,

Simply your willingness and your integrity will set you free.

So when the mind is quiet and everything is open,

You can see all the way through to the depths.

When you see all the way through to the depths,

The me that is seeing surrenders into the unknown,

Then your job is finished.

Thank you so much for being here.

May everyone be happy and free.

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