Let's close our eyes.
One of my most favorite words is freedom.
Just hearing this word gives chills to me.
This is a very powerful word and the experience of being free is even more powerful.
All of us want to be free,
Will fight to be free.
And there are different definitions and levels of freedom.
But the freedom that I am interested in is one of the deepest freedoms that we have.
And all of us have it.
We may or may not know it or recognize it,
But we all have it.
For example,
Of all the things you could be doing right now,
You decided to be here,
Voluntarily,
Out of your own freedom.
Then while being here,
You have the freedom to either be open to what is being suggested,
What is being said,
Or not be open.
Chances are,
Because you want to be here,
You are by definition open to these words.
Another freedom that we have within this realm,
Within this example,
Is despite your eyes being closed,
My words are competing with a lot of your experience.
For example,
You could be thinking something,
You could be a little uncomfortable because of your bodily sensations,
You could be feeling something.
And in the process,
You are either choosing,
Out of your own freedom,
To take in my words or not.
Although our ears don't have doors like our mouth and eyes do,
But that doesn't mean we are listening all the time.
That comes from the innate freedom as well.
We don't recognize this as freedom most of the times.
We think we are at the mercy of our thoughts.
If our thoughts allow us some time off,
Then we can focus on other things.
A lot of people who start meditating,
They think they are bombarded with thoughts and they are fighting with thoughts.
To fight or not is also a choice,
A freedom.
To let things be as they are is also freedom.
And recognizing this is one of the deepest freedoms that we have,
That we can exercise.
So it also means that at every point in our lives,
At every moment in our life,
We have the freedom.
We have the freedom to do whatever we want,
To think whatever we want,
To feel,
To encourage whatever we want,
To be open or not,
To choose courage or fear.
It's all there for us.
And by us I mean whoever is listening to this.
This does not apply to others who are not listening to this.
Before I generalize it to everyone,
This recognition of the freedom comes with a lot of responsibility.
You know they say freedom is not cheap.
So this recognition of freedom also comes with a lot of responsibility.
If you choose freedom.
And I intentionally want to get to the heart of the issue and not be beating around the bush by talking about surface level freedom,
That our society is very well equipped to promote,
To talk about,
To fight for,
What to eat,
What to wear,
How to look,
How to identify.
This freedom is about happiness.
About peace that cuts through all other freedoms and gets to the heart of the matter.
Just like we have the freedom to curate our external environment,
To live an orderly life of hygiene,
Of structure,
Of organization,
To bring ease and comfort in our life.
We also have the choice,
The freedom to maintain our own freedom.
We also have the choice,
The freedom to maintain the inner environment.
If you want peace in your life and you're choosing activities that don't promote peace in your life,
Then it's a conflicting expectation.
The reality is the choice of actions.
The imaginary is the expectation of wanting peace.
If you want health in your life and you're choosing unhealthy activities in your life,
Do you think you're going to get health?
It's very rare.
It's better to wear on the side of caution that,
What do I want?
Asking this question itself is huge freedom.
What do I want?
To be honest,
To be courageous about what I want will help us exercise this freedom in a very intentional way,
In a very congruent way.
Because what I want needs those corresponding behaviors and activities and habits.
And that's a choice.
What we feed our bodies,
What we feed our minds,
Translates into health in our body and health in our mind.
In order to get a disease-free body,
We need to eat healthy food.
In order to get a peaceful,
Quiet mind,
We need to promote that kind of environment inside.
And what our senses are exposed to is that environment,
Is what gets captured.
If we are exposed to some kind of a violence in movies,
In video games,
Etc.
,
Expecting our minds to be peaceful and quiet is just absurd.
If we are choosing fear in our day-to-day life,
Whether at work,
Whether in our relationships,
Expecting peace is absurd.
Fear only breeds anxiety and regret,
Sometimes anger.
And that becomes our inner environment.
So if any of this is true about you,
In terms of output,
In terms of result,
In terms of anger,
Anxiety,
Sadness,
Lack of structure,
Lack of peace,
I would invoke the freedom in you,
The sense of responsibility that ensues from this freedom,
That I'm responsible for the choices I make because those choices come from my freedom.
Yes,
Someone is free to say whatever they want to,
But think about it.
I could be speaking in a language you don't understand.
I could be saying all sorts of things to you.
Those words mean nothing.
Any words for that matter,
If you really zoom in,
They fall on ears.
They don't have the capacity to hurt unless you want them to hurt you,
You choose them to hurt you.
And this is where what I was saying earlier is important,
That these words are only for those who are listening to this,
Because this freedom comes with a very deep responsibility.
If something in you is saying,
Oh,
This is not easy,
Believing that voice,
Believing those words is also a choice.
It could be viewed as a cloud that is passing,
Or you could attribute truth and believe those words that are being echoed in your minds.
I remember listening to a podcast and someone asked this guest on the podcast,
If you had a wish that could be written on a billboard,
What would it be?
And this guest said,
Don't believe everything you think.
And I'm not saying this as a practice.
The proof is in our own experience,
Has this voice in our heads ever been wrong?
Yes,
It has been wrong millions of times.
And why do we still believe it?
It has been right seldom,
Maybe handful of times,
Yet we choose to believe it.
We choose fear over courage.
We invite anxiety and anger in our life by choosing this.
We choose to believe what others say,
Especially when it is negative.
And we feel we are helpless in front of our minds.
We don't realize that to believe or not is a choice.
It might be a difficult choice at times,
But nonetheless a choice.
What it also means is whatever I have in my life right now is a function of my choice.
And I'm talking about mundane day to day states of mind.
It's easy to bring up something big,
Imaginary,
Argumentative to dismiss this freedom.
But on a daily basis,
What's the state of our mind?
And whatever it is,
Is a function of our freedom.
You choose to not believe a fearful thought,
Fear disappears.
It's that simple.
It can be that simple if we wanted it to be.
I would encourage you to see this freedom in your life.
Choosing something is freedom,
Not choosing something is also freedom.
I want you to verify what I'm saying to see if what is being said is true or not.
And if it is true,
Your heart will know what to do.
And if it is not true,
You'll probably forget about it in a few days.
Thank you.
