When we think about freedom we often speak of being free from something. In the literature about metaphysics, liberation is sometimes described as the elimination of ‘thirst’ or the extinction of the ‘fire.’ Therefore, in this article we will seek to identify that which stands in the way of freedom, those things that “enslave” us as it were.
Meister Eckhart expressed this approach to freedom in one of his astute observations: “‘When you are thwarted, it is your own attitude that is out of order.’ Freedom is involved when we accept realities not by blind necessity, but by choice. The man who is devoted to freedom does not waste time fighting reality; instead, as Kierkegaard remarked, he ‘extols reality.’”[i]
We recognize in the above quotes chosen by psychologist Rollo May some of the principles contained in P-A. The components of a worldview are emotions, beliefs, attitudes and values. So when we have an “attitude that is out of order” we need a worldview shift. When we “accept realities by choice” we are responding not reacting which would be “wasting time fighting reality.” Eckhart and Kierkegaard were mystics who intuitively understood what was involved in living in the present moment.
Continuing with the Dominican mystic Meister Eckhart who penetrates to the heart of achieving freedom: “I have read many writings of both heathen philosophies and sages of the Old and New Testament, and I have earnestly, and with all diligence sought the best and the highest virtues whereby man may come most closely to God. And having dived into the basis of things to the best of my ability, I find that it is no other than absolute detachment from everything that is created.”[ii]
We can only speculate that Eckhart means material things but even that is only a beginning because ultimately freedom not only from the physical world but from the conditioned content of the mind, emotional reactions as well as the physical body are required to attain complete liberation from the illusion of P-B.
The teachings of Buddha, found in the excellent book What the Buddha Taught by Walpola Rahula, can take us deeper into the principles of Simple Reality related to freedom. “Nirvana is not the result of anything. If it would be a result, then it would be an effect produced by some cause. Nirvana is neither cause nor effect. It is beyond cause and effect. Truth is not a result or an effect. It is not produced like a mystic, spiritual, mental state. TRUTH IS. NIRVANA IS. The only thing you can do is to see it, to realize it. There is a path leading to the realization of Nirvana. But Nirvana is not the result of this path. You may get to the mountain along a path, but the mountain is not the result not an effect of the path.”[iii] So again, like peace, happiness and joy, freedom is our natural state when we transcend the affects and conditions of P-B.
How do we change narratives and experience freedom in the context of Simple Reality? We commit to a daily practice of eschewing reaction for response. Buddha taught that: “Being dispassionate [not reacting], he becomes detached; through detachment he is liberated. He should be able, upright, perfectly upright, compliant, gentle, and humble. Contented, easily supported, with few duties, of simple livelihood, controlled in senses, discreet, not impudent, he should not be greedily attached to families.”[iv]
Buddha also realized that the shame, guilt and regret over the past or anxiety about the unknown future would thwart liberation. Speaking about a liberated person he said: “His mental health is perfect. He does not repent the past, nor does he brood over the future. He lives fully in the present. Therefore he appreciates and enjoys things in the purest sense without self-projection. He is joyful, exultant, enjoying the pure life, his faculties pleased, free from anxiety, serene and peaceful. Nirvana is beyond logic and reasoning. Nirvana is ‘to be realized by the wise within themselves.’”[v]
For forty-five years Buddha taught with a power and eloquence that was faithfully recorded by devoted students. Here is an example where he is describing Simple Reality and its relationship to freedom: “Nirvana is permanent, stable, imperishable, immovable, ageless, deathless, unborn, and unbecome, that it is power, bliss and happiness, the secure refuge, the shelter, and the place of unassailable safety; that it is the real Truth and the supreme Reality; that is the Good, the supreme goal and the one and only consummation of our life, the eternal, hidden and incomprehensible Peace.”[vi]
We have learned the distinction between response and reaction and how critical it is to choose not to react when our false-self conditioning is triggered by circumstances in our lives. We choose to not react in the heat of the moment. Buddhists speak of “cooling or extinguishing” the fires of afflictive emotions. “Nirvana is the highest destiny of the human spirit and its literal meaning is extinction. But we must be precise as to what is to be extinguished; it is the boundary of the finite self. It does not follow that what is left will be nothing. Negatively Nirvana is the state in which the faggots of private desire have been completely consumed and everything that restricts the boundless life has died. Affirmatively it is that boundless life itself.”[vii]
We have also learned that freedom comes with a price. After choosing a significantly different paradigm as our context and a new identity, we must begin The Point of Power Practice to recondition our behavior and stop feeding the flames of afflictive emotion.
Bhante Henepola Gunaratana agrees that attaining Simple Reality is a “learnable skill.” “[The] mind does not try to freeze time, where we do not grasp onto our experience as it flows by, where we do not try to block things out and ignore them. It is a level of experience beyond good and bad, beyond pleasure and pain. It is a lovely way to perceive the world, and it is a learnable skill. You can learn to control your mind, to step outside of this endless cycle of desire and aversion. You can learn not to want what you want, to recognize desires but not be controlled by them.”[viii]
When we say that to attain the present moment one’s life becomes a meditation, we mean that we use The Point of Power Practice assiduously to avoid reaction every moment of everyday. Freedom does not come automatically; it is achieved. And it is not gained at a single bound; it must be achieved each day. As Goethe forcefully expresses the ultimate lesson learned by Faust:
He only earns his freedom and existence
Who daily conquers them anew.[ix]
And now back to the West and the teachings of Jesus in Thomas Troward’s book Bible Mystery and Bible Meaning. “The great point to be noted, in the teaching of Jesus, is His statement of the absolute liberty of the individual. That was the subject of His first discourse in the synagogue of Nazareth (Luke iv. 16). He continued His teaching with the statement, ‘the truth shall make you free’; and He finished it with the final declaration before Pilate, that He had come into the world to the end that He should bear witness to the Truth (John xviii. 37). Thus, to teach us the knowledge of Liberating Truth was the beginning, the middle, and the end of the great work which the Master set before Him.”[x]
Thomas Troward was also able to see the connection between freedom and Oneness which is the foundation of P-A. “The entire Bible is the unfolding of its initial statement that Man is made in the image of God. The teachings of Jesus, whether by word or deed, may, therefore, be summed up as follows. He says in effect to each of us: ‘What you really are in essence is a concentration of the ONE Universal Life-Spirit into conscious Individuality—if you live from the recognition of this Truth as your starting-point, it makes you Free.’”[xi]
As we seek to be free of the suffering inherent in P-B we come to realize that what we want to be free “from” is all an illusion including our own false self. Liberation is not the annihilation of the ego or the self because they are an illusion to begin with. Liberation is the annihilation of the delusion of the self. Liberation is freedom from all duality and illusions involving relativity, time and space.
We close this article with the words of Michael Adam “[For] to know that one is nothing makes everything wonderful. Liberation is said to be freedom from the illusion that one is bound.”[xii]
[i] May, Rollo. Man’s Search For Himself. New York: Norton, 1953, p. 140.
[ii] Peterson, Roland. Everyone is Right. Marina del Ray, California: DeVorss and Company, 1986, p. 259.
[iii] Rahula, Walpola. What the Buddha Taught. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1959, p. 40.
[iv] Ibid., pp. 96-97.
[v] Ibid., pp. 43-44.
[vi] Smith, Huston. The Religions of Man. New York: Harper, 1958, p. 127.
[vii] Ibid., p. 125.
[viii] Gunaratana, Henepola. Mindfulness in Plain English. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1991, pp. 12-13.
[ix] May, op. cit., p. 144.
[x] Troward, Thomas. Bible Mystery and Bible Meaning. New York: Dodd, 1913, p. 222.
[xi] Ibid., p. 250.
[xii] Adam, Michael. Wandering in Eden: Three Ways to the East Within Us. New York: Knopf, 1976, pp. 99-101.
