To what extent are we free to determine our lives?

by | Aug 19, 2021 | Community Insights | 9 comments

As separate selves, we are entirely conditioned by the rules of the "dream of the planet." Therefore, freedom is illusory.

When we commit to totally open to the unknown, the personal entity really does start to drop away (absent the weight of a personal point of view, and being hypnotized by prideful emotions such as anger and agitation).

Thoughts and perceptions start to appear largely because we allow them to be. Somehow, we are aware that we are free to feel the permanency (lightness of being) within this and every moment.

We cannot understand this at the level of thought, but we can, and do, experience it within the eternity of an unfiltered moment. We are free to be.

9 Comments

  1. Keshav Howe on August 30, 2021 at 5:48 PM
    Joe, you can join my character Keshav in his "shit-head" recovery program. I am clear that what was once a "catch and release program" eventually slows down to a less persistent drive-by nagging. The Divinity of Life is right in plain sight. I am very grateful for just how painful it is to watch myself being a shit-head. Taking responsibility for changing my relationship with that noise, overshadows a pathetic pull to cast blame.
     
    Now is always the Time to wave goodbye to old and demeaning "self" talk. They are just breadcrumbs I left behind to remind me of the sweetness of the banana bread with dark chocolate chips, that I just took out of the oven.
  2. Keshav Howe on August 30, 2021 at 5:21 PM

    What has always been a real drag on my relationship with life is when I have overlooked its innate benevolence. Eyes gently rooted in Kindness overshadow the need to filter life through a personal, separate and painful – point of view.

  3. sasanijjs on August 30, 2021 at 10:28 AM

    After another wave of shit head-ism I have again recognized that “Joe” needs to go

  4. ceejaypea on August 28, 2021 at 5:28 AM

    I know what you mean Betty. Isn’t it amazing, the pull of some set of ‘rules’, made by whom I do not know.. It seems it ‘should be’ easier to just obey the rules and then there will be peace. That has not been my experience. The most recent page of my Zen calendar said: Be silly, Be honest, Be kind (Ralph Waldo Emerson).

  5. Betty on August 27, 2021 at 12:18 PM

    I continuously fall into the dream of the planet. I have my ideas about how things need to be. I suffer a lot. And then I open to no right or wrong, no good or bad and my w hole experience lightens up. It is so much easier when I drop my ideas about what is happening and just open to what is here and now.

  6. sasanijjs on August 26, 2021 at 9:07 AM

    I have been recognizing a matrix like feel behind what I identify as reality.

  7. Betty on August 22, 2021 at 11:22 AM

    For me, it has been a choice between loneliness and Oneness. I routinely experience both. Good to hear from you, Carol. You are always right here in the Oneness.

  8. Betty on August 21, 2021 at 2:13 PM

    Yes. For me, It has been a choice between loneliness and oneness. I have done a little of both. Good to hear from you, Carol. You are right here in my oneness.

  9. ceejaypea on August 20, 2021 at 8:14 AM

    At my age the only plans I had was to work as a healer until I could work no more. Then the pandemic came along and I found myself a member of a “we” that confirmed my sense of Oneness. There is something very heartwarming about truly having a world view. Namaste.