Freedom and love go together. Love is not a reaction.
If I love you because you love me, that is mere trade, a thing to be bought in the market; it is not love. To love is not to ask anything in return, not even to feel that you are giving something – and it is only such love that can know freedom.
words by krishnamurti
you are done pretending. artificial actions no longer fit into your vivacious universe. that, in and of itself, is beyond any words that can be spoken.
when I close my eyes I see
the way this world shall be when…
we shall be free.
~ garth brooks
have you ever caught yourself watching someone dance? listening to their body. reading their face. hearing the words they have not yet spoken aloud. the dancer moves through the space with such passion, telling her story through movement, freeing herself of any chains holding her down, as if saying “i am unapologetically me in this moment. i have nothing to hide, nothing to prove to anyone. i will do as i please.”
there is freedom in truth. the body does not lie.
my relationship with words has always been one big on-going love affair. they come into my life and sweep me off my feet, never failing to fascinate me, intrigue me, and touch me in ways i have not been touched before. i am including a list of books that have had the most impact on my journey, all which take a non-dogmatic approach and encourage us to free our minds from tradition and discover for ourselves what our spirits need most.
this book stays on my bedside table. it reminds me to stay present regardless of what is going on in my life. i reach for this book time and time again as a reminder to let things happen as they naturally need to happen, without force or clever scheme. everything is unfolding as it should and the tao describes this process effortlessly. here is a verse from the book:
Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people’s approval
and you will be their prisoner.
Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.
this book takes takes on a very refreshing approach to relationships. osho dives right into the heart of the matter, without watering down his words, discussing the importance of solitude, which leads to true love and ultimate freedom. here is an excerpt:
love appears as relationship, but begins in deep solitude. when you are absolutely happy in your aloneness – when you don’t need the other at all, when the other is not a need – then you are capable of love. your aloneness is your truth. your aloneness is your divineness.
if you really want to know love, forget about love and remember meditation. if you want to bring roses into your garden, forget about roses and take care of the rosebush. give nourishment to it, water it, take care that it gets the right amount of sun, water. if everything is taken care of, in the right time the roses are destined to come. you cannot bring them earlier, you cannot force them to open up sooner. and you cannot ask a rose to be more perfect.
love never suspects, love is never jealous. love never interferes in the other’s freedom. love never imposes on the other. love brings freedom, love gives freedom.
i have read a few books on buddhism and this one is my favorite. dzigar kongtrul finds freedom through self-reflection and awareness.
we can realize the beauty of our own inner nature when we stop manipulating everything that crosses our path as a way to fortify a sense of self. without feeling threatened or trying to control them, just let things arise naturally and let them be.
the great sages of the past sought and found independence from the preconditioned habits and traditions of society. they spent their time in solitude, developing wakefulness and engaging in deep self-reflection. practitioners who train in courage become true warriors. the war we wage is not with enemies outside of ourselves but with the powerful forces of our own habitual tendencies and negative emotions.
a friend gave this to me a few years ago. i find it incredibly simple and meaningful with a genuine look at partnerships. it is not so much relationship advice as it is a reminder that love is always available to us if we open our hearts and minds. here are a few words from the book:
you cannot force each other to be or feel a certain way. if you insist on happiness you create misery. if you insist on achievement you create failure. if you insist on a certain behavior you insure its opposite.
but your complete acceptance creates serenity and comfort, and your straightforwardness creates security and honesty.
this is my favorite book. krishnamurti brilliantly communicates the importance of truly understanding self. rather than explaining his philosophy on life, he encourages us to explore our own lives by stripping ourselves of prejudice and preconceived ideas in order to find freedom. here are a few of his words:
so now we are going to investigate ourselves together – not one person explaining while you read, agreeing or disagreeing with him as you follow the words on the page, but taking a journey together, a journey of discovery into the most secret corners of our minds. and to take such a journey we must travel light; we cannot be burdened with opinions, prejudices, and conclusions – all that old furniture we have collected for the last two thousand years and more. you have to be your own teacher and your own disciple. you have to question everything that man has accepted as valuable, as necessary.
freedom is a state of mind – not freedom from something but a sense of freedom, a freedom to doubt and question everything and therefore so intense, active and vigorous that it throws away every form of dependence, slavery, conformity and acceptance.
this came highly recommended 10 years ago by a very special friend, with whom i have since lost touch. it was the first book i read that really spoke to my spirit.
everything you’ll ever need to know is within you. knowledge alone does not suffice; it has no heart. no amount of knowledge will nourish or sustain your spirit; it can never bring you ultimate happiness or peace. life requires more than knowledge; it requires intense feeling and constant energy. life demands right action if knowledge is to come alive.
why on earth does this little thing called ‘ego’ have so much power over us when it has absolutely no relevancy to reality? instead of ignoring it and seeing things as they are, we choose to believe all the fictitious stories it concocts.
i’ve spent quite a bit of time observing my distorted mind (ego), watching the way it moves, studying its strategy. after years of getting tangled up in its wild web and crawling on my knees through the dark to find my way back out, i am beginning to see just how it works.
it doesn’t wish for our happiness. it wants to manipulate our every move, control our every choice, until our actions are no longer genuine. it starts out wanting something, seemingly simple, from our external environment. next thing you know, we have to have it, can’t live without it, whether it be money, success, fame, approval or a relationship with a particular person. we begin putting all of our energy into capturing this ‘something’ we are craving, convincing ourselves we will be happy once we get it. this yearning becomes an obsession. before long, we become a slave to our ego’s appetite, allowing it to feast upon our freedom.
our worth is not determined by how much money we make or by our reputation among others or by our position in society. we are enough just as we are. there is nothing to ‘get’ out there. that ‘something’ we want (and feel inferior without) will not bring peace to our minds or love into our lives. it will only leave us wanting more…more of what we don’t have…more of what we don’t need. these desires are our primary source of anxiety and fear: anxious to grasp what we feel is within reach and fear of losing it once we get our hands on it.
letting go of expectation and trusting things as they are, opens us up to a world of possibility, allowing for the unexpected to occur rather than clutching so tightly to what the mind originally planned for itself. everything happens for a reason. what we lose always comes around in another form. it may not look like what we envisioned or come to us at the exact time we are expecting it, but it will come, arriving even more beautifully than we ever imagined.
surrender to the moment. detach from future results. the outcome makes absolutely no difference. live each moment truthfully, with love and compassion. make all choices from a place within. everything else will effortlessly fall into place.
