unqualified freedom

1)

forms of freedom

We are in constant search of freedom…we take diversions and we mistake several states of being for our freedom and then become dissatisfied with that particular form of freedom, and then the search begins again…a constant search for freedom…and always stumbling into that which has the appearance of freedom, but which is not freedom…

Perhaps the freedom we seek and the forms of freedom we attain every now and then are not actually freedom…

Perhaps freedom itself is that which is free of conditioning, not limited in any way…For how can anything that is qualified or that which comes with a characteristic, or given to us or revealed to us by some Divine Power, or by someone else be freedom when it itself is not free from a quality or definition or ownership?

Freedom must necessarily be free of any quality and not dependent on any concept or any institution or anything material or non-material…

2)

the real thing

…a certain freedom…not defined or determined but natural…just freedom…not a consequence or a result or a destination or arrival, but freedom, just itself….

Not a freedom qualified or described by the word, not the word, not the concept but itself…

Freedom is not sought after; one does not seek after freedom but just sees it, whole and complete…

Free of identity and yet not as a consequence…without muddy waters in the mind, of the group and the text and the ideology…and yet not coming in the absence but itself always, yet not a concept or feeling or a state…

Not a prize, not an end, not a reward of effort or a plan or work…

Unqualified freedom…not described….not the word, not the concept or feeling….

the notion of self

1

Each one of us operates as a certain person and with a certain identity…One has to look into this deeply…Not just intellectually and to agree that this is so, or to disagree and argue that this is not so, but to actually see that one operates with an identity…That one operates with a certain identity and with certain fixed notions of oneself…

Each one of us, for example, thinks of oneself as with a certain name, and belonging to a certain culture, nationality, race …and being of a particular gender and having certain characteristics and perhaps even of a particular religion… Even our jobs can define us…

One even says often, perhaps referring to a particular trait one refuses or cannot change : This is me…

But how true is this identity?

This is not an intellectual question or a question asked for the sake of being different or for putting on an air of cleverness…

It’s a question that must be asked because one must challenge one’s notions of oneself and go to the very core of one’s assumptions about one’s identity in order to understand this self…

2

Even between a couple of years, one renounces traits or characteristics one might have identified with absolutely some time ago…One might do this unawares or consciously…And one may not even be aware that one has done this..

So is the identity one has with a name and particular personal history and characteristics true and one’s self? And do we, when we do inquire into the self, replace one set of false notions with another set of false notions about the self? Is the very idea of a self false?

We hear of people who join a particular cult and are then brainwashed or re-programmed so that they are completely different persons…Or we know of people who become quite a different person after a deep personal experience…Is the new self their actual self? If they can change once can they not change again? What do these changes say about the so-called self?

Really, is there anything so permanent as what we identify as self? What is it?

One has to think deeply about this and to actually see what one offers as an answer…it must be answers that are true and that one actually sees for oneself – not answers repeated and regurgitated from texts and wise persons and leaders who have told us what to think, and who have implanted ready-made answers in our minds…

what this is about

…past all conditioning…what is this blog about? In this blog I want to explore and look into what one might call understanding and self-knowledge…

I want to look into the nature of ourselves, of oneself…I want to inquire into the nature of the self in all its various forms and primarily in terms of what one actually is…

Is there even such a thing as one? Is that expression self in its various forms in any way accurate in speaking of the self? You see, to inquire into one’s nature may simply be a waste of time without asking oneself in the first place: Is there one?... Or is it simply a myth, this self, this identity, this personality...this me?

This will not be, my intuition tells me, an intellectual or philosophical inquiry…It will be simply an inquiry into what one can actually see...

…past all conditioning is to see beyond one’s culture and beliefs and upbringing and one's life and personal history…It is to see beyond all traditions and establishments and identity and political and national boundaries and one’s religion and faith… past all conditioning is to inquire without beliefs and assumptions and to see what is actually there rather than to see what one wants to see, or what one has been taught to see…

Is that possible?…Is it possible to go beyond one’s conditioning?…