Freedom is not separate from who we are
Freedom is intrinsic to the nature of consciousness, and as such, it is one of the fundamental qualities of who we are. It is not subject to any conditions, nor is it dependent on any internal or external factors.
What makes us feel trapped, divided, or limited is actually linked to a process of resistance and control that causes us to turn our backs on our true nature and on that quality of freedom. Indeed, the mind leads us to believe that if we can get rid of everything that bothers us, disturbs us, or is unpleasant to us, then we will finally be free.
Consequently, for the personality, freedom is conditional; it is envisioned as: “I will finally be free when this or that situation has changed, and/or when I no longer feel this or that, and/or when I am finally rid of all these things I no longer wish to experience.”
Happiness and freedom then become subject to conditions and projected into a hypothetical future.
Thus, in moments when we experience pain, suffering, stress, or a high level of discomfort—whether physical, mental, psychological, or emotional—the program at work within us will seek to eliminate the experience or alter it. The Mind/Ego will therefore develop, as we grow, a continuous process of control that, through an almost infinite number of strategies, seeks to resist anything that is unpleasant or uncomfortable, anything perceived as a threat, and anything that will destabilize and devalue the self-images constructed by the personality structure.
These strategies are triggered more strongly when we face a difficult experience, but they also remain in place continuously, since they must, at every moment, keep at bay or compensate for the feelings that have been repressed. These mechanisms become so habitual that they are fully integrated into our sense of identity, thereby creating a form of “fixation” in the personality and focusing our attention on the periphery of our being, far from the feelings and emotions they seek to hide.
All this activity generates a great deal of control; this control is the source of significant tension in the body and the psyche.
Resistance also creates a high level of conflict that plays out both in relation to ourselves and our experiences, and in relation to the situations and interactions we face. This leads us to feel fragmented and divided, to be grappling with a constant form of internal tension, in dissatisfaction and negativity. It also requires a great deal of maintenance and consumes a large portion of our vital energy.
All these negative feelings that are thus brought to the surface will intensify our resistance and strengthen our efforts to free ourselves from these experiences—which we imagine to be the source of our suffering—leading to greater exhaustion, resentment, and despair, and creating nothing but a continuous cycle of suffering.
On the other hand, contact with these buried parts is increasingly perceived as a threat, generating constant anxiety and keeping us in a state of near-permanent dissociation.
As a result, we lose touch with our inner depths and our natural state: first, because we have invested our sense of identity in the strategies and mechanisms we’ve put in place to resist and control; and second, because turning inward awakens the fear of discovering within ourselves a deficient or unworthy being, composed of the accumulation of all those feelings, images, beliefs, judgments, emotions, and experiences that we have repressed and from which we wish to escape.
If we remain on this level of consciousness, there can be no freedom, and we are trapped in a never-ending cycle of suffering.
“True freedom is being free from the need to feel good all the time.”Adyashanti
But if we open ourselves up to a deeper reality, we can realize that this suffering is one of the ways life uses to show us that we are not in alignment with our true nature.
While pain and discomfort are certainly part of life, suffering is optional. Suffering is not caused by the difficult emotions we feel; rather, it is the consequence of the conflict that the mind/ego maintains with our experience, and of the inner division that results from it.
A form of spiritual maturity can then emerge, allowing us to understand that the strategies we use do not lead us—and have never led us—toward the happiness and freedom we seek (even if they continue to promise it). They merely keep in place the very thing they are fighting against.
This principle can be summarized very simply:WHATEVER WE RESIST PERSISTS.
Moreover, we cannot escape experience. We cannot change what is. Fighting against life in an attempt to alter its course can only lead to failure.
With every experience, it is as if life were extending an invitation to us; in every moment, it asks us, “Can you experience me in this form as well?” If we choose to align ourselves and answer “Yes” to this invitation, then the possibility arises to finally open ourselves fully to what is, to finally feel the pain, the discomfort, the emotions, the feelings, the tensions, the judgments, or the negative images of ourselves.
In this acceptance, we become One with existence once again .
We are once again aligned with our deepest nature.
It is a moment of pause that puts an end to the futile headlong rush created by conditioning, and to the suffering that results from it.
This then brings about a paradigm shift:when we can let go of the belief that we must free ourselves from uncomfortable feelings and that we will be free once they have disappeared, we can come to realize thatIt is our feelings and experiences that need to be released from our control so that they can finally be reunited with the rest of our experience.
In the space thus created, the true nature of reality can reveal itself. We will come to realize that these movements we were fighting against are nothing more than a fleeting discomfort or inconvenience, and that, once freed from our resistance, they can regain their impermanent nature and finally work toward their resolution, before eventually passing away.
What lies beyond identity and the structures of personality built around resistance is revealed, and we can realize what we truly are: that infinite space of consciousness in which all movements arise, linger for a time, and then disappear.
Becoming aware in this way that what we are is the container of experience—and not the content—also evokes a sense of presence that becomes increasingly palpable. The more our attention opens to this presence, the more we can realize that everything we were seeking to attain already resides, effortlessly, at the heart of the experience of the moment, at the heart of the open space of our Being.
In the clarity and simplicity of the present moment, it becomes clear to see and feel that who we are is profoundly free: free to experience every movement and every experience, free to take on any form without being affected or changed by it, free from identification with the reactive content of the mind.
True freedom is thus revealed by freeing us from the very need to be free.
Patrick BOULAN
To explore this process during an individual session of Non-Dual Therapy:
https://turiya.fr/therapie-non-duelle/