Subscribe to Archive
Entries
Comments
Learn more about the World Dharma Online Institute - Exploring Activism Consciousness and Art

Freedom, like love, is a choice. We choose to love - though sometimes it seems to just magically appear - falling in love - but we need to create the conditions. We need to open our hearts, our souls even, to the possibility.

We are all born free - then slowly, we begin to build our prisons, with more than a little help from society. We take a journey in life, away from the kingdom, out into the world, yet one day we can return to freedom.

Free will is a great gift. What a different game this life would be if humans were forced to be good, forced to do the right thing. How much more meaningful it is when we take the steps ourselves, when we choose liberation, when we choose to unpack all the filters and cultural limitations that stand in the way of us and freedom.

I’m not talking about the kind of freedom George Bush is always going on about - his greatly touted freedom, for which he will lay waste to thousands of innocent humans - is by and large a chimera. Freedom does not mean the right to buy more stuff. Freedom does not mean another 100 channels of television.

Freedom means a heart, soul and mind that is liberated from illusion. Liberated from the controlling clutches of the ego. Liberated from the unconscious drives of hatred, aggression, fear, desire, attachment, desperate grasping, that turns us into puppets on a string.

The puppeteer is the ego. Cut the strings, and you will be free.

Free from the constant looping refrains of the past, and free from the desperate striving for the future. Freedom is, in fact, surrender. Surrender, unconditionally, to what ‘is.’

A human being in a prison cell on death row has the ability to be free. It’s not conditional on circumstance. In fact, time and again I have seen incredible breakthroughs happen in the hearts of those who have every reason to contract into a tight ball of fear.

For some, the opposite happens in the face of crisis - an opening magically occurs, and true freedom is experienced. Victor Frankl, in Man’s Search for Meaning, wrote that everything can be taken away from us but one thing - the freedom to choose the way we respond to whatever comes our way.

He was referring, in this case, to those remarkable survivors of Auschwitz who were somehow able to come through with their spirits intact,and even transformed.

With these kind of remarkable examples, how can we, in our own lives, with our own smaller (though by no means unimportant problems), not choose to be free? And once we are free, once we are truly autonomous, we will very naturally be impelled to take action in this world to help others become free, in whatever way is our own true path.

Choose to be free - the planet is depending on you.

by Velcrow Ripper
Documentary Filmmaker
Toronto, Canada

www.fiercelight.org

Other posts related to this theme:

  • Prominent Voices For Freedom
  • Freedom Requires Ending Privatization of the Earth
  • Freedom Is In The Question
  • Stop—Be Real, Be Honest, Be Love
  • Freedom To…?
  • 6 Responses to “The Planet is Depending on You”

    1. on 29 Jan 2007 at 9:37 pm Ron Welling

      Put into such terms; to be love, to find love, to find freedom. There are those who profess to favor freedom but don’t know freedom and then there are those who will change the world by the very expression of the freedom they know. Thank you!

    2. on 02 Feb 2007 at 4:00 pm Jerry Simkins

      Great references, looping refrains of the past and striving for the future. How much of our time is spent with memories and planning! Life is right now, in this moment and when we are there we are powerful. My friend Mark said,”it has to start somewhere” Each of us is responsible to be there and then move within the moment.
      Thanks for the moment.

    3. on 17 Jul 2007 at 2:32 am lastAutumn

      I like your site very much. Each post is interesting for me. I’m also trying to reflect on some topics in my blog, the link is given.

    4. on 12 Aug 2007 at 2:04 am casinosfreebonusesv

      deposit free bonus casino
      see to signature…

    5. on 18 Aug 2007 at 12:33 am freeeeringtones

      popular free ringtones

      www.thehotstop.info

      signature…

    6. on 09 Oct 2007 at 9:11 pm toothpick_tp

      For many people freedom is the most important thing in life. And they can do everything not to lose it.

    Trackback URI | Comments RSS

    Please share your thoughts on this entry here: