A Quote by Frederick Lenz
Freedom is within oneself. But to get beyond the thoughts and desires requires power.
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Within a social structure, a familial structure, or a cultural structure of various kinds, there is a substitute for actual freedom. I mean, actual freedom is a very abstract notion; we have no idea what it means, except within a context - freedom to do what? So within these social structures, freedom becomes defined as power, your ability to make choices, and the power relationship within a family, any family.
Waiting on God requires the willingness to bear uncertainty, to carry within oneself the unanswered question, lifting the heart to God about it whenever it intrudes upon one's thoughts.
To declaim freedom verses seems like a poem within a poem; freedom requires guns, it requires arms, but no feet.
Political freedom means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men. The fundamental threat to freedom is power to coerce, be it in the hands of a monarch, a dictator, an oligarchy, or a momentary majority. The preservation of freedom requires the elimination of such concentration of power to the fullest possible extent and the dispersal and distribution of whatever power cannot be eliminated — a system of checks and balances.
Our modern Western culture only recognises the first of these, freedom of desires. It then worships such a freedom by enshrining it at the forefront of national constituitions and bills of human rights. One can say that the underlying creed of most Western democracies is to protect their people's freedom to realise their desires, as far as this is possible. It is remarkable that in such countries people do not feel very free. The second kind of freedom, freedom from desires, is celebrated only in some religious communities. It celebrates contentment, peace that is free from desires.
True power is not in trying to gain power; true power is in becoming power. But how to become power? It requires an attempt to make a definite change in oneself, and that change is a kind of struggle with one's false self.
In the West, there's a myth that freedom means free expression-that to follow all desires wherever they take one is true freedom. In fact, as one serves the mind, one sees that following desires, attractions, and repulsions is not at all freedom, but is a kind of bondage. A mind filled with desires and grasping inevitably entails great suffering. Freedom is not to be gained through the ability to perform certain external actions. True freedom is an inward state of being. Once it is attained, no situation in the world can bind one or limit one's freedom.
The notion of sitting down and conjuring up, not only words in which to clothe thoughts but thoughts worthy of being clothed--the whole thing was absurdly beyond his desires.
When you have emptied all content - thoughts, desires, memories, projections, hopes - when all is gone, for the first time you find yourself, because you are nothing but that pure space, that virgin space within you. Unburdened by anything, that contentless consciousness, that's what you are! Seeing it, realizing it, one is free. One is freedom, one is joy, one is bliss.
If the goal is to realize the Supreme Being, you should become egoless. That requires self-effort. The sadhak should work hard. He should pray sincerely for the removal of the negative tendencies. This prayer is not to achieve anything or to fulfill any desires. It is to go beyond all achievements. It is to transcend all desires.
The first duty of a Christian, of a disciple and follower of Jesus Christ, is to deny himself. To deny oneself means to give up one's bad habits, to root out of the heart all that ties us to the world; not to cherish bad desires and thoughts; to quench and suppress bad thoughts; to avoid occasions of sin; not to do or desire anything from self-love but to do everything out of love for God. To deny oneself means, according to the Apostle Paul, to be dead to sin and the world, but alive to God.
Within the mind there are no lies-no possibility of deceiving oneself; and yet, somehow we all manage to bypass the safety of truth in pursuit of dangerous desires.
Gratitude to the Great Sky who holds billions of stars - and goes yet beyond that - beyond all powers, and thoughts and yet is within us - Grandfather Space. The Mind is his Wife
Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.
Religion promotes the divine discontent within oneself, so that one tries to make oneself a better person and draw oneself closer to God.
Granted you want to go beyond ideas and beyond thought, but that takes years of practice. If you must think, think good thoughts, happy thoughts, and constructive thoughts.
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