Dying to Be Free

"When everything that we can let go of is let go of, then that for which we long above all else shines by itself" – Rupert Spira

What does it mean to be free? In my personal quest to discover the secret to happiness, it seems like "freedom" has become something of an essential ingredient and is currently the main focus of my reflections and practice these days.

I am currently reading a book called "The Untethered Soul" by Michael A. Singer. In this book, Singer defines freedom as the ability to fully accept life and the variety emotions that it triggers. At one point in the book, Singer also talks about the concept of an "open heart" and points out that, when we first fall in love, we curiously have an inordinate amount of energy. He questions the reader: How come, when we fall in love, we are capable of staying up all night in passionate lovemaking while still going to work the next day, while we may easily feel fatigued and lethargic when a love interest is missing from our lives? He explains that the only difference between these two situations is that, in the first situation, our hearts are open, while in the second situation our hearts are closed. He goes on to say that it is not the situations in and of themselves that are the cause of this, but us - we are the ones who decide to close our hearts and nothing & nobody else is forcing us to.

I remember listening to this part of the book and having tears in my eyes. How often do I close my heart when I feel a lack of excitement from the external world or when I feel like my life is not the way I want it to be? How often do you?

I can see how I will often blame life for my closed heart or my lack of feeling "alive", when in fact I am the one that chooses not to be open to life. What would it be like if I committed, once and for all, to keeping my heart open no matter what life throws at me? To keep it open even when I am feeling bored, or sad, or uneasy. What difference would it make? A world of difference is what I believe. The difference between "just getting by" in life, waiting for the next high, and living a fulfilling life in which the miracle of being is celebrated in every experience that passes through me.

I have come to a point in my life where I simply seek to be free and where my seeking to avoid pain has become less and less of a concern. You see, I realize now that I cannot truly be free if I seek to avoid pain. Freedom is about opening to life EVEN WHEN we are feeling bored, sad, tired, angry, etc. It is also a very difficult space to cultivate when you are so used to being attached to the story of your suffering, as I am. I am so used to identifying myself as emotional or anxious, and am so used to seeking comfort from others for this. My experience of intimacy with others has often been to open-up about our individual suffering and hardships. And I am only recently realizing that there is a way to be intimate with others that does not need to include that.

Hence, I see now that in order to truly be free, I have to let part of my identity die. I have to grieve the part of me that feels like I wouldn’t be "me" if I weren’t attached to my suffering. I have to grieve the parts of me that want to cling on so badly to the agenda that I have for my own life. I don’t think you can truly come to a place of freedom, where you surrender to life’s impermanence and to life’s moments of pain, without first grieving that part of you that wishes it wasn’t so. It’s like throwing yourself off a cliff with no other parachute but your inner strength and your faith in life, while all of your security blankets are on top of that cliff and asking you "Why the hell are you jumping? It shouldn’t be this way, you need to keep fighting, clinging, and pushing away! This isn’t safe! This isn’t you!"

Yes, it isn’t me. And I have never been that. I just got so caught up in the habit of thinking that I am that. And in the secondary gains of remaining in the comfort of this misery that I know so well.

I have done so much grieving this past year. Grieving of my concepts of what life should offer me and my concepts of what defines me. I have cried my heart out.

Why? For not other reason than to be free. I am ready to keep grieving, to keep dying, in order to be free. I am committed to keeping my heart open, no matter what, because what other way is there to live? How else can I truly be present to this extraordinary gift that is life?

I am dying to be free. Are you?