The State of Freedom
A journey of Truth into the mind’s sanctuary
with the destination of inner Freedom.
The battle for the sake of Truth.
Next evening…
It’s already half past eleven at night and I have been fighting since the afternoon. The body resists, it moves spastically now and then. The mind, as usual, wanders on chains built by himself ring after ring. The intellect conceived Truth for a while; the next step is for the mental demons to let the heart believe, trust, love and incorporate her. The intractable mind “accidentally” bumped on her during one of his lurches, and so he met her. Superficially and flippantly, but he did meet her.
Afterwards he forgot her, as another ring captured him, then another one, and then again another one, until he forgot her completely. His attention was absorbed by the rings of his own self-made chain. He likes to play the tightrope walker; on his own rings. There are some of them he prefers more than others; these are his endless self-repeating associations. On these he jumps more frequently. I follow him spinelessly and shout in despair: “Again? I ‘ve had enough!”; but he does not listen to me. He jumps again and again on the same rings, although he has hated them. He has learned to repeat himself all the time. He does not like changes. He would easily spend my whole life performing the same activities, this wasteful guy.
“Wasteful”. This is the keyword. Here a waste is taking place. The issue is simple. It is obvious. As soon as I locate this waste, I will have found Truth. Truth must be the opposite of waste. Yes. That is to say, Truth is the exploitation. I am glad for what have found. I am on the right path, I feel it. My mind has now become a lambkin, he helps me; he has ceased pestering me for a while. My mind collaborates with me! This is a remarkable fact! He is interested to see what comes next. I love and excuse him such moments. All of a sudden, I feel that he has been changed from a tyrannical enemy to a comrade, a fellow traveler, tortured like me.
So, I was at exploitation. Truth is the exploitation, which will replace waste. I will exploit what I have been wasting until now. And this change of attitude will be my disentanglement from the cobweb of the wasteful mind. The mind has been wasting my life during all past years. In other words and more precisely, Truth is the exploitation of my life. She is the exploitation of the gift of life, every single moment, without compromises and withdrawals.
All these sound beautiful and fill me with joy and hope, but who can guarantee me that the mind will not slip masterless to whichever direction bewitches him each time? Nobody can. The mind is mind, and therefore masterless[1], because he is sterile, he has not yet acquired his own beloved spiritual children, to dedicate himself to them and stop running around despaired, searching for inner peace.
The mind is in anguish now that he heard this answer. Just at the time he thought he would find Truth, he learns that nobody can guarantee him that she will provide him with serenity for good, and he is in anguish now. He springs on countless rings, he braids webs, builds chains, sees their vanity at once, rejects them instantly, builds new ones and so on. Such confusion and agony.
[1] The word “mind” conceivably stands for “mine + direction”, which means that he always wants to follow the directions of his own hasty preference, without thinking maturely first.