The State of Freedom
A journey of Truth into the mind’s sanctuary
with the destination of inner Freedom.
Α34. Acceptance, self-disposal and liberation.
Consequently, the mind prefers to set as center of his life the equanimity and “self-disposal” and thus give up the anxious safekeeping of his ego’s limits which every so often coerces him to respond and put energy into where he does not want to. In other words, he decides to “dispose himself” wherever and however he wants. That is to say, he is now himself able to define which will be his emotional mood and not the facts, not even the ones which take place within his brain, regardless how intense they are and how important they seem to be to the mind’s eyes.
Thus, he shifts to the beautiful and peaceful attitude called forbearance, not thanks to the wisdom which he has not yet achieved, but for the sake of the self-esteem he wants to relish. This self-esteem dictates him to take care of himself, respect his need for emotional peace and refrain from any reasonless anxiety and suffering. Besides, it has become easier for him to love and look after himself, since the intensive erection rate of the State of Freedom has been lately training him unceasingly in some qualities and virtues which are fundamental for the self-help, such as concern, under-standing, forgiveness, compassion, affection and indulgence.
The mind closes his eyes now and allows equanimity to simmer down in him and deeply permeate all the cells of my body. He consciously grants equanimity total dominance on my body and brain. He slows down for a while, in order to deepen into this new inner reality. He surrenders to equanimity for some time, until he believes in it, to let it become experience from theory, in order to feel it, love it, and recognize it as his intertemporal true nature.
Consequently, the mind determines equanimity as the permanent first filter through which passes any external or internal stimulation before he responds to it. Hence, I do not grieve anymore for the idea of failure, which has always caused me disappointment and self-pity, nor am I concerned about a possible loss, which previously used to trigger inside me great fear and insecurity about the future. The mind now sees all internal stimulations (thoughts of anxiety) which are caused by the relevant external ones (difficult situations) with forbearance and says: “What can I do? The world is such, and I am such, too. Never mind, everything is good, even if I am anxious”. Equanimity teaches him stoicism. This pleases him, because it helps him visualize himself gladder, internally quieter and more peaceful in the future.
So, he lives in the world quiet though active, peaceful though speedy, resigned though chasing, friendly though disciplined towards himself and all his brothers.
“I am who I am; it is of no importance whether I like myself or not”, says the mind, “it is of no importance whether some habits of mine have been holding me distant from desired acquisitions and conquests for years”. Reconciled with his nature, he deeply accepts himself as he is, with his imperfections and his limitations. He chooses this attitude consciously, because he does not want the useless emotional tension anymore; he has suffered enough from it.
He no longer cares about his unfulfilled desires. He no longer obeys to the bitterness which has been left in him due to their non-fulfillment. He does not rush to get steamed up with whomsoever is to blame for the deprivation of the joy which he expected from them. So, he willingly withdraws from the soul-sucking feeling of anger and chooses to not get angry either with himself, when he stands in his way to the joys he wants, or with others, when they also hamper him.
Whenever anger springs out of him precipitately, the mind prefers to not pay so much attention to him. In this way, the chance and the time are given to him and the space is opened in him, in order to taste quietly the bitterness of deprivation. He lets it simply exist; he experiences it consciously. It is but one more form of energy. Bitterness and grief become thus – paradoxical yet true – a joyous proof of life which has the same value as joy.
He no longer considers grief and bitterness as an awesome scapegoat. He no longer seeks a black sheep as a whipping boy, to get angry with him and raise adrenaline, in order to temporarily replace the misery of bitterness with the flame of anger. He is no longer interested in the cursory sneaking solutions, as he knows them well now. He prefers to accept his bitterness with pride and dignity and at the same time also accept the deeply rooted habits which led him to whichever deprivation or failure that caused him bitterness each time. He experiences his bitterness in peace, in the light of Truth, without subterfuges and lies. Thus, the mind learns, through this experience, that acceptance is equivalent to freedom, because it secures entrenched and imperishable peace, which remains untouched, not only from his inadvertent fixed associations, but also from the uncontrollable events of the outer world.
The mind is now up to enjoy the gravity of his very existence. My body obtains substance; it is no longer like a feather in the winds blown by all events and thoughts. The deep acceptance of the self becomes for the mind the base for self-establishment, self-respect, self-esteem, non-haste, and hence also non-violence, since violence is raping oneself (in Greek “βία” means “violence”, “βιασμός” means “rape” and “βιασύνη” means “haste”, all these words originating from the same root, which proves that their meanings are similar and related to each other). Thanks to acceptance he no longer feels like an unprotected butterfly, exposed to all winds and fires.
The mind is still carried off by the winds and burnt by the fire, but a large part of him lounges at ease in the abundant throne of completeness, which is seated deep inside the center of his self. There, the mind takes pleasure in acceptance, peace and heaviness of his existence amidst a seemingly chaotic world of infinite forms where everything flows and changes constantly and nothing is secured for the future, not even for the subsequent moment.
The mind has now acceded to stoicism, patience and certainty that all difficulties are transient. He has reached the pleasant point of being governed by the sureness that his true and free nature will sometime find the way to emerge, manifest and override the old habits which still restrain him. This certainty about the positive outcome of his inner issues allows him to accept his current intermediate condition and abide quietly the pain and the distress comprised in it.
Additionally, apart from this certainty, he accepts his current condition for one more reason: since he has now learned to not persist on his vain worldly expectations, he now knows how to renounce even his highest expectation, that is to say to become a free man who will know how to live unaffected and happy within this merciless world of the endless frictions and changes. As a result, by renouncing the expectation for freedom, his current condition is no more a pain in his neck and he can remain content, even when he realizes that he acts imprudently, thus wasting his resources and distressing himself.
By mulling over it, I find that this is already a satisfactory level of liberation, not from the very problem of the mind’s indiscipline, but at least from the sorrow which his indiscipline used to cause me before. This is already very good, because it renders me inner peace and serenity.