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The State of Freedom
A journey of Truth into the mind’s sanctuary
with the destination of inner Freedom.

C7. I repeat the steps for my brothers.

The mind creates a warm atmosphere again. He is about to engage for the first time so systematically in a subject which does not concern him directly. Therefore, he needs to create a warm workspace and a pleasant environment, in order to cocoon in it and start working joyfully there on an object which has been almost unknown and insignificant for him up to now. In order to create a warm atmosphere, he implements again the now familiar tricks which delude the mind and help him focus upon the new object. These are the same tricks which he implemented while starting the first circle of works, when his goal was still the reconciliation with himself[1].

So, he sits at his computer, cultivates within himself the inter­est for what he is about to do and starts. He recalls one brother or sister[2] who needs support. He relaxes, deepens into his body and visualizes that his brother is also there, beside him, and relaxes as well. The mind observes the annoyances which his brother feels. He focuses on the most intense one. He mentally shows him how to relax and then explains to him gently and sweetly that this annoyance may seem to be due to a particular recent event, but that one was only the triggering event, as the true cause of the annoyance is to be found inside him; namely, in the incapability of the mind to accept the unpleasant event and make friends with it.

The brother often resists and refuses to accept this idea, but he soon admits the true cause of his pain and confesses his weakness, which is, anyway, absolutely justified, as my mind explains to him, since the cause is to be ascribed to past experiences, from the time when he was a plain paper and believed everything that his parents, friends and in general his environment said and did. By this, the brother experiences the sweet oasis of confession and is relieved. Momentarily, he wants to pull up in the oasis permanently and not go out to the heartless world again. However, it is obvious to him that, if he does so, the sweetness will vanish soon, and so he decides to abandon his new paradise and continue his journey.

Having identified his tyrannical mind as the sole cause of his distress, the brother now feels affection for his aching self and makes the decision to offer him substantial care from now on and do without protesting whatever it takes for him to get liberated from his own cobwebs. This decision comes with enthusiasm and adolescent momentum, regardless which is the physical age of the brother.

The mind now starts to mentally share with his brother his experiences from his own journey. He is telling him about his own feeling of deficiency which he used to have and often still does. The brother also starts to introspect, and so he realizes that most probably he also has such a generalized feeling of deficiency, since he now recalls that life within this adverse world has often seemed difficult to him. This similarity of ours moves both of us deeply and makes us feel that we are mates and fellow travelers on our common path in this unknown world where we found ourselves and live.

Henceforth, the relationship has been established and we share a series of common experiences with each other. We start talking about our hasty getaways to cursory pleasures, the self-blame that follows and the decision to not give in the needless and soul-destroying guilt trip. By pushing guilt feel­ings aside, mental clarity increases, thus opening the way to the brother to understand the history of his pain. He learns to justify his current behavior based upon his past experiences. Hence, he vindicates himself, and this gives him great joy.

At this point, the mind is moved even deeper, because he sees how easy it finally proved to be for him to become so helpful for a brother. He just dedicated him little time of true interest, and this was enough for the brother to benefit so substantially.

My mind realizes what a great joy he relishes himself now due to the mere fact that he helped his brother. A great joy with no effort! Just with little time of agreeable and substantial human contact with a brother. All old complicated sources for joy like those which my mind vainly and greedily had been trying to squeeze out from the world throughout the years anxiously and desperately pales beside the joy of becoming himself beneficial for his brother and a cause for joy for him – or, to say it more correctly, a triggering event and not the cause, because the cause for joy is inherent in every brother; it is the unquenchable flame of the soul, which smolders eternally in the center of his self. This realization leads him to the decision to prefer this particular kind of joy in the future, and not those kinds which he had been used to preferring in the past.

Meanwhile, the brother took alone one more step and now is being introduced to compassion. He learns how to sympathize with his past self and, with the mental guidance of my mind, creates his own Warm and Well-lit Sanatorium of the Heart within his heart, where he has started placing one by one the bewildered facets of his self, so that they become peaceful. The first circle of works is completed for the brother with the self-acceptance and the reconciliation with all his facets, the thoughts and emotions which have been persistently depriving him from the joy of life until now.

Carrying on with his contemplation, the mind now steers the brother mentally also to the second circle of works for the erection of his own State of Freedom. He shows him the way to liberation step by step. He reminds him of the real reason why he has come to life, which has nothing to do with all those things which the brother has been trained to worry about and get upset for. He explains to him that in no case can the worthiness of his personality be risked or reduced, because his worthiness is granted, infinite and self-existent from the time when the decision was made for him to come to this world; hence, he has no reason to take anything personally.

Thereby, the brother learns to focus in the center of his self and sit there quiet, peaceful and free from worldly anguishes. His prejudices lose ground and his mind relinquishes his expectations and gives his demands up. He learns to long for knowledge and Truth, and not champ at the bit to change. He understands that the change will come on its own, unforcingly, as the natural result of knowledge, and that he does not need to bother about it at all, nor hustle himself at the altar of change, which will anyhow come only when the time will have become ripe for it to take place inside him.

Consequently, the brother is inducted to the freedom of humility and through a series of relinquishments he trustingly surrenders to the will of his Creator and delivers him his mental cobweb eagerly and unconditionally, so that he will heal it, however and whenever he deems it proper.

Finally, my mind informs the brother that, if he wants the just completed structure of reconciliation and liberation to last, he will need to cultivate comradeship, that is to say compassion and care for all his brothers, in order for the mind to definitively give up engaging in small matters which up to now have caused him nothing but trouble and stress.

Thus, my mind now introduces the brother to the third unit of steps and displays to him the indifference with which he has been heretofore treating his brothers. The brother admits and confesses his total ignorance about what they are coming through. He forgives himself for his hitherto attitude and, like my mind did a little while ago, he also enters into the conscious and voluntary identification with the way in which a Saint lives and exists within the world.

The brother is mesmerized by the magic of compassion which the Saint experiences within himself, as well as by the profound bliss and the unshakeable peace of mind generated inside the Saint by his incessant practice of compassion, Love, prayer and active care for his brothers. Thus, the brother makes the decision to repeat this exercise of the mental identification with the Saint as often as possible, until it becomes second nature for him, and to learn to live and exist like him within the world, spontaneously and with no second thoughts. He chooses this beautiful way of living, the beauty of which cannot be compared with any of the hitherto wasteful habits of his mind. Additionally, he accepts not only to relish the feeling of the identification with Him now and then, but also to act in his everyday life after first listening, like my mind does, to the inner exhortations of his Saint, by simply pondering over “what would my Saint do in my place under these circumstances”.

From here on, my mind and the mind of my brother have reached the same point of their way and keep pace with each other on the unknown path that their next steps of the construction of their now common State of Freedom keep in store for them. It is the first time for the mind to have in his journey such a concrete, tangible and factual feeling that he has beside him a brother who is his mate, comrade-in-arms and fellow traveler. Incomparable feelings of joy, contentment and warmth, which cannot be described with words, permeate him by this thought.

This is an unanticipated joy, which he had never hoped to experience, because he had never imagined that this very kind of joy even exists. Therefore, now that he is truly experiencing it, he does not know which the proper words are to describe it. This comradely fellow-travelling towards freedom together with brothers is something that no human mind, fixed upon the familiar human habits, has even dreamed of. Similarly, my mind had also never dreamed of it. Even so, this superb experience was just granted to him. He feels immensely grateful for this; he does not know to whom exactly he is grateful and to whom he addresses his gratitude, but the fact is that he does feel limitless gratitude, which delights, excites, palpitates and broadens his heart.

At this point I want to highlight the fact that during all his aforementioned contemplations the mind did not fail to allow his brother – not only externally, in words, but also internally, deep inside him – to not follow his instructions unless they were absolutely confirmed within himself. He did so, because he did not forget that each brother has his own idiosyncrasy, his own priorities, his special abilities and disabilities, which finally determine his personal path which is going to lead him to his own inner freedom. In other words, the mind watched out to encounter the brother as a self-contained individual personality and respect his distinctive qualities.

This is why he did not feel any pressure or rejection. His resistances mitigated thanks to the understanding and the acceptance he received, which made him malleable and responsive to the beneficial for him instructions my mind gave him. Had my mind not paid special attention to this significant detail and had he not sacrificed his rashness consciously for the sake of the dedication to the brother’s benefit, then he would have unwittingly triggered to his brother resistance and negative attitude to his advice, and so the brother would have lost the chance to substantiate this redeeming journey of self-awareness due to the immaturity of my mind. At the same time, my mind would have been deprived from the joy and excitement which he was and is still being granted by the fellow-travelling with a brother on the path to inner freedom.

Now that he has accomplished, at least for the moment, his work together with the first of his brothers, the mind has been sweetened by the quality of this interaction, similar to which he had never experienced before, and therefore he hustles to select the next one who needs help, in order to relive this sublime experience of comradeship once again. He works also for him with patience and without haste or counting down to finish in order to engage anew in his own affairs. He dedicates his brothers as much time and devotion as they need in order to assimilate the new beneficial habits he suggests them. He continues working also for more brothers in the same way. His life has now changed; it has obtained another meaning, much broader and more beautiful.

The mind already feels, after this mental inner work, much more ready to also talk to his brothers face-to-face and support them substantially during their anguishes. At the same time, he feels better himself, he feels much lighter, since during the last hours he did not contemplate on his personal problems at all; on the contrary, he deepened with creative care into the acquaintance with some beloved brothers of his and applied on them and with them some tested and reliable healing methods. He compares the emotion which dominates him now with the one he usually has whenever he over-engages in his personal issues and wonders why he has not adopted altruism as his exclusive life attitude all these years, since only this attitude can offer him such great inner peace and feeling of creative fullness.

The joy he feels now equips him with momentum and courage in order to go and listen to all his beloved brothers, to let them confide in him their deepest pain and to tell them two simple supporting words which will show them a somewhat more spacious and agreeable path for their life. He does not anticipate sudden transformations, as he knows the human nature, since he has seen that he himself always resists with stubbornness and nerve to the changes of his consciousness suggested to him by his brothers or by the very proceedings of life.

The only thing he solicits is, per se, the journey of compassion and active care for all pained brothers who are in a state of confusion due to their rampant desires. The journey per se is the new element that is going to make him richer, and not the final destination of the journey, which could possibly be the definitive cure of his brothers from their anguishes. Of course he wants this, but only as the capstone of his compassion and not as the only source which shall give him joy. Thus, exempt from this ulterior motive, he is now up to relish with his entire existence every single moment of the creative interaction with his brothers, devoid of stress and anxiety about the outcome, without becoming pushy and oppressive, and constantly maintaining his respect for their free will unreduced.


[1] See chapter A1. “The mind creates a warm atmosphere”.

[2] Below, throughout the text of this chapter, wherever the word “brother” comes up, it is meant “brother or sister”, for brevity’s sake.

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