The State of Freedom
A journey of Truth into the mind’s sanctuary
with the destination of inner Freedom.
Evangelia Nanou talks about the State of Freedom
of Themistocles Lykiardopoulos
My beloved brother, 
What I write below refers to the feeling and the experience I had while reading your book “The State of Freedom”.
The author in his book “The State of Freedom” describes with spiciness how mental inner freedom can be conquered, in spite of all contrasts and restrictions of our worldly everyday life, which tends to bear us down to the abyss of dismay, falsehood, anxiety, grief, uncertainty and, generally, a sorrowful and limited life.
While I was reading this book, it reminded me of my own traps; the moments of alternation between restriction (that is to say my fall “into the nets of the Siren called Vanity”, as the author describes her in his book) and freedom, in the course of my everyday life, until faith and trust in Love, Truth and the Supreme Self becomes absolutely established in me.
The author describes in an awesome way how someone can feel self-sufficient, devoid of fear and self-pity, full by himself. He makes us view each incident of life without sorrow, restriction, grief and fear, and, as a result, be able to find the correct solutions, provided that we remain forcefully established in inner freedom. The author, by his book “The State of Freedom” reinforced my conviction that we are merely playing roles during our lives. Life is a plaything itself.
The procedure described by the author step by step regarding how emotional restrictions can be overcome is very important. All this reminds me of my own restrictions, which I had not been able to overcome due to ignorance. However, with the steps I took during my personal course of self-awareness, finally hope came, as well as the light of knowledge. The author managed to strengthen this end result of my course by his book.
In the first chapters of the book I noticed a continuous difficulty to overcome the various problems in life. While I went on reading, I did not taste or experience the hope that there can be liberation from all these banes, which restrict us, thus making us unable to overcome them easily and painlessly.
Difficulty is constantly described. Maybe a more extensive description of hope, will and liberation would be necessary. The hope that everything will be overcome by the self-awareness process offers us a luminous ray.
The author refers to the Light of knowledge. May it enlighten and dissipate all restrictions, desires and emotional weak-nesses; may it enlighten every facet of unconscious for the entire humanity.
I would prefer more optimism and longer descriptive dialogue referring to the liberation of the mind, in order for the human-reader to feel the liberation from the restrictive bondages of fear, insecurity etc. to a greater extent and with less suffering. While I went on reading, I was yearning for the breath of liberation, yet it was not coming. At points where the author mentions that there is redemption and we start tasting some joy of liberation, restriction comes again. I felt a constant expectation to read more extensively about the liberation of the mind.
While he describes the process of liberation of the mind at some points, he was not stabilized in this description of freedom in order to give me a constant aura of joy and spiritual uplift. This happened, because the description of the unre-deemed facets of the mind continued.
There are many relapses in many chapters. No sooner has the reader taken a breath of freedom than he is brought back to misery.
I reached, at last, the sanatorium of Compassion, which brings a wind of hope for redemption. The notions related to the function of the sanatorium are difficult for a basic level reader who has not received an apprenticeship close to an enlightened Master. When I read about the Warm and Well-lit Sanatorium of the Heart that heals indifference, anger, despair, qualm and all unpleasant emotions, I felt serenity and relief. This was a catalyst for the dissipation of all my everyday restrictions.
The notion of the sanatorium of the heart touched me at the deepest sphere of my soul. It vibrated the cells of my mind for the manifestation of Love, Compassion, Mercifulness, Giving-ness and Selfless Service.
I believe that the exact function of the Sanatorium should have been clarified in further detail and that it should have been highlighted that every single person can become aware of his egotistic limitations and get rid of them.
The chapter that gave me the highest degree of liberation was the warm-hearted wise forbearing mind. There, I felt the spiritual uplift described by the author. It made me remember in which way it is necessary for us to act in life. We relinquish, as far as we can, all expectations and demands to conquest one thing or another and we learn to not expect any result. We surrender to the natural flow of things, always with discrimination and a clear inner attitude.
From the second unit of the book an alteration of the restrictions starts to take place, yet still with many paragraphs with relapses and references to the initial difficulties.
From the moment I read the chapter “The non-essentials and their essence”, the meaning of the word “non-essential” has been often coming to my mind, whenever something causes me a feeling of difficulty and limitation. I think, then, that every restrictive thought that comes up in my mind is, in fact, non-essential and, hence, it is meaningless for me to be anxious and sorry for this. Essence is everything. This is what I recall and then everything becomes different.
Moreover, also in the next chapters I receive the message of the final liberation. My mind is now constantly in a state of bliss. By reading the book “The State of Freedom”, my mind has learned how to return to joy of life. The fact is that at the end he surrenders everything to the Supreme One, thus allowing total liberation to come.
The unification with the Saint impressed me. It made me momentarily feel the absolute peace and givingness, through the description of the unification with the Saint, like the author presents it.
From the third unit I felt lightness; I started feeling the blow of liberation uninterrupted. This unit triggered my interest to continue reading with zeal, in order to also read the next chapter, and the next one, and so on. I had the feeling that through the steps of freedom that the author was experiencing, I was also experiencing a kind of liberation.
Nevertheless, I would prefer the author to mention more details about these final attained steps, because the too many relapses made me so tired that I wanted to stop reading, contrarily to the third unit, which I read very eagerly and with a high interest to read further, and even further, till the end.
At the beginning of the third unit about “Companionship”, the reference to indifference and idleness that kill by not allowing immediate action, prodded me particularly and made me recall equivalent cases of idleness that prevented me from acting; always resulting to self-restriction.
The chapters of the third unit activated in me again the urge to offer Love and Mercy to others, particularly to the needy ones, without selfishly longing for their companionship; that is to say, not in order that I have a good time, but only in order to offer Joy to others, having adopted the attitude of care. This brought peace to my soul.
In the chapter “Return back to the roots”, where there is a description of the total unification with the Divine Mother Earth and the juices that flow through the body from the top of the head to the legs (in the roots of the tree), this absolute unification, which is described in a wonderful way and an intensive flow, made me feel that I experienced this very flow myself, through the total unification with the juices of Mother Earth.
Ultimately, what I took from reading the book, apart from what I already mentioned above, is that it was made clear to me how important it is for me to unfailingly write down my self-observation, observing even the simplest thought that comes to my mind and the simplest expectations and desires, and at the same time observing and determining the causes that create them and their consequences, and offering them to the Supreme Self.
I thank the author from the bottom of my heart for giving us his valuable book “The State of Freedom”.
I thank and congratulate him for his courage to unfold himself in front of us, by describing his adverse inner course to liberation in every detail. This is an example to imitate.
I wish and am convinced that he will continue writing and offering us even greater inner processes, in order that we follow and reach a spiritual uplift and become happy and totally blissful
Evangelia Nanou
member of the Servers’ Society
Author’s Note: This text was written after reading the first edition of the book. In the next editions more details have been added regarding liberation and companionship. These details were indeed missing from the first edition, like Evan-gelia correctly remarked.