The State of Freedom
A journey of Truth into the mind’s sanctuary
with the destination of inner Freedom.
Vassiliki Ergazaki talks about the State of Freedom
of Themistocles Lykiardopoulos
Our limited mind generates noisy and stormy thoughts. Consequently, these generate emotions, either inconvenient or convenient, pleasant or unpleasant, positive or negative, which gradually confine us within a suffocating state full of fears, insecurity, prejudices, qualms…
The author Themistocles Lykiardopoulos calls upon us to breach this enslaved state of ours and… brick after brick build our own “State of Freedom”, the town of our inner Freedom, because, like the poet Kostas Kavafis has said, regardless how much we seek and where else we go…
“There are no new places to find, no new seas to discover.
The town will be following you. You will be wandering on the same streets
and you will be getting older and older in the same neigh-borhoods…”
The route towards the decision
The author, equipped with only a small segment of truth, being an undistracted observer, climbs on the high peaks of his very self, determined to observe and record all thoughts which cage and confine his mind, thus offering them an outlet to get earthed, manifest in the form of speech and gradually liberate the blurry mind.
Step by step, minute after minute, he observes and records the demolition of the state he has inherited and which he himself continued to maintain, as well as the erection of the new and free “State of Freedom”, like he calls it. He adopts the unshakeable attitude to work and accomplish this renaissance, whichever the cost, and methodically starts the erection of his state, always being a neutral observer, tireless worker and coordinator himself for the whole project.
“…The force which motivates now, at one o’ clock in the night, my hands to continue writing instead of letting me cocoon into the sweet oblivion of sleep is my will to search deep into my experiences in order to find the way towards freedom. The force which motivates my hands is the pain of my many years of slavery inside the web of the undisciplined tyrannical mind, who ruled over me tyrannically and still does to this day. The hands now serve my will for freedom, of which the progenitor and inexhaustible provider is pain. In other words, my hands now render willful and conscious service to my will to free myself.”
Reconciliation
Thanks to the constant work and the objective observation, he learns about the self-destructing trips of the rampant mind, as well as the traps he sets in collaboration with his runaway ego. His first concern is to make friends with the behavior of the mind, by giving him room to relax and laze… and finally make the decision to get liberated. He confesses his weaknesses, his deficiency, his fears, anxieties and desires, his mistakes…
Gradually, this contumacious mind starts allowing introspection… starts understanding… sympathizing… acquitting and exonerating… He indicates the walls that have to be knocked down first… He points where the first robust foundations are to be constructed… He discovers the warm and well-lit sanatorium of the heart. There he starts to forgive totally, to accept himself the way he is… with his mistakes, weaknesses and fears… Finally, he becomes the valuable assistant, the devoted collaborator for this reconstruction. He becomes “the warm–hearted wise forbearing father–mind”.
“Eagerly and effortlessly he takes my small weak self in charge, by accepting and undertaking the role of the wise forbearing father. He shows understanding and compassion for my childish facets which bear in me stress and misery, as well as for my generalized feeling of deficiency and anxiety, my fear of re-experiencing the pain and my dedication to ephemeral joys and worldly goals with the vain hope that their conquest will redeem me from the stress and misery.”
Liberation
Having adopted this new role, the mind has now become a reliable guide in his journey towards attainment of inner Freedom. “He considerably dampened the oppression exerted on himself” and full of love and leniency “he adopts his little orphan self and commits himself to him by deciding that he will always be doing whatever is necessary in order to help him become more and more self-reliant and happy”. Hence, the work for the attainment of the inner state, the State of Freedom, becomes increasingly nice and exciting. At the same time, the state has already started to emerge in the field of vision, ablaze and free.
The weak facets of the mind (fixations, fears, envy, fury, disappointment, prejudices), which used to thrive and govern the old state, start subsiding and giving room to love, self-esteem, care for the self, trust in the innate knowledge and wisdom of the mind. And he gradually orientates, gives up his expectations, relinquishes his demands, humiliates himself… and gets liberated, thus freeing the self from any attachment and choosing to finally bring joy into the state of his inner Freedom. The working mind and the immature self understand that this state emerged from the total surrender to the unalterable oceans of Spirit. There is where Truth is going to gradually reveal itself in its total broadness, which is beyond description.
“Now that my mind has met Freedom, he asked her what to do consequently, since she was his very destination. Then, Freedom pointed him back to her other facet, Truth, telling him that up to now he had only gotten acquainted with a small segment of Truth, that is to say the one which concerns his little self. The acquaintance with this small segment of Truth was necessary for the mind in order to proceed to the path which was supposed to lead him to Freedom. Now, having learned ways and methods how to steadily remain free from his cobwebs, he is up to proceed to the quest of the rest part of Truth, which is infinitely larger than her part he has already met.”
Companionship
It would be a pity for this state of Freedom that was constructed with so much struggle brick after brick by the seeking mind to be misappropriated by him; to say: “It is only I who made it… Now you all admire me!”…
He shall never do so, if he is truly internally free. A free and superior mind will not be deluded, because, if he is, this very attitude will confine him again… it will cage him anew in his own brainchild… The free state will be re-enslaved and maybe more painfully this time. Therefore, the journey needs to be continued. Freedom needs power in order to be maintained. In order to be always free, you need to constantly expand. The watchful mind knows this well, as he remembers that he was only able to free himself after coming through many difficulties. What he has learned and what he has achieved with his struggle, he will offer… eagerly, for another mind to also free himself.
Guided this time by care, total care for others, “my brothers”, as the author often calls our fellowmen in his “State of Freedom”, the mind visualizes the “Universal State of Freedom and Peace”, and he believes this to be feasible for two reasons:
“Firstly, because he sees that now he experiences himself, even to a small degree, the freedom and peace he has been yearning for since a long time ago.
“Secondly, because he has realized that also his brothers thirst to follow the course towards establishment of freedom and peace inside them. He has also realized that they are eager to suck in every single piece of information, message or other kind of stimulus that can awaken and enable them to taste these two paramount goods.”
My beloved Themistocles
While reading your book, the “State of Freedom”, I have to admit that your journey has aroused me… it took me out from the idleness of my limited mind. It offered me a reason… to continue my own journey towards the attainment of my inner Freedom. And… I shall confess that, although I am already underway on such a journey, while reading your “State of Freedom” I found many stepping stones that I shall need whenever I find myself in wild passages or I meet the Sirens. Together with a “thank you” for your journey that you made known to me from your well-lit rooms of your heart, I shall dedicate to you a poem of the poet Dimitris Kakalidis that came to my mind as soon as I started reading the “State of Freedom”:
“Apostate of thoughts, yet carver of the mind,
I rekindle the fire in the soul of life
and eternally construct and demolish
the aspirations of earth for the virtues of sky”
Vassiliki Ergazaki
poet, mathematician