The Freedom

[rhythm]

Oliver great to see your release of

passion here on this thread

such a wonderfull gift

to write this way .....

and i see its getting many viewings

namaste rhythmmmxxxx

[Oliver]

Fleur Palau - Beauty Experiences Freedom

Quote:"Beauty is a free spirit and beautiful. But things beautiful, by our own definition of it can never be free as we own and create it. In this piece, the oxymoron of the concept is revealed."

[bushycat]

To shift from reverse to drive,
reframe your experiences to find
the blessing rather than the problem.
Then you will become the master of your universe,
rather than its victim.

-Alan Cohen



BC

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by bushycat

To shift from reverse to drive,
reframe your experiences to find
the blessing rather than the problem.
Then you will become the master of your universe,
rather than its victim.

-Alan Cohen



BC

Hi, Bushy. Nice to see you here again with contribution.
Thanks

[Oliver]

While the State exists,
there can be no freedom.

- Lenin

[Oliver]

Africa - the unclear conscience of humanity!

[bushycat]

Do not immitate the way of this world,

but be transformed by renewing your mind.

-Romans 12.2


BC

[Oliver]

[Oliver]

[Oliver]

[Oliver]

Always and always returning to him: The Master!

[Oliver]

A slave is one who waits
for someone to come and free him.

- Ezra Pound

[Oliver]

He who is brave is free.

- Seneca

[burgundia]

There is no freedom like seeing myself as I am and not losing heart.

Elizabeth J.Canham



Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. I said then and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

Eugene V. Debs

[bushycat]

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

-Emerson


BC

[bushycat]

Something opens our wings. Something makes boredom and hurt disappear. Someone fills the cup in front of us. We taste only sacredness.

-Rumi



BC

[Oliver]

Burgundia and Bushycat, thank you, ladies, for inhabiting this free territory

I am thinking of giving you a Medal of Freedom!

Love&respect

[housemouse2]

Freedom is awareness; slavery is ignorance.

Ignorance is blissful slavery for the masses. Freedom brings misery in truth. Most people are ignorant slaves who have the illusion of freedom. For when real freedom awakens their consciousness the truth is too great to bear and thus they return to a state of denial and then blissful ignorance.

The true cost of freedom is immeasurable, beyond the worth of a human life, a mind and a soul. True freedom takes the courage to realize you may in fact have been wrong and admit to that fact is even harder.

Thus, it's easier for me to assume I am free, convince myself of that illusion than to examine the real world for what it is and conclude that the very people I had trusted, looked up to and voted into office to represent me and my family are murders, thieves and criminals. It's also easier to think I can actually vote them out of office than to acknowledge the system is now flawed and only a revolving door of criminal will ever be elected.

The burden of Freedom is much heavier than any man made object. It weighs on your mind, body and soul. True freedom can never be granted, bestowed or earned.

Freedom is not found in a document or piece of legislation. For laws are designed to subdue. The Constitution is a law that says what the government cannot do. No sworn soldier can protect my freedoms, can die for my freedoms or serve for my freedoms. The very aspect of a solider fighting for my freedoms in a far away land is laughable for they give up their own freedoms upon enlisting. War is one illusion used to maintain that false sense of freedom. Each a pawn who doesn't understand that they themselves are slaves.

Freedom isn't glory, waving flags and national pride. It's dirty, gritty and gut wrenching. It's heart breaking, solace and overwhelming. For true freedom can only be born out of the realization that you are a slave.

[Oliver]

Housemouse, these are just great insights!
I am grateful to you for bringing such deep feeling and expression of the issue of Freedom in this thread.
I can only say: the tree of Freedom has many branches, much more leafs, and if we want to have fruits from that tree, we should take care for it as a whole, starting from it`s roots.

With Love and Respect to you and your free soul.

[mudra]

I am posting this here on Bushy's request :

In the 18th (Buddhist) century (12th by western calendars), a Chinese Ch'an (Zen) master (Japanese: Kukuan) painted ten pictures illustrating the search for an ox, an allegory for the search of our true nature.

The search for the bull



Everyone is searching for a cure for their insatisfaction. We wrongly suppose the answer is obscured and that obstructions must be overcome on a long and exhausting trip which takes us far into unchartered lands. Like a mirage our goal recedes as we advance. In the frenzy of our desparate quest we ignore our immediate surroundings, mesmerized by the distant majestic peaks of our imagined destination. The bull is not lost, your search is like that for your glasses on your own nose or your hat on your head. Our ox-herder has got on the ox to go looking for the ox. There is no separation from our true nature, nor is a confusion of our senses possible. We see what we see, hear what we hear and think what we think. Our tracks are always there, under our feet, and we are always at home. As the old lady said when directing the monk to Zhao Zhou's (Joshu's) Bai-lin temple: we should always "go straight ahead." Make no mistake that advice can also mean to go left or right, or even to turn back. Only by rejecting all dualisms can we see things for what they are.

The locust and all the 10,000 phenomena are manifestations of our true nature, to look elsewhere is to abandon it, to err endlessly in a land where no place is home; in a labyrinth of dualities.

Love Always
mudra

[mudra]

Discovering the Footprints



Inevitably we discover the traces since everything, everywhere is evidence. Nothing, even ourselves, can be external to the ONE (thus: "one finger zen"). Far from being simply evidence; everything, everywhere is itself that for which we search. Things are not evidence of reality, but are reality itself. Apart from immediately reality there are only illusions generated by our mental constructions. Understand this and you understand the teaching. The path is always just in front of you. You need not discriminate to discern it. Once you commence to divide true from untrue, your task is unending. Stop! don't speak, even to think (even about thinking) is to lose yourself in a sea of illusions.

Love Always
mudra

[mudra]

Perceiving the Bull



You've seen the traces and now the ox, important progress indeed to pass from signs to direct perception! To go from the source of illusions to reality itself. Now you're directing your attention to immediate reality and therefore no illusion can hide it. Like Magritte's "This is not a pipe"; what an artist can draw is not a bull. While you drink water, you don't ask if it's warm or cold. The six senses (the sixth is the perception of your thoughts) "merge" when you use them together to perceive directly, to become one with "the 10,000 things" (in Chinese culture, 10,000 = infinity!). In so doing you cross the threshold from duality into the unity of all things. That "entrance" is everywhere, always just in front of you. Each thing is unique and therefore incomparable. Each thing is exactly right to be what it, and only what it can be. As the butcher told the monk: "Each of our pieces (of meat) is the best." When you perceive your true nature, you will recognize it as a childhood friend.

Love Always
mudra

[mudra]

Catching the Bull



The film Forbidden Planet took us to an (almost) uninhabited world where gigantic automated power plants produce endless power without apparent use. A lone stranded scientist struggled to discover the use for this enormous energy. When a search party arrives to "rescue" him against his will, fireballs of energy block them at every turn. The explanation was that the energy was at disposal of the scientist's unconscious desires.

Here we see that the ox's "great will and power" are inexhaustible and that he is capable of a "terrific struggle." When we discover that we are the only source of his energy the "struggle" will be over. Although he is always with you, you can't turn around fast enough to see him. Now you've caught him, he can no longer hide. Still, he seems insubordinate, used to his old ways, searching for new satisfactions while remaining always unsatisfied. You think you can whip him into obedience, yet another illusion!

Love Always
mudra

[Astra]

"I saw an Angel imprisoned within the marble so I carved until I set it free”
Michelangelo

Here are a few thoughts that I would like to share. They have been inspired by the above quote. They are only a reflection ...

Search for Truth, Wisdom, selfless Love and Compassion is a chisel in hands of a skilful Master. Our body armed with Ego, ignorance, arrogance , hatred, vanity, greed, and jealousy is a ruff stone. We carve it, we perfect it, day by day, observing small particles of dens matter vanishing, like an Illusion, like a nightmare. But in a split second, a fragrant Rose of our True Nature will be reviled. While escaping imprisonment of mortal Ego, this newborn butterfly, this precious immortal Jewel glows, shines and screams FREEEEEEEDOM, from the top of the lungs!
This kind of FREEDOM can never be enslaved again!
From the bottom of my Heart

In Love and Light

Yours
Astra

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Astra

"I saw an Angel imprisoned within the marble so I carved until I set it free”
Michelangelo

Here are a few thoughts that I would like to share. They have been inspired by the above quote. They are only a reflection ...

Search for Truth, Wisdom, selfless Love and Compassion is a chisel in hands of a skilful Master. Our body armed with Ego, ignorance, arrogance , hatred, vanity, greed, and jealousy is a ruff stone. We carve it, we perfect it, day by day, observing small particles of dens matter vanishing, like an Illusion, like a nightmare. But in a split second, a fragrant Rose of our True Nature will be reviled. While escaping imprisonment of mortal Ego, this newborn butterfly, this precious immortal Jewel glows, shines and screams FREEEEEEEDOM, from the top of the lungs!
This kind of FREEDOM can never be enslaved again!
From the bottom of my Heart

In Love and Light

Yours
Astra

Astra, you are a beautiful Star!
Thank you for this heartfull expression of Love for Freedom.
The Master released the angel imprisoned in the marble!

Love&Respect