Esteemed Reader

Let’s talk about freedom.
Freedom is the elusive sense of being unencumbered, of having opportunities to grow, to change, to pursue and obtain desires. The peak moments of life are all characterized by a sense of mobility, by an abundance of options. To be free is to be released from limitation; inner impulses find manifestation in the material world, and we can navigate in an unbounded way.
There are two freedoms. Outer and inner. One must follow the other but, in general, we have the order reversed. Most of the work of collective humanity in recent centuries is characterized by the striving to become externally free. The seeming boundless development of technology has provided many ways of liberating ourselves from the laws of the natural world.
This mastery of nature is an indisputably great accomplishment, but many of us have seen that it hasn’t provided the feeling of freedom we crave. What have we found? Only that the momentary sense of liberation we experience in getting what we want is quickly replaced by a new and more compelling desire.
Instead of seeking freedom in the manipulation of externals we need to address the problem at its source, in the inner world, the seedbed of all the desires, impulses, cravings and compulsions. We need to put the second freedom first. And in gaining the kind of freedom that can be found in going through inner doors, we can begin to taste a new and lasting experience of emancipation.
To be free requires that we are unattached, unencumbered. But when we look inside we find that we are attached to everything: the passing thoughts immediately attract our attention, and we are carried away on a train of association. We are attached to the feelings that arise: the blasts of anger, fear, resentment, spite—or on the other side of the same coin—“joy”, “love”, “empathy”, “happiness”; all of which, ironically, inevitably return to their opposite before too long.
Upon inspection we will find a series of reactions that take place in the dark. We do not respond intentionally. We react, barely aware of ourselves and what we are doing. What is not a reaction is merely habitual. We do the same things at the same time in the same ways every day.
Internal freedom lies in gaining perspective on what is transpiring within. With this view we can begin to choose which ideas, feelings and impulses are in our best interest to entertain.
When outer freedom is first we think of choice as a selection between objects; e.g.: I choose a blue car over a red car because that is my preference. But when inner freedom is first we begin to value the choices that are steps in the direction of the aim of freedom. We can see that we are ruled by our preferences; that we are guided by either liking or disliking something; and that the real choice is the choice to become free of preference. How this manifests in action we cannot know. Perhaps it means choosing not to buy a new car, or perhaps as an exercise, we might choose a color we don’t like.
In seeing the preferences, ideas, likes and dislikes, self-love and vanity for what they are—compulsive and mechanical traits which have nothing to do with who we are—we have the possibility of replacing these delusions with real knowledge, and ultimately, with direct perception. This direct perception leads to new possibilities of action; which is to say that the freedom gained in the inner realm leads to the second freedom—freedom in the world.
In order to be free to act and effect in the world we must be free of our ideas about the world. As long as all we see “out there” are the projections of our subjective ideas, desires, and habits, we cannot see what is. We can only be free to act when we are rightly perceiving the world of action.
As long as we misperceive everything in this way all our actions are inefficient and ineffectual and cannot, ultimately, produce the results we intend. If such an uninformed initiative “succeeds” it can only be called an accident.
But to begin to see things rightly—as they are, instead of how we think they should be, allows our actions to gain new usefulness and effectuality. Only when there is this inner freedom is real outer freedom possible.
So we can say that inner freedom leads to outer freedom. And that work for inner freedom is a prerequisite to being able to navigate truly in the world. It is the only work there is. —JCS