Experiencing
True Freedom
(Actual
evening discourse,
during Teacher Training course,
by Maharishi Sadasiva Isham)
There is only one true independence and
that is enlightenment. There is only one true freedom... People die
fighting for relative freedom. It’s very silly because there is only
one freedom. There is only one independence. There is only one -- and
that comes from the inside out. You can have it on the inside, and it
matters not what is going on with the outside, in the environment or
even in your body. It makes no difference. Those that worship bodies
might think it’s important but it is not.
There is no freedom apart from the
Ascendant One. Either you know it -- or you don’t. If you don’t, you
are a slave. You are bound. You are caught by the boundaries, which is
ignorance. You are not aware of the Unbounded. Not being aware of the
Unbounded, not living the Ascendant, you suffer when the boundaries
collide with you, one after the other. There is no freedom in the field
of boundaries.
How could there be? You get free from
one boundary and you impose another one. You throw off one government
and then immediately build another one over your head. It’s ever been
so… particularly when the one you build today is worse than the one
you had yesterday. Freedom is real. It’s not to be had by anything on
the outside. There is no external impulse of life that can give freedom.
There is nothing, nothing on the outside that can give freedom.
Freedom comes from the inside. If you
have that, you have everything. If you don’t have that, you
have nothing. All the wealth of the world won’t give you
freedom. It might make your movement through the boundaries easier, but
that is not the same as freedom.
Freedom lies exclusively in the
dominion of consciousness. Consciousness knows no boundaries in its pure
state. The boundaries of life are on the outside. They are, without
exception, illusions. There is no reality in them. There is no reality
to them. The boundaries of life are fantasies, are dreams with no truth.
For one who knows the Ascendant One, there are no limits, there are no
restrictions. There is nothing one cannot do. You can stay alone a
mountain or move to a far off place or never move.
If you know the Ascendant One, there
are no limits. There are no restrictions to the fully enlightened. That
is where freedom lies. I remember the story that Yogananda used to tell
about a sage in India who was so free from boundaries that he never saw
a point in wearing clothes. So the police decided they had better lock
him up because, after all, he was never wearing any clothes. So they
locked him up every day and the next morning, he’d be found floating
above the top of the prison. It's hard to lock up the Ascendant and hard
to make it obey the rules of the waking state. Finally, they decided
they couldn’t do anything about it, so they let him wander off stark
naked.
A truly enlightened being make no noise
about it. Doesn’t make a big show, doesn’t perform a lot of
second-hand miracles. Such is for the incredulous. Such is for those who
are influenced by such things. There are many such people in the world
today; but without exception, they are following the Path of the Gods,
not the Path of the Sages.
The Path of the Sages is ruthless. It
accepts no boundaries. It’s not interested in flashy little miracles
here and there. It’s very interested in the Truth, in the relentless
pursuit of the Truth on the inside which is the only place that Truth
can be found. It astounds me how people travel half-way around the world
to pursue somebody that manifests pictures or watches out of the air.
What a silly thing. You can watch their act but they can’t do anything
for you. The principal is basically the same. There might be some
manipulation of subtle law for such people but that doesn’t mean they
are enlightened.
Enlightenment is awareness of the
Ascendant -- permanent awareness of the One. It has nothing to do with
flashy little things on the outside. You could say that George is fully
enlightened because he could pull good cards out of the air and George
would attract quite a following if he could do that regularly and
consistently but he might be more ignorant than your dog.
Freedom is something internal, not
external.
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