What Is the Cost of Freedom?
Q: What is the Cost of Freedom?
A: Isn’t it curious how in exploring this very paradoxical question we are immediately faced with an existential crisis? And how can that which is inherently free have a cost? Good question.
Perhaps the reality that we are even in this inquiry reveals the truth about where we find ourselves at this moment. Where are we in: time (as in what century), location---externally (Yemen, the US, or...) and internally (in my mind, my heart, my body, or all three), the galaxy (Earth, Venus), the spectrum of duality (do I believe this is true)? Let the exploration begin…
To be free---to breathe, speak, shout, dance, express, create, become who I am. To find the pathway of awakening within me and experience revelation from that which is greater. Communion, inner knowing, connection, inner peace, ease of mind, liberation = freedom. Effervescing champagne-like bubbles of energy throughout my nervous system, ecstasy, courage, acceptance, love, forgiveness…freedom. Freedom is unbiased liberty, a birthright, our future. How is it that we have arrived at this moment on Earth where the lack of freedom is a conversation? Can we remember the last time that this wasn’t a part of the conversation? What does your answer say about where we are and why we are here?
Let’s imagine that oppression has existed here throughout time as we know it. Does this say something about human beings or does it say something about human beings on Earth? What kind of world inhabits beings supposedly beyond an animal state that fight one another like creatures, oppress, control, kill, steal, covet, etc. Didn’t we receive some commandments or instructions as to how to alter the reality we have found ourselves in? Maybe, as the Hindu culture points to, we are living in samsara, in the Maya, in the illusion. Maybe, we are here to do the work we are charged to do to liberate ourselves from said illusion, from the lie, to become the freedom we seek to be. Maybe, just maybe, the veil is a bit thinner now, for better or for inner work, and we can pierce the lie with greater tenacity. And if this is the case, our self-responsibility just leveled up a thousand-fold.
Are we living free? Ask yourself, “Where am I not free?” What comes up in this contemplation? Can I do what I want, can I say what I want, can I fight for what I want? And do I want what I think I want? Going within, we may encounter threads of entanglement, even layers upon layers of confusion around the question “What do I truly want?” Does what I want have to do with what others want for me, from me, or of me?
Four years ago, I was publicly humiliated. As excruciating as it was, I am so thankful for the opportunity to let go and let God. It became so painfully apparent that who I was in the minds of the naysayers could either destroy me or free me. If I allowed their hatred to penetrate my sensitivity, I would wither in shame. If I placed my attention on what was true, I could rise from the purifying fire of karma.
Actors and public figures of all sorts have to reconcile with the critical eye of the masses to the best of their ability. If their self-respect is dependent on what others say or think, they would eventually become bankrupt of their creative fire. Regardless if it is beneficial praise or criticism, there is no freedom in the need for approval.
Where are you chained? Are you experiencing racist injustice because of the color of your skin? Are you in a loveless marriage? Or perhaps a dangerous relationship? Are you struggling to survive, fighting for crumbs from our government while our neighbors in Canada receive the support they need? Are you or a family member hooked up to a ventilator? Do you need the approval of others? Are your heartstrings attached to being seen in a good light? Are you crippled with incessant negative thoughts about your looks, body weight, and not being enough? Are you addicted to behaviors that are killing you slowly? Are you tethered to habits that are driving you off course and away from your dreams? Are you asleep at the wheel and driving a country into ruin because your narcissistic and sociopathic egos are causing blindness from moral decency?
What is the price for the reversal of our current fortune? What is the going rate to be able to free ourselves from an oppressive state, a false media-verse, from the right and left, the murmurs of judgment of self and others…the destruction of life?
Everything. The cost is everything we think we are that we are not. Ways of thinking and feeling that contribute toward our demise rather than our truth. These enemies are hidden inside of us, just as these same thoughts and feelings hide on a collective scale under a “democracy” for example.
We can thank Pluto for the present deeper reveals upon the world stage, bringing the dark and staggering truth for all to see. This is a mirror of our inner world. As within, so without. We have an opportunity here to go in and do the dirty work of freeing ourselves from the self-imposed lies that exist at the root of this evil. Regardless if we are victim or predator, each of us has our level of work to show up for, no one is immune to this, no one.
Freedom is knowing who you are. Like AOC, remembering yourself when called an F’ing B#$%@ by a Congressman, and stepping to the mic to speak your truth. Freedom is expressing yourself, fighting for your rights, breaking free from the chains of cult oppression, whether revealed as a political party or a spiritual organization.
Freedom has a cost. And that cost is a choice with consequences. The status quo will crumble. Your relationships will shift with the tides. Your voice, your language, your physicality is subject to change. New ways of thinking will pour through you allowing for innovation to replace confusion. And to note, old ways of being will not go without a fight. Let’s continue watching the political climate in the US as a real-time example of this over the next decade.
We have to change our minds, we have to want to change our minds, and the materialization of changing our minds will cause liberation within our inner experience. Our inner world becomes clearer, and our discernment, stronger. From here we morph into being creative rather than destructive and in the spirit of collaboration, we co-create together. If we are exhausted by what we are seeing outside, we have to change what we have not yet seen inside of us. From there, we are empowered. From there we are walking toward freedom regardless of the cost.
“When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.”
― Nelson Mandela
