Freedom & Bondage

Are you bound or are you free? This is a question my teacher asks frequently. My usual indecisive answer to it reveals my lack of clarity. I feel freer than I used to feel. I experience profound moments of freedom, and have experienced blocks of time lasting up to a couple weeks, in which I had a sense of ultimate freedom. I, however, very often feel bound. 

 

I am no longer bound in superficial ways. I have renounced a lot superficial baggage. I am free of a lot of the survival fears, as well as a lot of the material and emotional attachments that weighed quite heavy on me in the past. What I have discovered is that bondage is not because of my situation.  It is rooted much deeper in my psyche.  

A deeply seeded fear of losing something, of losing ourselves, of losing our image, of losing our piece of the pie, keeps us bound. Shantji always tells me, “We come into this world alone with nothing, and we will leave this world alone with nothing.”” I agree with this point, so I must ask myself, “What is there to lose?” I think my biggest fear is that of losing myself. I realize that this a nonsensical statement, as how could one lose their own self, right?  The thing about fears are that they are mostly irrational. Except for the healthy fears for true self-preservation, like the fear of jumping into fire or off a tall building, fears are the chains that bind us... They are the glue keeping us stuck in our psychological patterns, the products of repetitive karmas, our samskaras. 

The only way to break free of these samskaras, these psychic grooves, the ties that bind us, is to face our fears. I write about this today, because this week my “bondage issues” have surfaced. I will try to explain the broodings of my mind and the irrationality of my fears to the best of my ability. However, sense they are nonsensical by nature, I doubt they will make much sense to you.

I am a spiritual aspirant of Non-doing. It is my conviction that all of existence happens by itself through God’s Will.  Life is nothing more than Cosmic Play. It is my conviction that I do nothing. I am not the doer. I am merely the observer of the goings on that pass through my field of consciousness. That is my clarity. Here comes my confusion. My present state of “bondage awareness” versus “freedom awareness” is due to the present lack of control I have over my existence.

I have no concerns about food, or shelter. I am being taken care of very lovingly and even lavishly at times. I have no responsibilities at present. I am free to do as I please, when I please.  Sounds like utopia, right?  My grievance is that I feel out of place sometimes in my new environment. I often don’t understand the ways and the language. I don’t know how to get around. I don’t know how to find what I want.  I am used to being independent, and I feel dependent.  The bottom line is that in all that I am graced with, I am diseased with a deeply seeded fear that if I am not in control of my situation. That if I have to depend on others, I might lose myself.

I have not lived a sheltered life. My motto has always been, “I came to live life out loud. I must admit that in all my years, in all my experiences (and I’ve stretched the norms quite a bit), I have never once lost myself. Most crazy thing is, I don’t even think it’s possible to lose myself. Hence, my understanding that fear is irrational. 

Here’s what I do know, that confusion is a result of some contradiction within myself.  If I am convinced I am not a doer, than how is it “I” could ever be independent of anything.  I am dependent of the entire Cosmos for my existence. I am an integral part the One, and so utterly dependent that “I” do not exist without the Whole of Existence.  

We often feel we have many fears, but in actuality they are usually just different forms of the same fear. Our basic fears are based on survival and image. Survival is not been a fear I have had much. My well worn psychic grooves are having to do with image. I am less concerned with how others view me than how I view myself.  I am my own worst enemy and my own best friend. I scrutinize my actions as if I were the doer, as if I controlled my fate. It is a slippery slope I dance on which leaves me neither here nor there. Until I reach for the rope of truthfulness to pull me out of the swamp, I remain stuck in the in the muck.  Fortunately, fear fades in the light of truth. If we are courageous enough to be truthful with ourselves, we will know freedom.  Until then, we keep falling into the traps of our brooding mind.

I was told was my name, Uma, meant “a light in the darkness.”  I may be my own worst enemy, but I am also my own light. To turn it on I only need to towards it. May I lose myself in the rapture of my own reflection. May I drown in the ocean of Existence. May I burn in the fire of Wisdom.