Freedom

Lately I've found myself tearing up as I listen the news on the radio.  I feel deeply moved whenever I hear Tunisians, Egyptians or Libyans speaking about freedom and their struggle to establish it in their country.   I hear the longing in their voice,  their anger,  their absolute clarity about being done with the autocratic system they've spent their whole lives in.   The soul's longing for freedom is very powerful.

As I examined my feelings about the wave of protest spreading over the Middle East I wondered what it was about it that made me cry almost every time I hear a related story on the radio.   Why are these stories so moving to me?   I don't usually cry at news reports.  What is different about this?   

I think the stories are so visceral for me because I can deeply relate to the longing for freedom at a basic level.   But wait just a minute!   How can I say this?   I live in a democracy.   Hundreds of thousands of people are now taking to the streets in various countries, risking their lives,  to try and win civil rights that I largely take for granted.  What do I know of their struggle?

What I am talking about is about a battle that is taking place in my soul.

Just as Moammar Gaddafi has put his personal interests above the interests of his country for forty years,  so too is there a would-be tyrant who would keep me perpetually in a kind of mental bondage;  of servitude to an agenda which is counter to my well-being.   This tyrant is my lower self.     My tears come when I hear the radio reports and feel in my soul my higher self yearning to be free.   I know that this yearning is there because there is a force inside of me which does not want me to be free.   

I understand my lower self to be an amalgam of all of the wounding I have experienced in my life.   And of patterning I picked up along the way which is self-negating.  It expresses itself as mental and behavior patterns which stand in opposition to my higher self.    The lower self is woven into my earthly expression.   I can go back and forth between higher self and lower self all through the day.   It's at the level of my thought that I can track where I am.    The lower self can seem very powerful.  And, at the same time,   it is nothing.   A real paradox.

The vision my higher self carries for me:  I am a radiant, talented and loving being who spreads light wherever I go.    My would-be "Moammar" has a different picture.   It sees me as less-than,  as unworthy,  without talent,  as undeserving of anything good.   The "secret police" that my lower self uses,  the enforcer of the lower thought system,   is called shame.   

Some people think of "shame" as something akin to "guilt",  but there is a very important distinction.   Charles Whitfield says that guilt is about feeling bad after we've done something to harm another in some way.   Shame,  on the other hand,  is about BEING bad in some basic,  intrinsic way.   We can address guilt by atoning with the person(s) we've harmed. However,  our lower self would tell us, in no uncertain terms,  that there is no way to overcome shame--it's part of our basic make-up.    Unfortunately,  a number of religions look at "sinful human nature" in very similar fashion.   They are dead wrong in saying that "sinfulness" is an essential part of who we are as humans.   

We have to overcome our shame.  And we can.

Shame is the weapon our lower self uses to "keep us in line".   To keep it in charge and to keep our higher self down wallowing in low confidence.   Shame is our fear that , at our core,  we are a really rotten person.    We have to hide ourselves because if others saw "the real me" they would recoil in horror.    There is a primal fear associated with the shame.   It tells us that the pain of having others see how rotten we are could actually kill us.   If our darkest secrets were exposed we would not survive.

Fear is the tool dictators use to keep their people down.   Fear is the tool the lower self uses to keep our higher self down.   

The thing is,  this fear and shame that keeps us "in line" with the lower self is essentially smoke and mirrors.

You may be familiar with a well-known quote by Marianne Williamson:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

After the demonstrations in Tunisia led to the ouster of that country's dictator,    something amazing happened.  It seemed to me like people in Egypt,  (as well as elsewhere in the Middle East),  said to themselves,  "Wait a minute….you can DO that?!"   They made a powerful and empowering realization:  the people of Egypt have the power to choose the political leaders who represent them.   They do not,  as a people,  have to take orders from dictators.  They can experience freedom in their own country if they choose to make that happen.

Obviously,  achieving freedoms in Egypt is going to take many years of work as well as huge effort and sacrifice.   It's probably going to be messy.  There will be ups and downs;  successes and failures;  times of monumental frustration.  But the people there seem to have decided:  We are not going back.

So,  too,  goes the battle between my higher self and my lower self.    I have decided that my spiritual nature must be free, express itself freely within the bounds of the material.   I could tell myself,  "when you die your spirit will then be free".   Just "hunker down" in this life and be glad things are not worse than they are.   

But I can't buy that.   And just as the Egyptians seem to be willing to do for their country,  I am willing to bust my ass to transform myself.   It will take time.   It will be a gradual journey through the rest of my life.   A journey of steadily working,  sometimes on a thought-by-thought basis,  to purify my expression.    

But I have to believe that I can do it.

Moving from a dictatorship to democracy is a tremendous undertaking.   It requires that the whole country get behind a new vision and work it right into the details at every level.    So,  too,  is freeing oneself from the would-be dictator which is the lower self.

No doubt people in those countries will find "dictator thinking" crop up as they chart the road into democracy.   It is no different with the lower self.   What is needed is to monitor one's thinking carefully and with as much honesty as one can muster.  When my thoughts are less than noble I don't have to berate myself for being a bad person.   And anyway,  that would be the lower self talking.   No,  I just need to notice what the thoughts are and gently remind myself that I can do better.  And then I need to follow through and actually DO better.

To gradually free myself from the shackles of my own thought patterns is a goal I am willing to fight for.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben