Step Two Hundred and Sixty-Four

Step 264. I Will Learn Of Freedom This Day.

Today you will have an opportunity to learn more about freedom. The step you take today will be very substantial in giving you a new viewpoint about freedom, about bondage, about problem solving and about the nature of true advancement.

Today think about your lesson on the hour and think about what freedom is. In your longer practice periods, devote your mind to thinking about freedom. This is a very important focal point today. In your longer meditations in particular, devote your mind entirely to reviewing your ideas about freedom. What do you think constitutes freedom? What do you think prevents people from being free? What produces a freedom that is lasting and secure? How can this be achieved? What will support it in the future? After you spend approximately thirty minutes thinking about all this in each practice, enter into stillness and silence. Open yourself to allow Knowledge to speak to you. Abide with your Teachers there. After you have exhausted your ideas, enter into stillness and receptivity.

It is very important that you be aware of your own ideas about freedom because until these are recognized and adjusted, they will continue to cast their influence upon you. They will continue to dominate your thinking and thus your behavior. A greater freedom is now available to you, but you must learn how to approach it. Today you shall learn more about freedom—what you think freedom is and what freedom really is.

Practice 264: Two 40-minute practice periods. Hourly practice.

Here you will find the entire book free for download http://stepstoknowledge.com/

Here you will find pointers for getting started if this is your first encounter with this practice: Taking the Steps to Knowledge.

February 19, 2014 Round One: In the past when I have thought about freedom, I have thought in terms of freedom “from,” such as, freedom from fear, freedom from restrictions, freedom from sorrow, freedom from pain, freedom from stereotypical thinking, and on and on. But when I really stop to think, all the things I want to be free from are of my own fabrication, they are phantoms when all is said and done. So what I am saying is I want to be free from my own illusions, but they don’t really exist, so what am I talking about?

Now, however, I feel a shift in my thinking, now I think more in terms of freedom “to.” As I devoted my mind to thinking about freedom today, I thought of freedom as the freedom to do what feels right in my soul, the freedom to be who I am, the freedom to allow Knowledge to manifest itself in my life, the freedom to step boldly ahead in the direction Knowledge is guiding me, the freedom to embrace my True Self.

And it is also the freedom “not to” – the freedom not to do things that don’t sit right with me, the freedom not to be a people-pleaser, the freedom not to burden myself with tasks that sap my energy, make me uptight, run against the grain.

Freedom for me is the freedom to embrace the truth, the truth I feel like a burning constant deep within.

May 1, 2015 Round Two: I have come to learn that true freedom is experienced when you have nothing left to lose (as Janis Joplin sings), when you have reached a point along the road where there is only one place left to go. There is no longer a choice. If a person comes to this understanding, they are free no matter what situation they find themselves in. Freedom is when the only thing of value in life is coming home to Knowledge. Even the oppressed, the imprisoned, and the destitute are free if this is their understanding. This requires a new vision and awareness though, and how many oppressed, imprisoned or destitute people are at a level of consciousness that opens up this awareness? For myself, a fortunate person, freedom is nevertheless experienced in following the one true path.

To answer the questions posed in this Step, I wrote the following.

What constitutes freedom?

Being at ease with myself - inner freedom. Ideally inner and outer freedom should coincide.

What prevents people from being free?

Unawareness. Misunderstanding what freedom really is.

What produces a freedom that is lasting and secure?

Reaching the inner core of myself where Knowledge abides and being at total peace with myself and the world. Trusting that all is as it should be. Trusting that I am being taken care of. 

How can this be achieved?

This can be achieved through constant practice - taking the Steps to Knowledge, being in stillness, sinking into Knowledge, listening, observing, watching, being conscious, being aware.

How can this be supported in the future?

Through greater awareness and self-application.

I still have a long way to go ....

P.S. Revisiting this Step on September 21, 2018. I wrote above "true freedom is experienced .... when you have reached a point along the road where there is only one place left to go. There is no longer a choice.

I have reached that point. The only place left for me to go us to our new plot where I will build a place for me and my family to live. I am now free. This is all I have left to do. The only thing left is to "Go home."

March 29, 2019 Round Three: All I wrote above still rings true today and it is a joy to read that I got this freedom thing pretty much from the start. Today I wrote in my diary. What do I think freedom is? It is the freedom to be who I am and serve the world in the way assigned to me in keeping with my nature. It is the freedom to follow the promptings of Knowledge without confusion and doubt. It is the freedom to live the life I am destined to live without looking over my shoulder at what the world expects of me. It is the freedom to find my True Self and fulfill my purpose. It is the freedom to find my True home in the world.

As I wrote above “freedom is reaching a place along the road where there is nowhere else to go.” And here it is!