For those whose investment in their version of the ‘bondage’ dream is high, there’s bound to be a reaction when they meet any soul who dares to declare the immediacy of unconditional freedom.

It tends to go like this:

– if you are audacious enough to suggest that no kind of meditation practice or spiritual work will ever result in wideawake freedom (aka awakening or enlightenment), they’ll say you are truly deluded

– if you aren’t deeply engaged in analyzing your personal psychological pathology, they’ll say you’re in denial

– if you aren’t rushing around saving the lost souls, the children, the whales, the environment, they’ll say you’re irresponsible

– if you aren’t full of fear for the future with its threats of terrorism, mass destruction, financial collapse and mayhem, they’ll say you’re avoiding reality

– if you are happily and contentedly doing what you love, they’ll say you’re selfish

The good news is that none of this matters one nanojot to Awareness.  IT couldn’t give a toss.  (Just check in and see for yourself!)  Freedom is never anywhere but at the beginingless beginning.  Freedom is fundamental.  All the delusion, denial, irresponsibility, avoidance and selfishness in the universe can’t affect the freedom that simply is THIS.  Neither can accusations and insults.

Please don’t think I am trivializing or dismissing any of the practices or activities mentioned above.  There is room for every-imaginable-thing to manifest in the vastness of Life.  Everything has its place and purpose.  But once one has tired of all efforts to improve oneself and the world, and the quest has begun to move inwards rather than outwards, these things fall away of their own accord.  Perhaps they will re-emerge eventually, flowering as the focus of one’s wholly impersonal wideawake wisdom.  Perhaps not.  It ceases to matter, for one knows that whatever the dance of appearances, the Great Unlit Light of pure Awareing remains unmoved and unchanged.  It is the only unassailable fortress – yet It is without form or shape or location!

I remember my Granny teaching me the anti-bully rhyme when I was a tiny tot – “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can never hurt me!”  Wise old wideawake woman.  She knew that Unknowable Knowingness was her true identity.

~ miriam louisa