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"Free at
last, free at last..."
Congratulations
to the people of
by peaceful
means. Best wishes for a future worthy of their courage.
This issue is
dedicated to them and to all forms of true freedom.
"You need to
train yourself so that at any time and any moment
you choose, you can free yourself inwardly from your world,
from others, from the past, from the future, from the
previous
thought and the next thought. This is to find freedom. Yet
if
you then think you are free and have some wisdom, this is
not
so. You should not be attached to solitude or to experiences
of
relative freedom. When you are neither attached to
independence
nor to company then wisdom will manifest."
~Chan Master Sheng-Yen
posted by Gill
Eardley to Allspirit
You can also
untrain yourself from all the conditioning that has implied
feelings are bad, thoughts are bad, body sensations are bad and
attachments
are not spiritual. you can find freedom in welcoming every aspect
of your
life, in allowing yourself to hold nothing back from what is -in-
your life,
from what -is- your life. As more women find their voices, it may
become
clearer and clearer that while clarity and detachment are one
aspect of
experiencing the whole, it does not deny coming from the inside
out to include
connection.
Connection that
becomes so intimate, so breathable, that it is seen all the
pushing away from anything was what sustained the feeling of
separation.
Yes, we can know freedom from everything, and we can also know
the
freedom in everything. In deeply loving and caring about every
person and
event with whole mixtures of feelings from currents of desire to
frustration
to anger to inspiration, and indeed, amidst all these swirls, the
truth is just
as radiant. Just as radiantly this. It is just as possible to
love and be free.
posted by Josie
Kane to Allspirit
The Indian Parrot
Rumi
There was a
merchant setting out for
He asked each
male and female servant
what they wanted to be brought as a gift.
Each told him a
different exotic object:
A piece of silk, a brass figurine,
a pearl necklace.
Then he asked his
beautiful caged parrot,
the one with such a lovely voice,
and she said,
"When you see the Indian parrots,
describe my cage. Say that I need guidance
here in my separation from them. Ask how
our friendship can continue with me so confined
and them flying about freely in the meadow mist.
Tell them that I
remember well our mornings
moving together from tree to tree.
Tell them to
drink one cup of ecstatic wine
in honor of me here in the dregs of my life.
Tell them that
the sound of their quarrelling
high in the trees would be sweeter
to hear than any music."
This parrot is
the spirit-bird in all of us,
that part that wants to return to freedom,
and is the freedom. What she wants
from
So this parrot
gave her message to the merchant,
and when he reached
full of parrots. He stopped
and called out what she had told him.
One of the
nearest parrots shivered
and stiffened and fell down dead.
The merchant
said, "This one is surely kin
to my parrot. I shouldn't have spoken."
He finished his
trading and returned home
with the presents for his workers.
When he got to
the parrot, she demanded her gift.
"What happened when you told my story
to the Indian parrots?"
"I'm afraid
to say."
"Master, you must!"
"When I
spoke your complaint to the field
of chattering parrots, it broke
one of their hearts.
She must have
been a close companion,
or a relative, for when she heard about you
she grew quiet and trembled, and died."
As the caged
parrot heard this, she herself
quivered and sank to the cage floor.
This merchant was
a good man.
He grieved deeply for his parrot, murmuring
distracted phrases, self-contradictory -
cold, then loving - clear, then
murky with symbolism.
A drowning man
reaches for anything!
The Friend loves this flailing about
better than any lying still.
The One who lives
inside existence
stays constantly in motion,
and whatever you do, that king
watches through the window.
When the merchant
threw the "dead" parrot
out of the cage, it spread its wings
and glided to a nearby tree!
The merchant
suddenly understood the mystery.
"Sweet singer, what was in the message
that taught you this trick?"
"She told me
that it was the charm
of my voice that kept me caged.
Give it up, and be released!"
The parrot told
the merchant one or two more
spiritual truths. Then a tender goodbye.
"God protect
you," said the merchant
"as you go on your new way.
I hope to follow you!"
~Rumi
'One-Handed Basket Weaving'
Versions by Coleman Barks
posted by Gill Eardley to Allspirit
Habitually
conditioned to avoid fear and insecurity, most people
compulsively cling to what is familiar, even if it is very
painful and
confusing. I have witnessed countless people turn away from the
experience
and revelation of freedom because in that freedom there is
nowhere to hide
and nothing to hold onto. As they begin to awaken to a freedom
that is
profound, many turn back to a familiar condition of struggle and
confusion in
an unconscious effort to avoid stepping completely into the
ungraspable and
indefinable mystery of liberation. Why? Because in that mystery
there is
absolutely nothing for the personal ego to attain or define
itself by.
This is not the
liberation that most people envision when they start out.
Consciously or unconsciously most people envision a freedom that
they can
attain and possess. So many who glimpse the enlightened condition
tell me
that it is so much bigger than they ever could have imagined. To
realize that
freedom is not something that you possess, but something that
possesses you,
is often experienced as shocking, frightening, and unbelievably
liberating. It
is a revelation that swallows up the dream of a separate you and
reveals Self
to be a limitless expanse. What I am describing is the experience
of Self
void of any sense of selfhood, a timeless and uncaused condition
which is
constantly birthing manifest existence into form.
To have a glimpse
of this profound freedom requires very little, but to live
it requires the destruction of every concept of self you have
ever held or
will ever hold. This freedom is a flame that burns the need to
struggle to ash
and reveals one's Self to be all there is.
- from The Impact
of Awakening: Excerpts from the Teachings of
Adyashanti, published by Open Gate Sangha.