True Liberation — Set Yourself Free Series

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True Lib­er­a­tion — is an action. It’s lib­er­at­ing your­self from the need for expla­na­tions, fig­ur­ing things out — a lib­er­a­tion into choos­ing to act for self and for the ben­e­fit of all.

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A blog com­ment seemed to fit into the back­ground prepa­ra­tion part, so here it is!

First­ly, I real­ly enjoy and look for­ward to these “life point­ers.”
Okay, sec­ond­ly, I will not pro­claim that I’m total­ly guilt free in regards to “over influ­enc­ing” ppl, but most­ly. And fur­ther, what’s on my mind is how a so-called vic­tim may ben­e­fit by let­ting go as well.
For exam­ple, because of my Zen Bud­dhist lean­ings, I rarely if ever choose the route of point­less argu­ing or even being over­ly apa­thet­ic. Very few peo­ple in my life seem at all inter­est­ed in mean­ing­ful dia­logue, espe­cial­ly when they’re occu­pied in try­ing to manip­u­late me (which in truth, does­n’t real­ly work and breeds resent­ment).
So, as divorce is a form of “let­ting go,” would­n’t the same be said for mov­ing on beyond fruit­less, ener­gy drain­ing rela­tion­ships? I mean hon­est­ly, in my life the goals I have don’t real­ly mesh with my tribes at all. Fur­ther, mat­ters did­n’t real­ly start out this way. I think the hard­er they insist­ed upon me fol­low­ing “their way” and the sanc­tions imposed for fail­ure to com­ply, I was pushed even fur­ther away from their ideals and goal. I still endure reg­u­lar manip­u­la­tion and neg­a­tiv­i­ty from them. Am I in the wrong for find­ing my own way in the dark (so to speak)?
Also, I’ve been get­ting acquaint­ed with Lib­er­a­tion Psy­chol­o­gy and the idea of men­tal, phys­i­cal, and spir­i­tu­al lib­er­a­tion late­ly. It’s large­ly because I can see that they have some sort of hold on me although I men­tal­ly resist and try to negate much of their influ­ence (which is like neg­a­tive con­di­tion­ing — how endear­ing).
I’m also won­der­ing if there isn’t a karmic fac­tor involved in my case because it’s nowhere total­ly com­pre­hen­si­ble to me. I know I need to empow­er myself to the extent that I can move on, but am sens­ing a need for lib­er­a­tion in some mean­ing­ful form. I’d like to hear your thoughts on such lib­er­a­tion (Wayne) and if per­haps a karmic ele­ment might be imped­ing me or if it’s all just neg­a­tive pro­gram­ming and low self-esteem.
Robert

The Liberation of Relationships

As an almost uni­ver­sal rule, lib­er­a­tion does not hap­pen in our fam­i­lies of ori­gin. It’s the lucky per­son indeed that can have (or would want to have) mean­ing­ful dis­cus­sions with one’s parents.

My mom and dad were two great peo­ple, and the best thing they ever did for me was to encour­age me to hit the road from Buf­fa­lo NY to Elmhurst Illi­nois, for my BA. 

At 17 years, 8 months.

The sec­ond great­est thing they did was let­ting me come home sum­mers to make mon­ey at my dad’s store, and then send me back to Illinois.

I grew up, learned self-responsibility, and started getting over myself (still working on that one, eh Darbella???)

My mom and dad moved to Canada in 1982, and lived nearby until they died

My mom loved it when I was a Min­is­ter. She attend­ed my church and she’d intro­duce her­self thus­ly: “I’m the Min­is­ter’s moth­er.” When we got “exit­ed,” mom and dad left with us. None of us ever went back.

Some years lat­er, after a cou­ple of strokes that altered her per­son­al­i­ty, mom said some­thing to the effect of, “If I love me, you’d “find” anoth­er church. ”

My first response was, “Why, is one missing?”

Then, I shifted inside, and my internal reaction was,

“How dare she ask me to do that? She was there! She knows how painful that was!”

Then, my internal, “Get over yourself” warning buzzer went off.

I said, “When was the last time I did some­thing just because you want­ed me to?”

Mom: “When you were 17.” (I was 49 at the time…)

Me: “Notic­ing a pattern?”

Of course mom wanted me to do what she wanted me to do. She had wanted me to for my entire life. Her wish for control did not change after 22 years of not getting anywhere with me.
She tried, I had an internal reaction, I got over myself, and said some form of “No.”

Attempts at manip­u­la­tion by oth­ers is some­thing that hap­pens for­ev­er. So what?

The thing our writer is implying, above, is that manipulation automatically has to lead somewhere. “Endure regular manipulation and negativity…”
What’s to endure?

This is the idea that oth­ers have some kind of mys­ti­cal pow­er over us. It’s the idea that oth­ers at least ought to back us; if not, they ought to leave us alone. We think that just because we told some­one to leave us alone, they are (or should be) com­pelled to do so.

While I acknowl­edge hav­ing exact­ly that reac­tion to my mom’s ques­tion, the key for lib­er­a­tion comes next.

1. I did­n’t want to do what she asked, so I did­n’t, and
   I did­n’t fight with her about it.

She wanted what she wanted, and I did what I wanted. Emphasis on did.

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Another recurring topic above is “… finding my own way in the dark.”

That’s just it. It is not nec­es­sary to do this alone. There are sev­er­al authen­tic sys­tems of thought for get­ting over your­self; for and find­ing peace and pres­ence. The one I write about in the main is Zen.

None of us are required to go at this alone. In fact, I warn against it, as all we do is re-affirm our prej­u­dices and self-deceptions. 

In Zen groups, one famous way to pass time is called a “Dhar­ma Bat­tle.” One per­son speaks, and the rest tear into the per­son­’s under­stand­ing, prob­ing for weak arguments.

Years ago, our friend Rho­da remind­ed me of a din­ner at our house, a decade ear­li­er. A vice prin­ci­pal at school (the one Dar­bel­la and Rho­da taught at) had made act­ing like a dick into a science.

Rho­da was upset­ting her­self, and say­ing, loud­ly, “He makes me so angry!” Dar­bel­la and I replied, “You’re choos­ing to anger your­self. He’s not doing any­thing to you.” 

Rho­da and I did “dhar­ma bat­tle” for more than an hour, with her total­ly deny­ing my perspective.

Fade to ten years later

Almost the first words out of Rho­da: “Remem­ber that con­ver­sa­tion in your back yard? That was the most pro­found les­son I’ve ever learned. I apply it all the time. Of, course, I fig­ured out what you were say­ing after 30 min­utes, but I liked the bat­tle, too!”

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The Liberation of Self

This is really where it all begins. In Chakra language, this is the 3rd, solar plexus Chakra, and until one lets go here, nothing truly meaningful can happen in your life.

Most peo­ple spend their lives “stuck,” and where they stick is on the themes of the first three Chakras: 

• Chakra 1- your right to be here, 
• Chakra 2- your rela­tion­ships, your sex life, and 
• Chakra 3- your self-understanding.

We go round and round, feel­ing impo­tent, feel­ing tight and con­strict­ed by our rela­tion­ships, feel­ing sick about our selves.

Liberation Theology and Psychology

Lib­er­a­tion Psy­chol­o­gy emerged out of Latin Amer­i­ca’s Lib­er­a­tion The­ol­o­gy. The thrust was to sug­gest look­ing at socio-eco­nom­ic injus­tice as the cause of per­son­al dis­tress, as opposed to inter­nal caus­es. Then, to do some­thing about the injus­tice, through non-vio­lent ACTION.

Zen says, “Look to the moment in front of you.” Same thing. The focus is on now-ness, not on why-ness.

Zen wants us to know how much trou­ble we make for our­selves, by end­less­ly mess­ing around with “Why” ques­tions — try­ing, and fail­ing, to come up with why we are as we are.

“…they have some sort of hold on me although I mentally resist and try to negate much of their influence…”

Thoughts, beliefs, are vapour… not real„ so as such can­not get a hold on us. Quite the oppo­site. It is we who grasp on to them. Left alone (giv­en their lib­er­a­tion, their free­dom) they just drift over our men­tal land­scape like clouds.

Imagine trying to “resist a cloud.” Or a wave.

Or “try­ing” to negate some­thing. My inter­nal con­ver­sa­tion re. my mom, above, was that. Try­ing to fig­ure out the inten­tion of anoth­er, with­out asking. 

If I was inter­est­ed in her think­ing I could have asked, but truth be told, once I got over feel­ing hard-done-by, I was­n’t inter­est­ed in her think­ing or her suggestion.

So, once I saw that, there was nothing else to figure out, except an elegant reply.

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“… nowhere totally comprehensible to me…”

Of course not. We can’t fig­ure any of this stuff out, because all we do is tell our­selves stories. 

Karma — “I’m also wondering if there isn’t a karmic factor involved in my case…”

On kar­ma, I have writ­ten elsewhere:

One of the main things to “get” is that we cre­ate every aspect of our own real­i­ty, and I mean every aspect. Anoth­er way to say this is to look at the con­cept of kar­ma.
“In Bud­dhist teach­ing, the law of kar­ma, says only this: “For every event that occurs, there will fol­low anoth­er event whose exis­tence was caused by the first, and this sec­ond event will be pleas­ant or unpleas­ant depend­ing upon whether its cause was skill­ful or unskill­ful.” A skill­ful event is one that is not accom­pa­nied by crav­ing, resis­tance or delu­sions; an unskill­ful event is one that is accom­pa­nied by any one of those things. (Events are not skill­ful in them­selves, but are so called only by virtue of the men­tal events that occur with them.)“
Now, the nor­mal descrip­tion of kar­ma typ­i­cal­ly includes the idea of past lives, as in, “I must have done some­thing real­ly bad in my past life to deserve this.” I’d like you to put that aspect aside, as this is not even close to the actu­al intent of the word. It’s just a com­pli­ca­tion, and the last thing you need is some oth­er dis­trac­tion to keep you stuck. Kar­ma is not a pun­ish­ment. It’s sim­ply an expla­na­tion of cause and effect.

Bad Karma is just an excuse for not acting skillfully

Must be… I wrote the book on it!

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Most­ly, peo­ple that con­cern them­selves with kar­ma (of the past lives vari­ety) are try­ing to fig­ure out how to jus­ti­fy stay­ing stuck. Rather than move into the present expe­ri­ence, (which they just man­i­fest­ed by the choice before it occurred) and make a present-moment choice, they think they have no choice.

This is because doing things skillfully often means doing things differently.

Ini­tial­ly, like learn­ing any­thing, it’s slow, kludgy, and only a lit­tle skill­ful. With con­tin­u­al prac­tice (and the feed­back kar­ma pro­vides) the skill devel­ops into mastery.

It’s essen­tial to act. So, if my inten­tion is not to bite on com­ments, but to breathe and respond in a mea­sured way, then I need to drop all the excus­es for not doing this. No more blam­ing genet­ics, his­to­ry, or kar­ma. I sim­ply have a breath, or maybe even two, and respond in anoth­er way.

Because, you see, it’s simple.

Act as you choose to act, accept the con­se­quences for your actions, and use that to decide what to do next. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Liberation is not a perspective or a belief. It’s an action.

• In Latin Amer­i­ca, it’s writ­ing and pub­lish­ing know­ing you might get killed for it.
• It’s Gand­hi, march­ing to the sea and pick­ing up salt.
• It’s the Bud­dha, sit­ting still and teach­ing, fac­ing down Mara, and his demons, with compassion.
• It’s “DO unto others…”
• Rumi: Rise up nim­bly and go on your strange jour­ney
  to the ocean of mean­ings.
  The stream knows it can’t stay on the moun­tain.
  Leave and don’t look away from the sun as you go,
  in whose light you’re some­times cres­cent, some­times full.

It’s all action

I invite my friends to dance with me, and by that I mean, like sweet Rho­da, to engage fully. 

It might mean argu­ing, or it might mean express­ing emo­tions ful­ly and deeply. 

It might mean stay­ing put when you want to run away, or doing what you say you’ll do despite the sto­ries you tell yourself.

It might mean invit­ing more inti­ma­cy when you are scared to say or do or reveal.

It might mean doing your work, no mat­ter what.

Or, you could con­tin­ue to try to fig­ure it all out.

No one has, but hey, good luck, eh?

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Series Nav­i­ga­tion

« True Inti­ma­cy — Set Your­self Free SeriesLearn­ing by Let­ting Go — Set Your­self Free Series »