How can you be free? What is freedom anyway? It’s freedom to do what? Freedom to do whatever you want to do? Is that it? What do you want to do? Definition: total freedom is total absence from fear. Because total freedom is total love, or total extension of yourself, in freedom, to include everything else. You see? You cannot be free if you fear, because if you fear you will defend yourself. How can you be free if you must defend yourself?
If you are fearful you must believe that something can hurt you or attack you. If you believe that something can hurt you or attack you. If you believe that something can hurt you or attack you, you can’t be free. You will have to build walls to defend yourself. We attempt to find freedom say, in a dualistic society, in America, by stockpiling bombs. Hopefully we can defend ourselves, and what? Remain free? It will never work. How could it work?
Countries, societies, can never be free until there is individual freedom, until you come to your own freedom.
There is no freedom on earth. There can’t be, because you defend yourself. You and I can get together and defend ourselves in apparent freedom. We’ll be free, we’ll go up to the north woods and we’ll get a beautiful cabin en we’ll be by a stream: we’ll go to Oregon and we’ll be absolutely fee and the hell with everybody else. That will work for a little while. Then what happens? Well, I don’t know, somebody invades you and robs your cabin. You pick up a newspaper and they’ve dropped the big bomb and everything is futile anyway and you are dying.
Be freedom I mean eternal freedom, freedom forever, freedom from all disease, all pain, all hatred, all jealousy, all remorse. By freedom I mean laying the burden down. Lay your burden down and be free. ‘Oh, I don’t think I’ll do that, I am going to carry this around with me for a while yet, I need to do that.’ Right above you is freedom. It waits for you – just sits there and waits. You may have it anytime you choose.
