True Freedom

[thebeautifulsacred]

What does freedom mean to you?

[linen53]

Freedom is the absence of doing what I should do but rather just being me.

Freedom is being able to throw away all the rules I was taught as a child and take on my own beliefs.

Freedom is being able to abandon shame and guilt.

[Völvawitch]

Freedom is doing whatever I want to do without getting into troubles with the government or money troubles.

[wtc1128]

Great question!

Is freedom the ability to do whatever I want, which only leads to mistakes, suffering, regrets, and chaos? Sure, it may be fun to not have any rules or any one holding me back, but after some time, it gets old.

True freedom, to me, is being able to discover and express my purpose in life, for that will end conflict in my life and bring all meaningful relationships to me. The only true value, I feel, of personal freedom or political freedom, is to give people the opportunity to do this, to discover their purpose.

""To break out of the personal hell of isolation, to break out of the domination of the mind and the domination of your social conditioning, represents freedom in the most fundamental way! For you can be free in the world, but if you are not free inside, well, you cannot really take advantage of your external freedom. Look about you in the world. People seem to be free, relatively speaking, compared to, say, other people in the world. And look what they do with their freedom. They become lost in addictions, they make horrendous mistakes in their relationships, they abuse themselves physically and emotionally.... Even within yourself, you know you are not free. Freedom is not simply having no obligations in life or not being accountable to anyone. Freedom really in its greatest and most real sense is the ability to find and to follow Knowledge because here you are finally free to do what you came here to do, which is the source of all real integrity and satisfaction."
-From the Revelation, "Taking the Steps to Knowledge"

[Khalli]

To be myself, to just be without any hangups or baggage.

Also a full tank, an open road and no set destination. Just enjoying the wind in my face and the scenery on my iron horse.:hug3:

[FallingLeaves]

I think, you are most free when you are tied in chains. Because you don't have to continually pretend you are what you are not just to tread water... the chips are down and it is what is. And you know it. Nothing there that you want to keep, so no reason for all the pretense you normally use to keep it.

[ocean breeze]

What does freedom mean to you?

I like this question because its a question i contemplate a lot. What is freedom and do i even want it? There are times while running outdoors or just wondering around where i felt free. Like i felt limitless. Hard to really put the feeling into words. I would often think of freedom as being free from the confinements we place on ourselves whether negative or positive. Or to go deeper, being free from this imaginary "self" that exist in our mind. Easy for me to say i'm free but i don't see myself as free or even desiring it. I'll probably be afraid of it.

[firstandlast]

True freedom is when absolute justified authority reigns supreme--

Only because, I know that the highest being in power, would simply be such itself and that its rule could only truly rule me as I am-- And I will be honest, it would just be cool to see someone say, hey; chill out, follow your passions or something..

[naturesflow]

To be aware..

[A human Being]

For me, freedom is the absence of fear.

[LadyMay]

Cambridge Dictionary: "the condition or right of being able or allowed to do, say, think, etc. whatever you want to, without being controlled or limited"

Reminds me of Freud's id: "The id acts according to the "pleasure principle"—the psychic force that motivates the tendency to seek immediate gratification of any impulse"

Letting your unconscious go rampant though is probably quite dangerous, and one would argue not actually conducive to freedom.

[Starman]

For me "freedom" is a harmonious unobstructed flow; no restraints.
While at the same time it should be said that there can be no freedom without responsibility.
Existential psychology teaches that the more freedom a person has the more responsibility they have.

[Molearner]

"Know the truth and the truth shall set you free"........True freedom is the absence of ignorance......It is ignorance that enslaves us......some would equate ignorance with the dominance of the ego......It is up for discussion/consideration

[Conscious Coincidences]

Freedom for me is the acceptance of each given moment.

It could not be anything else for me, because if it was dependent on any condition then it would not feel for me as true freedom.

Nix

[jorddy]

To be aware..

+1
To be aware means you see the things that are influencing you.. The things that you can learn to control

[Kerubiel]

To be free... To be able to leave this world behind and traverse the great unknown. To be free is to be able to learn of any such thing that the imagination may bring. Freedoms walks hand in hand with infinity.

[hallow]

To me everything comes at some kind of price but when I was 18 to 20 years old i was homeless i cleaned myself up in public rest rooms and slept in my car. Lived from day to day not knowing what was going to happen. Since then i owned a home worked good paying jobs been married twice and raised a family ect, but to me i still long for them 2 years of what I think of freedom. Its a cold, and lonely living that way but once you learn what you're made of you can turn it into real freedom. I have 1 year of child raising before i can explore that kind of freedom again. This time 21 years smarter and a tent.

[A human Being]

For me "freedom" is a harmonious unobstructed flow; no restraints.
While at the same time it should be said that there can be no freedom without responsibility.
Existential psychology teaches that the more freedom a person has the more responsibility they have.
Agree with all that (I generally agree with you, tbf). I've come to suspect that one of the things that really scares us about the notion of freedom is the responsibility that comes with it, and it's that which often causes us assert our own powerlessness. Either because we feel we'll be compromised by more responsibility, or else we don't think we're up to the task.

[thebeautifulsacred]

Agree with all that (I generally agree with you, tbf). I've come to suspect that one of the things that really scares us about the notion of freedom is the responsibility that comes with it, and it's that which often causes us assert our own powerlessness. Either because we feel we'll be compromised by more responsibility, or else we don't think we're up to the task.
Can you elaborate on that?

[Heart]

to experience true freedom while bound to the this body and mind in such a way that it does not matter

[hallow]

There are so many things we do to anchor ourselves. Here some examples. A television and a computer anchors us to the couch, that new car with all the bells and whistles anchors us to the bank the house most people own just to impress your neighbors. I could go on forever but you know what I mean. There's a lot people that has a good "excuse" for them things but that's where you take your own freedom.

[A human Being]

Can you elaborate on that?
Wish I could, but I don't think I can right now, sorry! Mind's a little all over the place atm, it's a struggle to flesh anything out in detail :laughing11:

[Really!]

Peaceful soul, peaceful life ...
Ability to adjust, adapt & cope with life's twists & turn ...

[thebeautifulsacred]

Wish I could, but I don't think I can right now, sorry! Mind's a little all over the place atm, it's a struggle to flesh anything out in detail :laughing11:
...What about now? lol

[firstandlast]

Freedom to me is not separate from love, the ability for all perspectives involved to understand the best decision for every relationship involved to act on their will--

The prison is when we aren't making the best decision for all involved; this eventually weaves a world where the best decision is the selfish one, because it better expresses what we are to understand each other; and this confuses us, because we think the selfless choices (by doing what is best for all, when all is not itself) are the expression of love, when really it is the expression of conditioning--

Not a simple matter to lead ourselves out of when we don't know ourselves to even make the most selfish decision (which is the same decision between us)-- yet no one pays attention that those values are not in accordance with our actions, yet think our actions are not in accordance with our values-- So we condemn rather than uplift, thinking we are uplifting when we condemn--

Its really a confusing situation; but it isn't really a matter of selfless or selfish, but as a whole being both are rather the same-- Thus I consider love in all its manifestations to be the road to freedom--

But in order to really love we must understand what we are loving, if we love forms, we will condemn someone until they fit the form.. If we love someones experience, we will love their choices and embrace who they actually are; and not the idea of who they should be--

[firstandlast]

But of course, that is confusing, because we must allow our choices to be made to reach greater degrees of true selfless/selfish decisions at the point in which they meet as the same thing.. no one really takes unity to its highest consequences, and so we get confused about what working together really bloody means--

[Armadodecadron]

True freedom to me is a state of being in which you are absolutely unfettered by need or limitation. A truly free being is entirely self-sustaining, immortal and invulnerable, can erase itself perfectly from existence on a whim, and feels the weight of no obligation or singular desire beyond self-constructed fancies. It does not suffer the need for interaction with others but can find this stimulating if it creates such a drive, and a truly free being cannot be influenced by an external force except by circumstances of its own design.

The thing I'm describing is not even remotely human. I doubt you could even fit such a thing into our universe without one cancelling out the other. Heh. Nice fantasy, though.

[thebeautifulsacred]

True freedom to me is a state of being in which you are absolutely unfettered by need or limitation. A truly free being is entirely self-sustaining, immortal and invulnerable, can erase itself perfectly from existence on a whim, and feels the weight of no obligation or singular desire beyond self-constructed fancies. It does not suffer the need for interaction with others but can find this stimulating if it creates such a drive, and a truly free being cannot be influenced by an external force except by circumstances of its own design.

The thing I'm describing is not even remotely human. I doubt you could even fit such a thing into our universe without one cancelling out the other. Heh. Nice fantasy, though.
lol I was going to say, this sounds like something out of a novel... But maybe there is true freedom in acknowledging our needs and limitations?