Freedom: What it is & How to Achieve it: Freedom & the Self

Volume 1 and Volume 2 of Freedom: What it is and How to Achieve it, consist of a series of essays forming two distinct but connected narratives. The first narrative which is contained in Volume 1 focuses on the complete human experience, of how spirit expresses itself within a physical environment, how the self we perceive as personality and ego comes into being and how that self interacts with other selves to create the relational world in which we play out our individual and collective dramas. The second part, Volume 2 of the narrative dwells upon the task of humanity upon this planet, a task that requires self-actualization toward a state of awareness and level of consciousness more other-concerned than self-concerned. This other-concerned state of awareness is one which will hopefully catapult humanity beyond its present acquisitive mindset that has created the ecological crises we and the other species on this planet presently face, toward a more parsimonious and sharing state of awareness.

The characters in this narrative consist of people, circumstances, ideas, theories, environments, histories and time itself as the platform upon which these characters play out their drama. The reader will see the same characters time and again playing off against other characters in different scenes in the human drama, revealing differing aspects of themselves, allowing the reader to slowly build a deeper understanding of each of their parts in this narrative. As in any good story, it is the characters themselves and the interaction of their personalities that create the dynamics of relationship from which the story comes and connects the string of minor narratives that slowly build up to a complete, complex, yet ever evolving narrative fabric. Within this fabric the differing coloring of the differing characters blend together to create a collage of intertwining rhythms of meaning and message, of history and future, of cause and effect.

With each new essay, each new small plot within the larger story, the meaning behind the actions and effects of each of these characters upon other characters and upon the whole evolving story will hopefully take the reader to a more diverse, holistic understanding.

Some of the main characters that travel with us on this journey are freedom, the nature of the self, self-actualization, and sustainability, all of which color the relationship between the self and environment. Within the interactions between these four characters other characters come to light such as beauty, truth, belief and focus which help strengthen and deepen the color in the fabric.

The generic message within the fabric is the message of who we are, we in the sense of all life, of why we might be here upon this physical plane of existence, of what our possible destinies might be, and of why we are not able to see these most obvious of things in our daily lives. Thus, the journey across these two volumes take the reader from spiritual origins through our personal and societal odysseys toward our ultimate spiritual goal on and with this planet we call Earth.

Although there is a loose thread of continuity of subject and theme throughout the various sections and subsections of this book, each section attempts to be a complete insight into some aspect of freedom and its relation to the nature of self and self-actualization, the ecological matrix in which we all exist, and the kind of relationships which might lead to that magical goal, ecological sustainability.

Sometimes the same message may be repeated within differing contexts and from differing perspectives to garner differing insights on the part of the reader, insights that will help form that thread of continuity across differing landscapes of meaning. The final insight these volumes hope to purvey is that freedom and the search for freedom permeates our entire lives and all differing experiences we go through in life.

Dettagli