Everybody wants to be free. Freedom and liberty are central to happiness. But can we have too much freedom? Dr. Craig Hassed is one of Australia’s leading mindfulness experts and the author of The Freedom Trap. He says that contemporary definitions of freedom will not lead to happiness but are instead harming us and our planet.
Our modern notions of freedom are just removing more and more limitations, or barriers, to a person’s individual will and desire. Whatever we want to do, we should be able to do it as much as we want to. Stay up as late as we want to, eat what we want to…So we’ve got… more opportunity for indulgence than probably any other time in history.
All this, he says, is counter to notions of freedom expressed by the world’s great wisdom traditions.
Freedom wasn’t just a matter of satisfying every desire you’ve got. Freedom was a matter of transcending desire, being non-attached to desire, not driven by desire.
He says that constant desire and wanting only brings dissatisfaction and agitation.
If you want true freedom then it’s through non-attachment. It’s through not being subject to every whim or want that goes through the mind.
Listen to Dr Craig Hassed’s tips for true freedom here.
In order to desire freedom I must first create a state of being trapped, a place I need to escape from. How about peacefully navigating life as it is in gratitude?
I am then I do then I have. In this order, not in anyone else.
While we dont have the conciuosness of I am, we will stay living our lifes in the limited conciousness of I do and/or I have, as much, where Freedom is not possible at all and suffering is unavoidable.
How can we be or exist, if we dont know that we are?
What a perspective! Yes the price of freedom. I remember in my youth thinking that if only I had the freedom of living on my own; had a car; access to libraries etc I would be happy. I did achieve that but found I was not content with that freedom. I was often lonely and felt out of sync with the world around me. I did find that the more stuff I purchased the less content I was. I also now find that I am attached to ‘things’ and have a reluctance to declutter. Interesting.