Being truly free

Introspection

Some of the messages on the board have prompted me to think about this a bit, seeing as how it appears to be a theme that resurfaces every so often. Actually, one of the reasons I'm posting a separate thread is that the other ones which brings this up is usually about something more specific and has gotten really long, and to be perfectly frank I don't have the time to read through it, but I think the issue is an important one.

We can be free from the WTS physically, but a certain pattern of thinking sticks with us a bit longer as I'm sure many of us are well aware. Naturally, when you're out you're going to go out into the world and explore, doing this and that, the "normal" people stuff you might say. But is that really being free? It seems to me the main difference between the witness existence and the typical conditioned existence of people in the world outside is that having left the society, we are conscious of that behavior, (conditioned existence in general) but people who've never had such an experience aren't. This, I think, is something very valuable that not everybody has, and we should not forget it.

In some ways, I don't think 'normal' people in the world are so much better off, or that they're even truly normal, although this condition may be common, but that's not the same thing. In a nutshell, I have to say that really being free means a kind of mental freedom. Of course, this is where people usually say their experience has been too big, they were in too long, indoctrinated when they were young, and it will always be with them. Well, from the perspective of conditioning this is probably true, but then again that's not what I'm talking about here, because that's not really being free. What I'm saying is that you can be free from conditioned behavior altogether. If you're reading this with any amount of interest then it is possible for you, if you can suspend judgement (which I might point out is likely due to conditioning ) for a moment to see if there is something to what I have to say then that itself shows you can do it! All it requires is that you let go of this belief that you're always going to be like "this", whereas change is probably the one constant in life. In fact, that's really very vague isn't it? We say we can get over it to some extent, but that some of it will always be with us. Well, exactly how much and which pieces? Being free from it doesn't mean you forget what happend, it just means it has no control over you anymore. You know, if it really is so strong that you can not uproot it for the rest of your life, then you don't have to worry about it. But if it is possible for you to be free from it all, doesn't telling yourself that you can't work against that? Don't let it become a self fulfilling prophecy when you can break through it. If it doesn't change, it doesn't change. Why spend any energy thinking it?

Well, as Forrest Gump says "that's all I gotta say about that." It's late and I really didn't have anything worked up, but I only hoped to provide a feel of what I'm talking about. If it did I'd appreciate some comments.

zanex

"why spend any time thinking about it" I think I remember back in my jdub days an elder telling me that in order for me to have a long and faithful existance as a jdub thats exactly what I had to do. "faith is the expectation of things...blah blah blah cant member the rest" but point is that weren't WE ALL trained to just believe ultimately and NOT to question? So the idea behind putting active thought into doubting those beliefs and questioning them is just what we got being "free". I would rather spend the rest of my dayz thinking about it just in the fact that it reminds me that I have the freedom to do that. Yes, thinking about THOSE days are hard sometimes...(most of the time) but I think the end result, the THINKING individual I have become is capable of handling those bad days when the "chains of the past" become heavy...I am forever bound by SOME degree of that conditioning but HOW i think about it and the uses to which I put that conditioning are what is important...AAARRGGGHHHH this thought got too deep....but I have the FREEDOM to think about it. Not sure if this made much sense...

-Z-

Introspection

Hi Zanex,

I think I'm with you. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for questioning if nothing else, but what I mean by that is why affirm a belief of 'I can never get past this', or that I can only go this far? Instead of thinking that, (which is really not thinking per se, it's just another belief) I say by all means critically analyze it. See, if you think I can't ever get over this, then you are really limiting your own freedom in a way. If it is true to some degree, at the present time, fine then it is. But if you say that to yourself over and over then you're not doing yourself any favors, that's what I mean. Now if you want to treat it as your best guess based on what you can gather right now, then that's fine. But all I'm saying is don't go any farther than that, and do take the attitude that it is ONLY how things look right now, not as an absolute truth. Make sense?

larc

Intro and Zanex,

I think that what you think can determine what you can and can not become. If you think that what you have experienced controls your life, it will control your life. If you think that what you have experienced is behind you and you can grow and change, it is likely that you will grow and change.

Most people say "seeing is believing." Wayne Dyer put it in just the opposite terms - believing is seeing. If you believe you will have a good future, odds are that you will. If you believe you will have a bad future, odds are that you will.

PS,

Welcome back Introspection. I haven't seen your posts for awhile. I like your ideas, and I am glad that you are back with us.

Elsewhere

To be truly free you will have to run butt naked down the street. The only problem is that the universe likes equilibrium, so afterward you will have to spend a few hours in jail.

"As every one knows, there are mistakes in the Bible" - The Watchtower, April 15, 1928, p. 126
Believe in yourself, not mythology.
<x ><

Introspection

Thanks Larc, I don't think I've ever been gone, though there may be longer pauses at times.

Elsewhere .. err, interesting thought. Of course, I'm speaking of being free from your own mind, and you have to envision running butt naked down the street in your mind before actually doing it. This, of course, means that we have to be able to stomach seeing ourselves running butt naked down the street, not an easy task for many of us..

Kristen

It seems to me the main difference between the witness existence and the typical conditioned existence of people in the world ... we are conscious of that behavior, (conditioned existence in general) but people who've never had such an experience aren't. This, I think, is something very valuable that not everybody has, and we should not forget it.

That is a helpful perspective to me. Thanks intro.

K

Introspection

I heard something yesterday that I think kind of fits in with this, and that is that it's not enough to wake up from the dream, but the dream itself has to wake up.

As far as how it might apply here, I think it's a matter of accepting the fact that a part of us might still have that JW thinking, and often it appears as a psychological demon or what have you. Certainly it may be too big to deal with all at once, but I don't want to give the impression that we want to ignore it either. After all, if it's a part of us, how can we push it away? The only thing we'd be successful in doing is to ignore it, and meanwhile it still sits there even if it is in its own little compartment shielded from the rest of your mind. Even if we acknowledge that it is there, if we don't deal with it then it's rather like being in denial without the denial, because aside from reocgnizing it is there we're not really doing anything about it.

Now of course being on this board, we recognize that there IS something to deal with, and we do deal with it, but I think that might be where the difference between waking up from the dream and waking up the dream itself comes in. You can say "okay, I'm not a JW anymore, that's messed up, that's not me" and that's all fine and good, and some part of you is over it. But of course that part of you that still has some JW thinking doesn't magically disappear either. I think the best way to deal with this, and the best way to describe it is to not push it away or cling to it, but be IN it. After all, in reality you really have no choice, it IS a part of you, it's just a matter of whether you're conscious of it or not. I think until we approach it with this attiude of acceptance, (only the fact that it is there presently, not the belief that it will always be there) anything we say will be just words, it will be a separate intellectual construct and only an idea, whereas thoroughly integrating a new way of thinking involves much more than a recognition of the logic behind it. In other words, you don't want to talk about it like it's something or someone else you've managed to pick apart and analyze, whereas that someone is none other than yourself, or actually a part of yourself.

Now we can get into details about how you actually do this, but I think the most important thing, and certainly the first thing is to recognize it's there, and not to move away from it or push it away, because if you don't see exactly what it is how can you work with it? But remember too that though it is a part of you, it is not you, because you as a whole are more than that. I think once we do this, it will be kind of like a lucid dream, and knowing that it is a dream we can control what we do, and not just be subject to the scripts our unconscious mind would have us play out.

zanex

Good idea. It is just that process that one has to go through to achieve that "comfort level" of being ok with one's demons. That state of mental utopia is a marvellous thought and the ideal but the actual journey is the tricky part. I like this thread. Have just recently been "coping" with some of those "demons" of the past. Yet if I look at those "demons' not as demons but as a part of the whole that I have become as a HUMAN then maybe I dont have to call them demons anymore. Just a subsection of me as a whole. Thanx intro..this thread caught my eye and perked my deep thoght motor running. I feel more alive...

-Z-

Introspection

Glad to hear that Zanex. And I didn't even have to resort to quoting Jack Handy ..

Being truly free

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