Mental Freedom

Mental freedom is available to everyone. It is where we find an abundance of good ideas expressing spiritual qualities that benefit our lives. It is only found outside the gates of the mental prison of our personal and conditional thoughts about what we want.

What is wanting? It is the thought that something is lacking in our lives and it drives us to search to fill the void. This is the Personal View.

The alternative is the Spiritual View, which brings the mental freedom to not want anything, but is receptive to ideas that express the good of spiritual qualities in our lives.

With the Personal View our thoughts about what we want and what should be are expressed as personal opinions about what we like and dislike, accept and re­ject, believe and disbelieve. These thoughts also express themselves as everyday personal and conditional questions like, “What do I want?”, ”What’s wrong?”, “ How do I feel?”, “Who is to blame?” and “What should I do?” All these questions are about what we want and what we think should be.

These thoughts go on and on, and have been referred to as “the ceaseless chatter of the restless monkey”. They take all of our attention and are exhausting. We are burdened with continually thinking we should figure out the answer to everything so we can get what we want.

These thoughts are the bars of the mental prison that keep us from the beneficial ideas found in the mental freedom of the Spiritual View.

The move from the Personal View to the Spiritual View is a shift in interest from getting what we want to expressing what is good. Instead of having personal opinions about what we like and dislike, accept and reject; in the Spiritual View we enjoy the good ideas that are free from our conditional thoughts. Then we find the clarity of understanding what is beneficial to our lives.

And then instead of asking “What do I want?”, in the Spiritual View we ask “What is needed?”

Instead of asking “What’s wrong?”, in the Spiritual View we ask “What is good?”

Instead of asking “How do we feel?” In the Spiritual View we ask “What do we value?”

Instead of asking “Who is to blame?” In the Spiritual View we recognize that the misunderstanding of what is good is always to blame.

Instead of asking “What should I do?”- In the Spiritual View we ask “What needs to be understood right now?”

When we ask these questions in the Spiritual View we find helpful ideas that meet our needs.

For example, when we consider buying a car, in the Personal View we may want prestige and excitement and we get a car that expresses these values. Yet, these values are difficult to maintain as they only bring temporary satisfaction, and they keep us in the mental prison of trying to get and maintain what we want.

But in the Spiritual View we may look for safety, beauty and efficiency, and we can find a car that expresses these values. In both the Personal View and Spiritual View we get what we are looking for. Even in buying a car we see that the mental freedom of spiritual values benefits our life. Another example is when we want to be loved. In the Personal View we might become manipulative and try to influence others to get them to love us.

We want self-esteem, pleasure and social confirmation, and we try to find someone who will give it to us. This keeps us in the mental prison of trying to get what we want. In the Spiritual View we are interested in the non-personal, non-conditional mental freedom of jointly participating with others in expressing appreciation, harmony and goodwill.

Once again we get what we are looking for.

It is important to be aware of our thoughts as they are expressed as our life experience. In the Spiritual View we have escaped from the prison of thinking about what we want and are free to enjoy the good ideas found in mental freedom.