by US Army Korea – IMCOM

After recent experiences and awareness’s in my life and also from what is happening it the public domain, I felt it was right to talk about my views and understandings of these two incredibly important areas of life.

The Dichotomy

On one side we have a great need to feel safe and on the other side we want to be free. However, as our need to be safe is so strong, our freedom is often compromised in the process. And it is easy to see which one of these usually takes precedence in our own life.

Safety

The need to feel safe could be described as our egos main priority. With the ego operating from around the stomach area, this is where our survival fears are and is also said to be the oldest part of the brain.

Freedom

When I think about the need or wish for freedom, I see it as a calling from the heart. I would also describe it as a higher, more evolved side of the human experience, as it is not essential to our own survival. So although we might have the longing for freedom, our body will still function without it.

Better To Be Safe Than Sorry?

The question is, how does our own ego decide what is safe and what isn’t? And might it be acting out of past experiences and old information? Might we also fear freedom at an unconscious level?

So while the ego is doing this incredible job of keeping us alive, the information it often uses to asses whether something is safe or not is coming from our history. So as one reflects on this, it is easy to see that we might well be living in fear in the present moment not because of what is currently happening, but because of old memories and associations that are being triggered.

And as the result of holding onto these old experiences and patterns, we might also be interpreting present situations in such a way that they comply with old experiences, when in reality they might have nothing to do with it.

Trust Or Control?

So as the ego has such a great need to be safe, this naturally creates a life where just about every part of it is created to correspond to what our own ego perceives as being safe.

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And then we have the kind of life that Bill Murray had in ground hog day; where the same things keep showing up and these are not always what we want to happen to us.

This can include our relationships, health, self image and many other areas. Whether these things make us feel empowered or disempowered, they exist because our mind perceives there existence as being what is safe for us.

And even though there is an association of safety, it doesn’t mean they are functional or like I said above empowering to us, as familiar is safe to our mind.

After looking at the nature of the mind; the importance of being conscious and questioning what we perceives as safe, starts to surface.

Although the ego is controlling by its very nature, the heart is more delicate and subtle in its workings. Our ego also allows one to be an individual to have an experience that is unique to them; the problems arise when we fall completely into this and think we are separate and therefore alone.

The more we include and live from our heart the more we will begin to trust our life and that we our not separate or isolated beings.

Being Conscious

The more we question our own mind and the perceptions we have, the more we will begin to attract what empowers us and not just what is familiar.

However, questioning and observing our own mind is not something that is usually taught or encouraged today. This can cause us to become identified with our ego, to lose our ability to observe and as a consequence become a slave to our own mind.

We then just become a machine and a person that has no control or awareness of themselves. Of course we might develop materialistically, however when it comes to our mental and emotional health we could be primitive in nature.

What Is Freedom?

Today there is a lot of talk of governments and similar figures offering us freedom and such things.  Even cars and the latest phones are associating there products with freedom. And I believe to some degree or another they do give a certain amount of freedom.

But what is freedom? Is it something we can receive from others or is it something we create ourselves? And are we responsible for our own freedom?

By living in a society or culture that encourages us to identify with our mind, it is easy to see how our freedom is going and will continue to disappear. If our own ability to be conscious and to question has been eroded, which leads us to live completely in our body, and then it is no surprise that safety continues to be the choice.

When we are filled with fear and overpowered by emotions, there is not much chance of our critical abilities being utilised.

And as a result of this we will quite easily give away our own freedom all to the promise of someone else giving us safety. So ultimately we end up living in survival mode, our own conscious potential being momentarily arrested.

If our own mind is filled by emotions and thoughts from our past, it is hard to see how we can feel freedom at all.

Letting go

If our own mind is interpreting what is safe based on what is familiar from our past, could it be that our own attachment to our past is causing us present problems? And that the present moment is constantly clouded by our past?

This to me shows how important it is for us as individuals to take responsibility for our projections, to see what we are responsible for and what we are not.

This is why I believe that experiencing real freedom, which could be classed as freedom of the mind, is an evolved and a higher level of consciousness. If we are controlled by our fears, our emotions or our thoughts, it won’t matter how much external freedom we might have.

Conclusion

I hope I have explained each aspect enough. My main intention here is that this has made you think and question, regardless of whether you agree with what I say or not.