This is About Freedom

Peace be upon you, peace be upon you, peace be upon you, peace be upon you, peace be upon you. If Allah does not use any religion that is not in the hands of a man, then what is it that is not in the hands of a man? If Allah does not use any religion that is not in the hands of a man, then what is it that is not in the hands of a man, then what is it that is not in the hands of a man? If somebody observed what we do here, and the structure of the practice and the structure of the routine life here, and they were asked, what do you think these people are busy with? What is the endeavour? What are they trying to achieve? I think that person would be surprised to discover that actually what we pursue in here is freedom, more than anything else. The objective of our endeavour here is to fully realize an autonomous will, a pain will. It is a free will which is the highest creation, there is nothing higher. The human being is like a platform that produces this phenomenon, the ability to choose, free will. It is only a free will that can worship, because worshipfulness is about all, and all that is compelled is not all it is terror. So if your worshipfulness is compelled out of you, then this is not worship, it is something else. So the basis of you being able to do the thing that the human being is uniquely designed to do is your will. And it is that thing which we are able to cultivate here, that is our project. It is our project for both ourselves, as individuals, and to assist our companions on the path. Freedom. Now, it is sometimes useful to explore the nature of something by looking at its antennas, bondage. If we say that we are pursuing freedom here, trying to get an understanding of what that means, we need to understand what it means to be a slave, to be bound, to have your autonomy compromised. Categorically, the essence of what compromises your freedom is the assumption that you have a future. The assumption that you can do something that is going to benefit yourself the day after tomorrow is the essence of bondage. Because as we explore today, we indicated that the moment you are here to get something, you have handed over your power to the other. You have given up on your autonomy. You see, this is a completely counterculture to the world that we are in. Because the world that we are in has sold us the illusion that freedom is the right to pursue whatever you want to get. That is not freedom. That is bondage. You have heard of this phenomenon called the bucket list, a bucket list is something a list of things that people wish to do before they die. Not realizing it once they have committed a list like that, they are saying I am not free to die because I have got to get these things. So thinking they are doing themselves a favour, some people even consider this to be an empowering move by having the bucket list, they have just turned themselves into a slave. What gives us the audacity to keep that you can live without a future? What a preposterous idea. Well, it is because we work on concluding that the past is good enough. You see, I don't know how many people I have shown that wonderful, Douglas Harling, the man with no head, extraordinary man. But there is one of these people who is conducting a workshop in Australia, I think you are saying, you know, we overlook the obvious. The most obvious thing you overlook is the bizarre and completely improbable phenomenon that you have occurred. From the depth of fathomous emptiness, of infinite space, you suddenly arose as a phenomenon. Isn't that miracle enough? What more do you need? How probable is it that out of complete nothingness you would arise, that you have arisen, that you have occurred? Appendously, inculcably improbable, that you are here. And now you want more, now you want the future. What's made it possible for you to be here? What's the inculcable number of things that have been granted, the stardust that's been woven together to produce your body? All of these things have taken eons to happen. All that incredible ingenuity, that sort of woven, woven, woven, finely produced you. And now you want something else. Now you say, remember, all of this is not this boring. I want the Ferrari. I want the pink Ferrari. This is a ridiculous thing. So our freedom, this thing that we pursue, is in the first instance, liberation from the future. And how do we liberate ourselves from the future? Is by examining the past, finding enough to realize that our lines have been produced by the most extraordinary design and ingenuity that we can't account for. The very fact that we've occurred is blessing enough. Even if I should die right now. If I assume I'm a six month old and I die of crook, the fact that those six months happened, that the improbability of infinite nothingness was transcended for me to be there for those six months, the fact that I have occurred is stupendous. It's a stupendous boon and a blessing. That outweighs a life of 80 years of delights, just the fact that you were there for six months. Now when you're armed with this way of being, the first thing that you're armed against is catastrophe. There's a dreaded tsunami. The city is wiped out. You're gone. It makes it appear as if it's all so futile. There's this wreckage left. But weren't you there prior to this tsunami? Insofar as you happened, there's more affirmation than negation. If there was more negation than affirmation, emptiness, the infinite emptiness would not have been transcended to produce the something that was you. To see things as they are is to see blessing. To judge the present as saying adequate that you need a different future is basically not seeing things as they are. That's our project. That's the business of Tassarov. The business of Tassarov is freedom, but real freedom. Not some millymouth nonsense about votes and political, real freedom. The freedom to have an absolute autonomous decision about being able to leave everything unconditionally right now. It's a simple answer now. If somebody asks you what do you lot do there? What's all this nonsense? You don't know all these beads. What's this crazy stuff? I say freedom. That's what we're doing here. Freedom. You know I've got this in this. I've got this in my relation with him. I've got this before. I've got this in my relation with him.