I am reading Osho, specifically his collection of talks on freedom.
He didn’t actually write any of his books, they are collections of his spontaneous daily talks in his ashrams to his devotees, answering questions.
One of the most intriguing concepts is this:
You want freedom. Freedom of choice.
And you find out that once you have chosen, anything, the scope of freedom gets reduced, diminished.
He suggests this experiment:
Stand up. Now raise one of your feet and stand on the other leg.
Now lift the other leg…
You can’t, can you?
This is how choice and freedom are connected.
When I asked you to lift a foot, you had the choice to raise one leg or the other. Once you have chosen, you can only lift the other leg if you put the first leg down and then lift the second leg.
He recommends living in choiceless choice, but that is not a productive way to live, and in my humble opinion, not satisfying either.
Humans grow through using tools, attempting projects, experimenting… and all are the results of some choices.
But, if you look, most of us, maybe all of us, have already chosen a ton of “stuff”, thoughts, beliefs, convictions, have chosen to listen to everything our mind says, all the voices that occupy our attention.
Just like with the foot raising example, if you want a different life, you’ll have to unchoose your already choices… to make room for new choices that, more often than not, conflict with a new choice, and limit the “playing field”.
I talk, often, about a way of looking at life, I call “and-ness”, but surprisingly this area is full of either-or choices.
I myself struggled with this for decades, because I could not see my way out.
I have said before, but I have a really tough time letting go of what I think I have.
The truth is… the things I think I have: they have me. Enslave me, command me, imprison me.
I know and yet. I am quite possessive.
But in spite of my possessiveness, I have managed to let go of 60% of what was fixed in my life. Opinions, habits, people, attitudes, foods, thoughts, emotions, etc.
Before I could move towards this state, I had to see that my life was full of “mutually exclusive futures”.
If you stand on your left leg: you cannot lift it.
NOT choiceless choice, actual and real choice.
Sometimes hard choices… The hardest choices are the remaining 40%.
I am using the tiny questions method on those… the Kaizen Method I think is the most effective tool in changing anything and moving our ship of life out of the stuck state it is in.
I wasn’t quite conscious of it, but I teach, I coach, based on the tiny questions, tiny steps method…
Remember: there is no hurry on the Creative Plane.
I’ll get to the state where every part of my life works according to my heart’s and soul’s desire…
Not much is missing. I am asking the small questions every day, and am getting, occasionally, small answers.
They are only as heavy as a grain of sand… but diligence in gathering a lot of those grains of sands have always turned my “ship” around… and helped me switch legs… so to say.
