Freeing Yourself from the Mind

I had a dream last night
that I was sold as a slave
in some ancient time.

I was someone different
but I was still me.

I was locked in a small desolate space
where one would keep a possession
that they didn't care so much about.

I had no room to move about
and when I was let out,
it was only to work hard.

It was not the most pleasant dream
but what I remember most about
this dream was that although
my body was enslavled and my
life was not my own,
my mind was free. 

My thouhts and emotions
belonged to only me
and no amount of external control
could allow someone
else to think my thoughts
or influence my emotions.

They were all mine.
And so I was free.

I think about all the time that I have
spent worrying in this life
and although my life has been abundantly free
and I do what I want to do
and go where I want to go,
I was really not free,
because my mind was not my own.

I had become so influenced by
right and wrong
and shoulds and have tos that
my thoughts belonged to something
other than me and since my thoughts
were not free,
my emotions were also not free.

How did I become so enslaved and
not even know it?

It is true that we each hold the key
to our secret prisons
and we are the only ones
who can free ourselves.

Maybe we have a list of endless conditions,
when met will free us,
but they never do.
Because the list has no end,
and the conditions bind us to a
reality that may never allow us to be free.

This is the game of life that is individually
created for each of us. 
It is like a mind maze that often leads us
to dead ends and futile searches.
We try and try to find our way out.
We try and try to free ourselves.

Is there is point or purpose that can help
guide us to get off the wheel of sufferring
or does the point or purpose keep
us going around and around.
Trying to fulfill something that can
never be fulfilled.
Or complete something that can never
be complete. 

This is not freedom.

Fortunately, life is designed in such a way,
that eventually we get tired of the rat race
in our minds and in our lives,
and we simply surrender.

Not give up.

Surrender.

We take a deep breathe
and let go to something so much greater
than any human accomplishment.

Maybe it happens after years and years of struggle
or maybe it happens in a single moment
when the beauty of the moment sweeps us away
and we know that nothing is more important than now.

But not just now
the eternal now.
Now and now and now.....

In this moment, the worry dissolves, the fear melts
and maybe for the first time
we find ourselves free.

In grace & gratitude,
Nanice