From Focus to Freedom: From Will to Awakening
- olivierbranford
- Mar 14
- 9 min read
Updated: Mar 26
Deep spiritual states transcend the mind. The ego mind can lead you to the edge of that state: It can’t go across to that state.
Jean-Paul Sartre said "Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you."
What’s the difference between a mind that is blocking your spiritual growth and one that is allowing your spiritual growth? You are a conscious BEing who can concentrate. This is concentrated consciousness. It is like a light that shines on what is in front of you. Sometimes the floodlight of the beam is very small (ego). Sometimes it is very wide, even infinite (your Higher Self or God). You have the ability to do that with your consciousness. You can focus your beam. This is true for all your senses. This metaphor explains a lot about awakening. If you focus a narrow beam throughout your life you will not experience very much. This is what most people do. Psychology says that you are the sum of your learned experiences. If your consciousness is ‘expanded’ it is expanded because you previously contracted it and you no longer are. Your ego focusses a very narrow beam on the world. `Everyone's does. Is your mind capable of more? Yes - you have built a personal mind (the ego - your self concept). There is a bigger mind, which is infinite. The potential for your mind is very large. Your mind can have infinite awareness. The personal ego mind can’t. Your consciousness focussed on what you took in - in other words very little. It’s nothing compared to what there is. You built your entire life based on that. Everyone does until they can see what this means. That is your ego mind. That’s why psychology says that man is the sum of his learned experiences. That’s actually not true at all. If you weren’t doing this you would be Enlightened (‘Satori’ in Buddhism).
You are not the experiences you had - they are simply the ones you held onto. Not doing this is sometimes called expanded consciousness. Actually it is not expanded consciousness - you have simply ceased to contract it. You have to learn to cease to focus and contract your consciousness just on you. That’s who you are busy being. You collected the strongest negative and positive experiences. You held onto them. If it bothered you or you really liked it you either suppressed it (negative experiences) or clinged to it (positive experiences.) There is a force, called will, that tries to manipulate the world so that the outside world meets our preferences. The ego directs the will. When you meditate enough, you observe, that will is concentrated consciousness, like the narrow focussed beam of light described above.
Consciousness may also be thought of as energy. They are the same force, another name for God. Uncontracted consciousness or awareness is God. The will is concentrated contracted focused consciousness. If you cease to focus your concentration at all then you are Enlightened. You see a blinding light. Christ said “You must die to be reborn.” You are reborn in spirit. Another name for God is ‘Satchitananda’ - eternal Truth, consciousness, ecstasy, also called Nirvana, Self-realisation, or Enlightenment. You are in this state right now but instead you focus on the rubbish that you stored inside. We all do until we wake up.
Suffering is when the world does not match what you want or does match what you don’t want. The thing looking down is The consciousness. The same as God’s. Stop wasting this energy on this tiny thing that you built inside your mind as a small subset of your mind. You only look at that but you don’t let it go as your consciousness is addicted to looking at this small part of you. You have a brilliant mind. Why do you only stare at that small part? Let your mind be uncontracted. Why do you hold rubbish negative experiences inside of you? The entire science of psychology is based on the fact that you do that. You don’t have to do that. You are using willpower to hold it suppressed and repressed inside of you. You are wasting your energy and making yourself a mess. It’s not natural to do things that harm your mind and your soul. You keep 'consuming' what is bad for you.
You have taken an expanded eternal BEing’s (you) consciousness and focussed it on a tiny place inside of you - your ‘self-concept’ that tried to make the world match what your preferences are. No wonder you are neurotic, anxious, depressed, and feel caged. You are the greatest thing that ever walked the Earth. But you focussed your beam. If you let go, liberate yourself, and stop staring at that it expands all by itself. This is the path to liberation. Stop staring at it. This is the way.
What is the path to liberation? Just stop staring at the small you. Free your soul, your consciousness from staring at the personal self. It is an addiction - your consciousness is addicted to your ego and you have strong preferences. Like a drug addict. Don't take it personally - everyone does this. If the mind gets what it wants it feels good. Like a drug. Let go of the rubbish you are holding inside your personal self. It’s gone.
It is said that “At the moment of Enlightenment all Karmic seeds burn.” Forgive your Self. Love your Self. Alexander Pope said “To err is human. To forgive is divine.” You have learned from your past, but don’t you dare let it hold you back. You are a great BEing who made some small mistakes. We should not place our mistakes on our heads. Their weight may crush us, Instead, we have to place them under our feet and use them as a platform to view our horizons. Take the bricks that were hurled at you and build the foundation of your new tower with them. Earth is a place that souls were sent to evolve.
Let go of personal preferences because you are not ok. Because you left the state of ‘okayness’. You can handle it. Relax and release. It will hurt at first as you let the rubbish come up as you are so used to trying to avoid suffering. Use low hanging fruit at first such as frustration when you are driving or if it’s raining. This is as important as meditating. You have to be able to handle reality. Let go of the rubbish inside that says what you want and what you don’t want.
Just let go. Instead of changing it, change you. Relax when it comes up. That is literally spiritual evolution: You can handle what your inside did with life (not life itself). Practice being ok. Detox from being addicted to your self hurts. Healing hurts. Recovery hurts. You want that pain. This is the pain that ends all pain. Use your will to let go instead of trampling down the self. You will be able to handle the big things. Welcome the things coming back up as you are releasing them. We can raise the Self instead of using your will to trample down the self and make a mess. Don’t push it back down. Don’t ever quit. Underneath the rubbish that you stored is your Shakti energy which will start to come up. Help evolution take place instead of fighting your dislikes. You will wake up every day feeling more evolved than the day before.
Spiritual growth means being able to handle something that you couldn’t handle before: This is the basis of spirituality. You will start feeling an inner energy which gets higher and higher and feels so much nicer than likes being ticked off. This results in spiritual bliss and ecstasy through letting go. Meher Baba, the Indian theologian, would go into great states and stay there. Go through what you need to go through to free your Self to let go. When you do this the Universe conspires to help you. You will be able to handle bigger and bigger things until you can handle anything. Let go, free your Self, and let the Universe support you.
You are an unfinished work in progress. One of the good things about life's challenges are you get to find out that you're more capable of being far more than you ever thought possible. You can handle it I promise. God only sends his toughest soldiers into battle. Surround your Self with people who love you unconditionally. Let go of what you can't change. I will go anywhere as long as it's forward. Every morning start a new page in your story and make it a great one, your life is a reflection of your thoughts, if you change your thinking you change your life!
Namaste.
Olly
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