Freedom Comes from Understanding: Insights for Meaningful Life

By Jon Schreiber

The truth is simple. The direct experience of the truth is truth. In its absence, we search for new words, for different philosophies. But "new" doesn't mean having a new concept—it means having a new taste of your own existence in this moment.


How do you relate to your life? It's as though you have a basket, and you're going shopping through the universe. The emptier your basket, the more you can gather. Our True nature wishes to support us, and it is supporting us every moment of our life. We could have a tangible experience of that support, by being present. How does Existence support you? By letting you know you belong. In truth, your home is the entire cosmos. Having a human body allows you to experience this. When you become conscious of your own existence, that Consciousness is the beginning of connection to your Timeless nature.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Feb 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9781930469006

Book preview

exists.

Truth Lives Only in the Present

When I actually know that I exist, there is no need even for desire. Existence is simply mani-festing itself, and my I am-ness gives me a taste of being included.

…

Truth lives only in the present. It’s not something that’s going to come. We strive in time, towards the truth, but the truth is Timeless. When you strive, drop your measuring stick. Reality doesn’t have measurement. Any tiny moment of taste deserves your gratitude.

…

When you concentrate, that’s the time you don’t hear. Because real hearing takes place beyond your mind, beyond what you think you are. Allow yourself to be receptive. Then you hear. You can only hear from yourself. What you hear from outside has no value to you. But it could support you to become available, so you become available to hear from yourself. What you hear within yourself is available to you. The rest isn’t. You have to be touched inside.

…

You cannot be that which dies. You can’t be something temporary, because your real nature is permanent, Timeless, immortal Existence. Identification with any part of the temporary aspect causes us suffering. If I believe I am me, I open the door to fear and suffering. Any label you attach to I am causes suffering. I am is truth. But I am a father, I am a mechanic is not. I am is true, and the rest is just an event. You were a child. Then, perhaps, a parent. Then a grand-parent. Don’t mistake the process for reality. Events of life are a part of the process. Reality is the Awareness of Existence, which sees the process.

…

To be responsible for my life, I need to be responsible for this moment. That means to have the ability to respond. The life force is flowing, and I, as one unit of the whole, am also receiving it. To respond to it, I need receptivity. Through receptivity, I receive the emanation of my True nature, which gives me the strength and ability to remain present. This machinery called me doesn’t really have a particular meaning. It’s just a vehicle that the life force passes through. Knowing that, I can see how this machinery functions. There are thoughts. I don’t fight them. I know they come and go. Of course, I didn’t invite them. They come as they please, and the more I resist them, the more they occupy my energy.

When I see the difference between thoughts and Consciousness, a lot of my problems are solved. Because then I can see that thoughts, feelings, and sensations are events of life, products of a conditioned mind, conditioned feelings, and a conditioned body. But Consciousness is not an event. It’s the real nature of my existence. Over time, I come to see that this mind is an apparatus filled up with images and thoughts and information from everyone else. This house of thought which I call my mind is better called the mind of mass consciousness. But when I am present, my thoughts, feelings, and sensations don’t run the show.

…

Heart Knows, Mind Tries to Figure Out

Joy and sorrow are part of the process of Existence. Like the warp and weft of a carpet, they are woven into each other, and they each have a purpose to fulfill. The purpose of sorrow is to make us receptive to higher influences and to higher dimensions of ourselves. Joy is the expression in our Being of what we receive from higher dimensions. The reason joy and sorrow are woven into the process of Existence is to create the possibility for the growth of Consciousness.

Suffering, on the other hand, is not really part of the process. It is a product of the mind of man. You may ask, How could the mind be able to create so much suffering? To answer that, we have to see what the mind is.

First of all, the mind is not the same thing as thoughts. The mind could be universal. The mind could be sacred. But not the mind that’s a carrier of thought. The universe is emanated from an Absolute Source. Everything needs to remain connected to the Source that emanated it. But thought separated itself from the Source, and instead of fulfilling the purpose of the Source, it wants to fulfill its own purpose. It wants to be a king. But anything that gets separated from its Source dies. If you cut a branch off a tree, and sap no longer flows through it, it becomes wood. Water flows from the mountain to the river. If some gets separated, it will dry up. Thought got separated from the Source. So it imagines itself to be alive. Thought just generates another thought, and another, and another.

Understanding is the antidote to suffering, because it sees through thought. It makes thought transparent, so you can see there is no substance in it. Then you don’t believe in thought. You can see thought as thought, and you as you. You don’t take your thoughts to be you.

Understanding is eternal. Every moment of true understanding is permanent. How is it eternal? Because it connects to the Source. Understanding is given. You can’t make yourself understand. But if you have the proper receptivity, understanding may be given. The thoughts which cause suffering are made transparent when understanding is present.

…

A way, as we are accustomed to hearing it, means a direction, a path to walk, a bridge between two things. As long as humanity has existed on this Earth, there has always been a way, a form of teaching to help human beings come to the purpose and meaning of life. We appear to be mortal creatures, but this is only what we appear to be, not the reality of who we are. The way is directional—from what we think we are