We are not alone and we are not lost. So why do we feel alone and why do we feel lost? We may have a home but still feel homeless. We are love but may not feel it or express it. If we are loved by others we cannot feel it. The mind and body are prisoners. The sentence we have given our self is life. Many were freed from slavery long ago but continue to reject their freedom. The chains of slavery that held the body were replaced with prison walls that were constructed of our own beliefs. We can choose freedom but most choose to remain incarcerated within a mind created to sustain our ‘given’ identity.
There can be no freedom for the body without freedom of the mind. We cannot experience freedom until we forgive and accept our self. We do not choose freedom, we realise it. Each day of our perceived evolution was a day when our feelings guided us to transcend the limitations of prevailing beliefs. We cannot experience freedom as long as we exist as prisoners within our own mind. To experience freedom we must realise freedom. To transcend the limitations we placed upon our own perspective we must transcend the limitations of our perception. We exist within our own mind like a caged animal incarcerated within an enclosure constructed of our own beliefs.
When an animal is born in captivity it is limited only by the constraints of its captivity. Our perception creates a metaphorical prison. Prison walls can only be constructed ‘within our mind’ using material that is composed of the beliefs that we worship as truth. Once our beliefs have defined our experiences our mind cannot perceive anything else. In the moment we believe that a friend has become our enemy we programme our mind to perceive this ‘soul’ as our enemy. In our mind a belief can replace anything in existence with what we perceive it to be. Each time our perception detects an enemy our feelings are used by the mind to remind us of our belief.
Our vision and our feelings are incarcerated by our perception. Our perception is prejudiced and controlled by our beliefs which we worship as our truth. Our mind is therefore imprisoned by our perception. The walls of this prison are only as strong as our faith in our beliefs. We were each born in truth. We were born to parents who were our ‘teachers’. Our parent’s minds were incarcerated within the limitations of their perception. The environment that was perceived by our parents was not real within our mind until we believed it was real. When we believed in separate national and cultural boundaries they became real within our mind.
When our mind believed that what is represented by the word ‘sun’ was the sun what else could our mind see when our eyes were exposed to what is represented by that word? We are blind to truth whilst our mind is incarcerated within our beliefs. We have all been saved from this incarceration. We can choose to leave the prison cell or continue to exist within our own individual prison. A prisoner that has been incarcerated for a lifetime can become institutionalised. This is what happens to a mind that has been conditioned. It is this conditioning which prevents many from voluntarily leaving their own individual prison. If we grow accustomed to limited options then we may not recognise, contemplate or pursue alternatives. Better the devil we know!
In order for each one of us to escape our own personal limitations we must first realise that, ‘in truth’, they do not exist. Until we realise this the walls of our perception will continue to incarcerate us. So in order to accept our freedom and to be ‘saved’ from our own judgement we must realise that our prison does not exist. Our jailors are our own beliefs and they only have the power and authority that we give them. Like any phobia we create our existential prison with our belief in it. When man removes animals from their natural habitat and puts them in cages he can observe and study them.
Observing a caged animal will not reveal the true nature of that animal. Observing any creature in captivity will only reveal their behaviour within the unnatural environment of captivity. The behavioural expression of any animal that is caged is limited by its environment. To observe a caged animal will not reveal its true nature because this can only be expressed when it has transcended the limitations of its incarceration. Incarceration of our mind cannot change what we are in truth. In order to survive in any environment the inhabitants must create behaviours for that environment.
In our natural environment we did not need to remember how to behave in any situation. In our natural environment we needed no beliefs because we had natural instincts. Our instinctual survival was assured in our natural environment because our mind created it. When we are separated by the mind of an individual identity and incarcerated within a limited and unnatural environment we have to develop behaviours to adapt to what is unnatural. This is essential if we are to survive there. This is why we created beliefs. The identity sentences the child to a life in a prison that exists within their own mind. This incarceration is ‘existential’.
Our life is merely an existential paradigm that we believe is true. Its continued existence requires our continued belief in it. When those born in slavery had children those children were born into an unnatural environment. The minds of the descendants of slaves are still deprived of their freedom. As time went on slavery evolved to allow the slaves to become soldiers, doctors, sportsmen, factory workers, farmers and taxi drivers. This was achieved by conditioning each mind with universal perception. Universal perception is what education uses to define and constrain reality.
Freedom is now represented by ‘money’. We are educated to associate and to equate freedom and happiness with money. We are now encouraged to worship money so that it can be used to control our motives. Money has become God in the minds of those who worship it. Since slavery each child is still conditioned like a dog is conditioned to respond to a noise. All children are born to parents who are still incarcerated within a belief that they are their ‘given’ identity. If we believe we are our identity we create a mind for it and then it is the beliefs of that identity that will define and control our perception.
Our perspectives are still incarcerated within systemic belief systems. When Moses realised that he was not his given identity he also became aware that his freedom of thought was not incarcerated in the same way as the minds of his own people. Moses’s mind was not constrained by Jewish beliefs. He also knew from experience that some of what the Jews believed was ‘not absolute’. The mind of Moses was not incarcerated by the fear that controlled the thoughts and feelings of his people because the perception that controlled his thoughts and feelings was educated by different beliefs. Moses knew that if he could convince his people to believe in him their minds would transcend the existential and behavioural parameters that sustained their slavery.
The beliefs of Moses sustained existential constraints within his own mind but those constraints extended beyond the limits that enslaved his people’s minds. It was the ‘belief’ in the vision of Moses that freed his people from slavery. This is the power of faith. Moses realised that his people’s incarceration was sustained by the beliefs that his people worshipped. It was because those beliefs did not exist within the mind of Moses that they could not constrain him. It is belief systems that define and limit our creative expression. The limit of an individual’s unique creative expression is revealed by their unique application of the phrase ‘I can’t’. Our happiness is imprisoned by our own beliefs.
To sustain the perspective of the prisoner of our own identity our mind worships the beliefs of that identity. Before we can be incarcerated by the beliefs of our given identity we must first believe that our identity is who we are. It is our beliefs that enable each one of us to consistently behave in compliance with the various archetypal definitions that are used to define cultures and nationalities. A prisoner of the mind of an identity can exist as a pauper, a doctor, an engineer or a lawyer. The prisoner can even worship beliefs which create the behaviour of a criminal.
If the behaviour is illegal then the body may be incarcerated within a prison that is constructed of concrete, bricks and mortar. Like all free men convicts also exist within a prison that is ‘within’ their own mind. Whilst it is only criminals whose bodies are incarcerated within prisons built of concrete, bricks and mortar a free man is no less a prisoner than the criminal who is locked in a prison cell. It doesn’t matter what occupation we have because until we realise that our whole mind is enslaved by our beliefs we are not free and we are not whole.
In truth we are the life. We experience our lives through our feelings. Our feelings can only be incarcerated or inhibited by our judgemental beliefs. Love is the feeling. In truth, love is the only feeling. The feeling is the life that is now being expressed and experienced through our mortal body. In truth we are not our identity. Whilst we may no longer be slaves to the will of others we are the slaves of our own judgement. As long as we worship our own beliefs, we give them the power to act as our own personal jailors.
Other relevant articles –