Talk Series: Inner Freedom
By Sharon Grussendorff
There is a part of us that knows how to be free, effortless and unselfconsciously generous and life-giving. But for many of us this isn't our experience of our lives. We may have had tastes of this in the rapture of a beautiful sunset, the gentle soaking contentment of falling rain or the quiet immensity of the Drakensberg mountains. These experiences don't last long, and before we know it the familiar clouds of despair and inner conflict roll in and we are back in the constricting humdrum of our mundane and stressful lives. We long for a lasting freedom, imagining that we will find it one day when we can change what we don't like about our lives, when certain key conditions are met. But true freedom is unconditional, and is possible within the shape of our lives as they are. This is the theme that we will be exploring in this series of talks.
The outline of talks for this series is:
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Introduction: Introductory video to the series (The introduction is about 24 minutes in length and includes a guided practice).
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Talk 1: “Freedom with our minds" (This talk is about 36 minutes in length).
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Talk 2: "Freedom within the shape of our lives" (This talk is about 31 minutes in length).
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Talk 3: “Freedom within our emotional terrain" (This talk is about 24 minutes in length).
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Talk 4: "Inner freedom in action" (This talk is about 23 minutes in length).
INTRODUCTION
Length: 24 min
At the end of this introduction, spend some time reflecting on the following paraphrased extract from Isaiah 65.
Isaiah 65:17-25 paraphrase
“Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth,
and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create;
for behold, I create my dwelling place to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness.
I will rejoice in my dwelling place and be glad in my people;
no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.
Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days,
or an old person who does not live out their years....
They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat.
For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people;
my beloved ones will long enjoy the work of their hands.
They will not labor in vain, nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune;
for they will be a people blessed by the Lord, they and their descendants with them.
Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear.
The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox....
They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,” says the Lord.
This passage may sound hopelessly idealistic, but there is a profound sense of invitation to us in this - not only to awaken to this kingdom of heaven that is already among us, within us, but to become living embodiments of this new creation, to become co-creators of the new heaven and the new earth, as we open to the work of God's grace within us, and the renewal of the Spirit's blaze in our hearts.
Lyrics:
And I saw a new heaven
For the first heaven and the first earth
Are passed away
Illumina perpetua
Illumina perpetua
And there shall be no more death
Neither sorrow nor crying
For these are passed away
Illumina perpetua
For further reflection:
Below are some of the quotes from the introductory talk for you to reflect on further:
St. Theresa of Avila:
"This magnificent refuge is inside you.
Enter. Shatter the darkness that
shrouds the doorway...
Be bold. Be humble.
Put away the incense and forget
the incantations they taught you.
Ask no permission from the authorities.
Close your eyes and follow your breath
to the still place that leads to the
invisible path that takes you home."
John O’Donohue:
“There is a place in the soul that neither time nor space nor any created thing can touch. What that means is that your identity is not equivalent to your biography, and that there is a place in you where you have never been wounded, where there is still a sureness in you, where there's a seamlessness in you, and where there is a confidence and tranquillity in you. And I think the intention of prayer and spirituality and love is, now and again, to visit that inner kind of sanctuary.”
Matthew 13:44
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a person found it, they hid it again, and then in their joy went and sold all they had and bought that field”
The YouTube video below is a brief video inspired by Richard Rohr's recent daily meditations on the Dance of Freedom
Ending prayer:
Beloved our God,
This Pentecost Sunday, we pray that your Ruah Spirit will breathe fresh life into the hidden embers in our hearts, bringing a new blaze of freedom and vitality into our lives, that we may live into the possibility of this new heaven and new earth, awakening to the love that longs to pour through our hearts into this world of suffering and brokenness.
Amen.
Talk 1: “Freedom with our minds"
Length: 36 min
At the end of this talk, and during the next few weeks, you could try some of the following practices:
Centering Prayer
For those of you who are not familiar with the Centering Prayer practice, which is a Christian form of a meditation practice, this link will take you to a short video where Fr Thomas Keating briefly outlines the guidelines for Centering Prayer. You might like to use the following guided practice for centering prayer (20 minutes), or simply set a timer for yourself. I encourage you to try to practice this on a daily basis, as it is only when we regularly practice letting go and returning to presence and openness to God's presence that we begin to notice the effects and a more expansive and free sense of ourselves.
Meditation
For those of you who prefer a more general form of meditation, the following audio track is a 10-minute guided mindfulness awareness practice by Pema Chödrön:
Three-Minute Practice: Inner Spaciousness
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Whatever you are doing right now, pause and become aware of your physical, mental, and emotional state, including your breath. Don’t try to change anything. Just notice what is happening within you.
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Now notice the weight and feeling of your body. Begin to let yourself de-compress—by letting your muscles lighten, lengthen and open. Just think about and invite these changes; no pushing or fixing. Bring attention to your head/neck joint—way up high, almost between the ears—and think about allowing this joint to have a little more space. Imagine you had something heavy resting on your head that was just removed. Allow your spine to gently follow your head upwards.
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You may shift in your chair as you allow your bones to move and release away from one another in response to de-compressing. Invite a little more fullness into your back and sides, and under your arms, letting your ribs move with breath. As you observe your breath, breathe out with a long, soft exhale, so that your lungs are emptied of most of the air. Allow your breath to return easily, widening your whole torso. If you notice any areas in your body where your breathing seems limited or impeded, think about softening there, releasing whatever holding you may unconsciously be doing.
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Let your eyes take in your environment. Look around you for a few seconds and let something into your vision that you haven’t noticed before.
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As you return to what you were doing previously, notice your easy breathing and allow room for all that’s inside you—organs, fluids, veins, nerves, tendons, connective tissue. All this internal stuff is elastic and moveable. When you open into length and width, there’s enough room inside. Allow yourself a sensation of aliveness. Notice, has your mental state shifted? Allow this soft, enjoyable expansion to influence your whole self as you go about the rest of your day.
Recognising the top ten tunes
During this week, try to notice the neural grooves that your mind keeps falling into, what Jack Kornfield calls your “top ten tunes”. It is helpful to give them a name and keep a record of them. This helps to break the automatic and unconscious repetition of these mental patterns that keep you imprisoned.
Mindful Tea / Coffee Drinking
Make yourself a cup of tea or coffee, exactly the way you like it. Find somewhere to sit where you are relaxed and comfortable.
Drink your tea very slowly, and try to bring your attention to the small and the flavor of the tea. Drink each mouthful slowly, savoring it fully. Try not to think about the next mouthful, or the time when your tea is finished, or how you should drink all of your cups of tea this way. Just stay with this mouthful, and enjoy it.
Drink your tea slowly and reverently,
as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves
- slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future;
Live the actual moment.
Only this moment is life.
- Thich Nhat Hahn
Return to presence
The following audio track is a guided practice for returning to presence. You could use this to give you an idea of a short practice that you can do at various stages during the day to return to being present and open to the presence of God.
For further reflection:
If you would like to hear more about mindful awareness and freedom with your thoughts, this link will take you to a very helpful talk by Tara Brach, who is a clinical psychologist and well known teacher in mindful awareness practices.
Below are some of the quotes from the talk for you to reflect on further:
Rumi:
Be empty of worrying
Think of who created thought
Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence
Flow down and down
in always widening rings of being.
Richard Rohr:
"So how do we find inner freedom? We can begin by noticing that whenever we suffer pain, the mind is always quick to identify with the negative aspects of things and replay them over and over again, wounding us deeply. This pattern must be recognized early and definitively. Peace of mind is actually an oxymoron. When you’re in your mind, you’re hardly ever at peace, and when you’re at peace, you’re never only in your mind.”
Maggie Ross:
"Self-consciousness is full of noise, static, and chatter. It is subject to emotional storms; it cultivates self-dramatization. Its thoughts are blown around like leaves in a tempest. In spite of these confusions, it thinks it sees clearly; it thinks it is autonomous; it deludes itself that it is in touch with reality. In fact, everything it experiences is distorted, and what it takes for direct perception is interpretation at several removes." ... "Because of its inherent instability which it tries—often successfully—to hide, self-consciousness cannot see clearly."
Gerald May:
“…we are blinded by our attachments, we are so preoccupied –our attention is so kidnapped by our compulsions – that we tune out the background of God’s love. …We want to notice divine love, but we ignore it like we ignore our own breathing, in favor of the things that have captured us.”
Maggie Ross:
“as long as the energy and knowledge the self-conscious mind employs are primarily drawn from within itself, it tends to selfishness and grandiosity, grabbing everything it can to shore up the house of cards, the illusion of stability it creates which it calls “life.””
David Frennette:
“God’s presence in awareness is like the cinema screen upon which all of a film’s images are projected. At the movies, we normally are quite caught up in its drama and not aware of the screen. At the end of the movie, if we stay long enough, we will finally see the screen that was there all along, silently, secretly holding the film. Similarly, at the end of your own movie, your own life’s story, you will experience the reality that silently, secretly held you throughout your whole life: God’s presence. Why not realize this presence during life? Then, you can be aware of God at the same time as you live your ordinary life. You can be at one with the screen and the movie at the same time.”
Eckhart Tolle:
“Time isn’t precious at all, because it is an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time but the one point that is out of time: the Now. That is precious indeed. The more you are focused on time—past and future—the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is.”
Mark Williams:
“Being mindful means that we take in the present moment as it is rather than as we would like it to be.”
He describes mindfulness as "a direct, intuitive knowing of what you are doing while you are doing it…. Most of the time our attention is not where we intended it to be. Our attention is hijacked by our thoughts and emotions, by our concerns, by our worries for the future, and our regrets and memories of the past. Mindful awareness is about learning to pay attention, in the present moment, and without judgement. It's like training a muscle - training attention to be where you want it to be. This reduces our tendency to work on autopilot, allowing us to us choose how we respond and react."
Mooji: “As long as your loyalty to identity persists, you will fight against your total freedom.”
Michael Singer:
“There is nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind—you are the one who hears it. ... If you watch it objectively, you will come to see that much of what the voice says is meaningless. Most of the talking is just a waste of time and energy. The truth is that most of life will unfold in accordance with forces far outside your control, regardless of what your mind says about it. ... Eventually you will see that the real cause of problems is not life itself. It’s the commotion the mind makes about life that really causes problems.”
Richard Rohr describes our discovery of: "… the safety, the spaciousness, and the scary freedom to be who we are, all that we are, more than we are, and less than we are.”
Beatrice Bruteau:
“As it loses each of these [descriptive] selves, the praying consciousness finds itself more and more at liberty. The more you take off bondage, the freer you become; the more you lose restrictions, the vaster you become.”
Jack Kornfield:
“In meditation we can reconnect with our heart and discover an inner sense of spaciousness, unity, and compassion underneath all the conflicts of thought. The loving heart allows for the stories and ideas, the fantasies and fears of the mind to arise without believing in them, without having to follow them or having to fulfill them. When we listen with the heart, beneath all the busyness of thought, we discover a sweet, healing silence, an inherent peacefulness in each of us, a goodness of heart, strength and wholeness that is our birthright. … When we return to our original nature, we can acknowledge the ways of the mind and yet rest in peace and goodness. We discover the healing heart beyond the thinking mind.”
The following song is a beautiful expression of the freedom and radiance of our inner beings, of who we already are as the children of God:
Lyrics:
Shower of Grace
River of Love
Ocean of Peace
Timeless Truth
Dreaming into being
This joyous world
The play of the Divine
All of this we are
All this we are
All this we are
Flower of Love
Fragrance of Joy
Open sky of Wisdom
Whose light dispels
Clouds of despair
Now Maya's (the deceiver’s) bewitching power
No more shall bind us
We are free
We are free
Ending prayer:
Beloved our God,
May our inherent freedom, joy, heart-warmth, childlike delight and simplicity
not be smothered by our mind-attacks, dutiousness, or the heavy weight we imagine our lives to be.
May we know ourselves to be your Beloved, and may this be an ever surer awareness that awakens us to the immensity and beauty of our True Nature -
Christ in us, the hope of glory.
Amen.
Talk 2: “Freedom within the shape of our lives"
Opening Guided Quietening Prayer
I invite you to begin this session with a guided time of quietening, followed by an opening prayer.
Music: Safe in your arms
Listen to the following song which beautifully expresses our resting place in the Everlasting Arms.
Lyrics:
The Lord is my shepherd
He leads me on
Beside the still waters
He restores my soul
Though I walk through the valleys,
I will not fear
I know You are with me,
I feel You here
I am safe in Your arms
in Your arms
The Lord is my shepherd
Through darkest night
Though evil surrounds me
You defend my life
Goodness and mercy for all my days
In the house of my God my heart will stay
I am safe in Your arms,
in Your arms
Length: 31 min
For further reflection:
Below are some of the quotes from the talk for you to reflect on further:
Mirabai Starr:
"It is by showing up for the full encounter with reality that we discover our hidden wholeness, which was, of course, present all along."
Cynthia Bourgeault:
“The word ‘surrender’ itself means to ‘hand oneself over’ or ‘entrust oneself’. It is not about outer capitulation but about inner opening. It is always voluntary, and rather than an act of weakness, it is always an act of strength … because it opens the heart more directly to the more subtle realms of spiritual Wisdom and energy.” …. “When the attitude of prompt surrender has become permanently engrained in a person while still in bodily life, that person becomes a powerful servant of humanity whose very being radiates blessing and spiritual strength.”
Joyce Rupp:
“We find ourselves grumbling when life does not give us all we want or when the price of transformation costs us dearly. Failures, defeats and disillusionments temporarily wipe out our hope of reaching the promised land of our true self until we realise these very experiences are steppingstones to the wisdom we need.”
Francis Bennett:
“This is the transforming miracle to which the symbol of the cross of Jesus points—that within every experience that, on the surface, seems to be clearly evil, bad or at the very least undesirable, there is a hidden deeper good. That deeper good can reveal itself both interiorly or exteriorly when there is true self-surrender and acceptance of whatever is. When, through self-surrender, you are in a nonreactive relationship to whatever arrives in the present moment, you transcend the labels of good and bad and you come to the realization that “everything works together for good to those who love God”.”...
“This is more than a superficial, passive milk-and-water acceptance of fate—it is a profoundly dynamic allowing, a deep acceptance. Ultimately, in loving what is, we are loving God himself, we are loving our own true Self.”
The following song beautifully expresses how everything that happens to us is always an expression of love:
Ending blessing:
May life surprise you today.
May a sense of grace come out of nowhere
in the middle of your daily tasks.
May a sense of peace find you in the unlikeliest of places.
May a sense of courage and renewal find you.
May God’s love surround you.
And may a gentleness, a returning quietness,
and a restoring stillness be with you,
now and always.
A restorative wholeness is yours to claim and embrace.
And may faith, hope, and love be your constant companions.
God bless your day.
Amen.
From the book Seeds of Devotion: Weekly Contemplations on Faith.
Talk 3: “Freedom within our emotional terrain"
Length: 24 min
The following song is a beautiful prayer of surrender and abandonment:
Lyrics:
In your heart, in your arms
I die in you
In this dream called life, I wake up in you
In love, in God, in all there is,
I pray to you, and find you here.
Come to life inside my heart,
Come to life inside my heart.
At the end of this talk, and during the next few weeks, you could try some of the following practices:
The Welcoming Prayer
Try this practice when you find yourself caught up in some emotional pattern, especially a difficult one.
Gently focus on your breathing for a while, and allow yourself to become still.
Become aware of what is happening in your emotions and sink in to the felt sensation of these in your body.
Welcome, welcome, welcome.
I welcome everything that comes to me in this moment because I know it is for my healing.
I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions, persons, situations and conditions.
I let go of my desire for security.
I let go of my desire for approval.
I let go of my desire for control.
I let go of my desire to change any situation, condition, person, or myself.
I open to the love and presence of God and the healing action and grace within.
Amen
Working with your emotions
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In the next few days or weeks, notice when something emotional happens inside of you, such as a clench of anxiety, irritability or anger, or a despairing / down feeling.
-
Start with noticing the thought stream or story-line that has been fuelling the emotion, and try to shift your attention away from that to the deeper level of your actual felt experience.
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Try to name the emotion, and tell it that you welcome it, no matter how hard it feels.
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Now even let go of the name of it, and try to locate where in your body you are feeling it. Bring your curiosity to this feeling, and really experience the sensations of it in your body.
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Bring a compassionate, gentle holding awareness to this feeling, cradling it and soothing it, while not trying to push it away or resists it in any way.
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As you do this allow yourself to be enfolded in the tender embrace of God, and let this tenderness and healing love flow through you.
Questions for reflection after the exercise:
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Was I able to shift from the thought stream?
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Is it one of my typical thought streams? Can I give it a name or description, so that I can recognise it in future?
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What happened to my experience of the emotion when I named it?
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What happened to my experience of the emotion when I felt it in my body?
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While I was cradling it and soothing it, what was my experience of myself, the one who was doing the holding?
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What was my experience of God during this process?
The RAIN of self-compassion
Tara Brach leads a very helpful guided practice which she calls the RAIN of self-compassion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm1t5FyK5Ek
Here the acronym RAIN stands for:
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Recognise
-
Allow
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Investigate
-
Nurture
RAIN in times of fear
The following is a guided practice led by Tara Brach where the RAIN practice is applied to the specific experience of fear:
For further reflection:
Below are some of the quotes from the talk and some additional quotes for you to reflect on further:
Pema Chödrön:
“You could ask, does it really matter, my state of mind? Does it really matter how I work with my emotions? And my answer to that is if the wings of a butterfly fluttering in the Amazon affects the weather in Europe, then surely your state of mind has a ripple effect out into the world. And I think it goes right around the globe—and that’s hard to prove, but that’s my theory, and I'm sticking with it.”
Edith Stein:
“In the knowledge that being holds me, I rest securely. This security, however, is not the self-assurance of one who under her own power stands on firm ground, but rather the sweet and blissful security of a child that is lifted up and carried by a strong arm…In my own being, then, I encounter another kind of being that is not mine but that is the support and ground of my own unsupported and groundless being.”
Francis Bennet:
“Sometimes it takes a severe situation to teach you that true peace, the peace that passes all understanding, is not based at all on any condition being any certain way whatsoever. You learn that the truest peace and happiness is completely unconditional just as true love is unconditional.”
Eckhart Tolle:
“Forgive yourself for not being at peace. The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace. Anything you accept fully will get you there, will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender.”
Rainer Maria Rilke:
"How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all cultures – the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses. Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.
So you mustn't be frightened if a sadness rises before you larger than any you have ever seen; if an anxiety, like light and cloud-shadows, moves over your hands and over everything that you do. You must realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you; it holds you in its hands and will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, or any depression? After all, you don't know what work these conditions are doing inside you."
Matt Licata:
"Healing is not a destination, it is your willingness to love all of yourself, to take all of life - the joy and the sorrow of it - into your vast heart."
Rainer Maria Rilke:
“How I long to be held in the great hands of your Heart;
Oh, let them take me now.
Into your hands I place these fragments, my life,
and You, God, spend them however you want.”
Ruth Burrows:
“Surrender and abandonment are like a deep, inviting, frightening ocean into which we are drawn. We make excursions into it to test it, to see whether it's safe, to enjoy the sensation of it. But, for all kinds of reasons, we always go back to dry land, to solid ground, to where we are safe. But the ocean beckons us out anew and we risk again being afloat in something bigger than ourselves. And we keep doing that, wading in and then going back to safety, until one day, when we are ready, we just let the waters carry us away.”
Ending prayer (from Psalm 60):
O Beloved, why do I believe that
I can separate myself
from You,
as an alien in a foreign land?
Oh, that I might return to
your Heart.
You know how I tremble with fear;
help me to break down the walls,
to let go of illusions, so that
I stand tall.
You have allowed me to suffer hard things;
You have not prevented my downfall.
You, who are Love, gave me leeway to choose,
to wander far from home.
O my Beloved, be gracious unto me,
welcome me back into new life,
hear my prayer!
The Comforter came to me:
"With joy are you ever at home
in my Heart,
as I have always lived in yours.
You are mine; I belong to you;
the broken are blessed with
humility,
the wayward, who turn to walk
with Love.
Let your mind be guided by truth,
your heart informed by Mercy;
then will you know peace and joy."
Who will come to the heart of Love?
Who will open their hearts and
know the Beloved?
Who dares to face their fears, to
break down the prison walls,
to walk with Love?
O grant us help to answer the call,
strengthen us with pure resolve!
With the Beloved we shall triumph;
with Love we shall be free!
~from Psalms for Praying by Nan C. Merrill
Talk 4: “Inner freedom in action"
Length: 23 min
The following is a beautiful version of the Prayer of St Francis:
At the end of this talk, and during the next few weeks, you could try some of the following practices:
-
When you go into some interaction with another person, set an intention to let your heart lead rather than your usual head level of responding. Try to listen without forming a judgment or opinion, but with a sense of keeping your heart open and unboundaried. Can you notice any difference with your usual way of interacting with others? Being with others in this way can start to attune us to the stirrings of the heart of God in and through us.
-
When you see another person, even a total stranger, imagine lifting a veil from your heart, and see them from the perspective of an open heart. Again notice if there is any difference with your usual way of perceiving others.
-
Take every opportunity you can to actively practise kindness, generosity and patience towards others. As you do this, notice any embellishment that your mind adds, try to let this go, and return to the simple gesture of love in action, expecting nothing in return.
-
Work regularly with a heart opening prayer practice - I have copied an example that we have done in previous weeks, but you could adapt this in a way that feels natural for you.
For further reflection:
Below are some of the quotes from the talk for you to reflect on further:
John O’Donohue:
“There is a place in the soul that neither time nor space nor any created thing can touch. What that means is that your identity is not equivalent to your biography, and that there is a place in you where you have never been wounded, where there is still a sureness in you, where there's a seamlessness in you, and where there is a confidence and tranquillity in you. And I think the intention of prayer and spirituality and love is, now and again, to visit that inner kind of sanctuary.”
Pema Chodron:
"It’s daring not to shut anyone out of our hearts, not to make anyone an enemy."
1 John 4:7-8
"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love."
1 Corinthians 13:4-10
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears."
Thomas Merton:
“…the separate entity that is you apparently disappears, and nothing seems to be left but a pure freedom indistinguishable from infinite freedom; love identified with love - not two loves, one waiting or the other, striving for the other, seeking for the other, but love loving in freedom.”
The following song is a beautiful prayer which I pray for each of you who have followed this series of talks:
Lyrics:
May you discover the life
Which is free of sorrow
May your mind be illumined
In the Truth
May you conquer the fear of death
May you never be ashamed
Of the presence of the Holy Spirit
Nor feel the need to defend yourself
In any personal way
May your trust be great
Your heart full of love
And may you carry the perfume
Of the Lord's presence
Wherever you go
This is the prayer
That I make for you
In the name of
The Holy Spirit of God
So be it
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