The shackles of consciousness
The sense of lack is accompanied by every desire. The desires to achieve, to acquire riches, to avoid death and destruction, or to transcend the material world are all bondage. The sense of lack requires something from what is, from experience and consciousness. That requirement makes living sticky, literally stuck to what’s arising. What’s arising is, however, impermanent. To require anything from impermanence produces the pleasure of finding and the pain of losing.
The ultimate desire for the measureless, the infinite, might burn away all other desires. But this desire, which seems transcendent and above all other desires, is still of the same movement of lack and bondage. The complete dispossession, the utter poverty of experience is the only freedom. Nothing can break the shackles of consciousness. Anything that seems to work or be the cure is only a hindrance, a happening within consciousness that prompts further binding activity of effort, seeking, and maintaining. This absolutely puts the conscious search for freedom and truth on its head. There is nothing that can be found to cure the illness of bondage. Every conscious activity, no matter how enlightening or transcendent, is not beyond consciousness. That very requirement of consciousness to be a certain way is the bondage that prevents freedom. Yet, to let go of that requirement is impossible. The letting go is still a conscious activity that looks for a result, that binds itself to an event within consciousness.
Therefore, freedom is outside of any experience. Freedom is not an experience. The experiencing of freedom also implies the fear of losing that experience, which already implies bondage. How, then, can one achieve freedom? The asking of this question is the beginning of bondage. This question implies that there is still a sense of lack, therefore consciousness is stuck to planting and harvesting experience. How can one eliminate the sense of lack? This question is only the same, looking for a result that will perish due to impermanence. The complete loss of everything seems to be frightening and undesirable, but that is the only freedom, and the only reality there is.
Let it be known that freedom is unknown, boundless, undesirable, and beyond.
Cover photo by Aman Upadhyay on Unsplash
