1) freedom that corresponds with the size of your bank account, the larger your bank account the more freedom u may experience (temporary/profane/delusional freedom)

2) liberating yourself from dependencies and becoming self-sufficient, subsisting independently. living a solitary existence by separating yourself from the parasites that make up the rest of humankind who have no concept of freedom while engaging in a process of freeing oneself from wants, needs and desires (eternal)

Well, actually, it isn't, although it is so nice ...

I am so in favour of freedom. If Deception is right and those are the only ways that freedom is presenting itself to us at the moment, then we must all think of ways to improve this situation.

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Originally posted by ronb:
Isn't freedom just another word for "nothing left to lose"?

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"nothing aint worth nothing but it's free"

♪ Nah nah nah ♪ nah nah nah nah nah ♪ .. ♪ nah nah nah nah nah ♪ nah nah nah nah me and ♪ Bobby McGee ♪. . .

[ 16 June 2003: Message edited by: No Yards ]

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rediscovering your freedom is essentially the realization of your untainted pristine self

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Great idea, though hardly a new one.
In 1968 and thenabouts, people went off in droves, to Find Themselves. Mostly, they turned into ordinary adults, with jobs, kids, mortgages, worries - and very little freedom. I guess that indicates which are the strongest natural drives.
Some people manage to have normal lives, with family, friends and meaningful work, while keeping their economic baggage relatively light.

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Originally posted by Deception:
3 kinds of freedom

1) freedom that corresponds with the size of your bank account, the larger your bank account the more freedom u may experience (temporary/profane/delusional freedom)

2) liberating yourself from dependencies and becoming self-sufficient, subsisting independently. living a solitary existence by separating yourself from the parasites that make up the rest of humankind who have no concept of freedom while engaging in a process of freeing oneself from wants, needs and desires (eternal)

3) death (eternal)
*keep your fingers crossed on this one because it might be the only freedom many of us will ever know*

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Originally posted by Courage:

Number two contains a false dichotomy - one needn't be solitary to engage in an inner work. To be 'in the world, but not of it', is the old beckoning call of many 'Ways'... In fact, from this point of view, you can even have number one, as long as you are sufficiently rooted in number two. The problem with number one conceivably arises from the issue of identification with commodities and commodity fetishism (vanity, pride, etc.) without any mind to their transcience. To USE them as tools in their own sphere without being identified, beholden, addicted to them is no mean feat, but certainly the essential 'freedom of conscience' or what-have-you is still there, non?

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Originally posted by Deception:

i didn't insinuate that u had to lead a solitary existence to free yourself from wants, needs and desires. i was merely suggesting that cultivating a solitary existence may encourage the process of one freeing oneself from the cycle of conspicuous consumption. adopting a solitary existence to me entails renouncing all material things and living like an ascetic. i guess using your interpretation of solitary existence u could practice #1 and the first part of #2 simultaneously. however, i really don’t know where u get the dichotomy from, i really don’t see the tension being a solitary existence and renouncement.

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Sorry for the misunderreading, the structure of your sentence made me read the ideas as if they were joined. I agree that a certain 'renunciation' may be necessary, but as a blanket doctrine it isn't necessary. Some people may require to actually start 'buying more' or 'participating more' in certain kinds of activities. The principle for this is the following: in order to really 'see' one's self; in order to be able to watch one's self as they really are in all their addictions, one must consciously act differently in a way that would make them uncomfortable. So, a person who already lives a meagre existence, and is 'afraid to consume' - you know, a spendthrift - may actually need to try experiments where they spend much more, even to the point of putting themselves in financial risk and then watch the terrible push and pull inside of them as they try to carry out the order. The energy produced can give the oppurtunity to 'see' one's self, so that you can know what it is that you are trying to get free of.

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Originally posted by Courage:

Otherwise, it is very easy to simply fall into an equal identification/addiction to the 'ascetic self', the controlling personality who thinks they have it all figured out...

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Originally posted by Deception:
from reading some of the replies it seems apparent that death is the only freedom many of u will ever know

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"There is the overcoming of suffering." --- The Buddha

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Originally posted by Deception:

i think u have misconstrued a few things, the ascetic lives the reclusive life of quiet contemplation. the ascetic doesn’t retain a moral condescension believing he has it "figured out"; he just removes himself from the mass distractions that daily capital accumulating existence presents us with.

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Perhaps I've misconstrued some things. However, there are any number of self-proclaimed ascetics out there who claim much moral high ground for themselves. Look at the Christian monastic tradition and how it deterioriated into formalism for one example.

What I've tried to accomplish is to shift the discussion out of the abstract and into the particular problems of walking the 'Way' of any
Search: in other words, I'm trying not to talk about 'THE ascetic' but about being 'an ascetic'.
Simply walking away from 'the world' and contemplating is not necessarily going to bring one any level of spiritual freedom. There are many pitfalls along the way, and one's self-centered ego finds many ways to recast and reshape itself. It is somewhat of a chameleon, which is why we very rarely can glimpse it in all its falsity - because often where we are analysing 'it' from is just another of our myriad I's running around inside. It is easy to identify with the new 'ascetic' personality as something 'new' when it is simply a recasting of the multifarious ego in another guise.

Do you know the allegory in Plato about sailing a ship - where all the hands try to grab the wheel at once and steer the ship in their own direction?This is not a bad image of our inner state. And, as careful contemplation and meditation may demonstrate to you, no amount of 'quiet renunciation of capital' will necessarily calm the raging waters underneath.

More than just material renunciation, most 'ascetic' ways teach that there must be an inner renunciation, not just of desires for goods and materiality, but of personalities, thoughts, negative emotions, and more which we cling to even more firmly than any particular 'capital'. In fact, we find that below the attachment to 'things' and 'wealth' there is a much bigger monster waiting for us, and that is our undisciplined and largely negative emotional attachment to a unified self - you know, that person we call 'I' and present with all kinds of fantastic qualities (unity, choice, the ability to 'do') which, upon closer examination, 'I' hardly have at all due to the din of conflicting voices speaking from different parts of my mind, emotions, and body. It is a common error, and I speak from experience - to take certain of these I's - one's that please us and make us feel like we have achieved 'asceticism' and canonise them as my 'better self'. Its a hard lesson.