Liberation

“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds” (Bob Marley)

From time to time, I catch myself meditating on this phrase/song/poem.
In another past, I used to enchant myself simply by existing.
I confess — it was right after I redeemed myself that I became mortal.

I remember the moment exactly.
Like a hammer strike.
Or a smithy.
But not the one that cuts diamonds…
The one that transforms diamonds back into rocks.

What does it feel like to free yourself from yourself?

What is that feeling — the one that is yours, that no one gave you —
of getting rid of the “ties of permission” woven from external validation?

What makes you want to settle for the comfort of mediocrity in daily life?

I don’t often reach the answers to these questions.
They are, in fact, the pat mantra of freedom.

And it doesn’t break, because it was never rigid.
It’s more like pulling mucus from deep in your chest:
you release it slowly, with patience, curiosity, and time.

You begin to decrystallize.

It feels like an arm or leg coming back from numbness.
At first, you think nothing’s happening.
Then — a wild, untouchable agony.
And then — the relief.
Movement, free again.

But constraint is important.
Liberation without consciousness becomes inconsequential.
And from inconsequence, no value arises —
except the recognition of what should have been constrained.

Some say “you get what you pay for.”
(In Portuguese, it hits deeper: o barato que sai caro.)

It brings me to another depth:
Liberation lies behind the action.
It lives in observing what’s tense, and what’s loose.

To be in alignment is to walk the middle path:
to observe both tension and relaxation.

Your focus is simply in being.
Being in the now,
as rest and as action.

Liberation is the movement —
the flow —
of observing and being observed
with the same cross-eyed grace
of a Tibetan monk
who sees everything and nothing
at the same time.