How To Free Yourself Truly

I always ask the people who attend the Lifebuild Property Investment Network’s seminars on wealth creation through property investment that I present why they have come, and the answer is always the same: they want the freedom to be, do and have whatever they choose, which in today’s world requires money. They are there to learn how to create financial freedom for themselves using property as the means to that end, thinking that this will bring them the freedom they deeply yearn for.

While applying the system we teach in a disciplined way for a few years will certainly create financial freedom for them, what I try to help everyone understand is that freedom starts and ends in their own minds and hearts and is not determined by the size of their bank balance, monthly income or anything outside themselves. Their external circumstances are simply an extension or reflection of their inner state, which is the complete opposite of the way we have been taught to think in modern society. The answer to our self-created problems is always portrayed in the popular media and in many personal development books, movies and seminars as being ‘out there’ – in material wealth, achievements or that special someone, all or some of which will make everything perfect – rather than ‘in here’, in our own minds and hearts.

This explains why, as Chris Widener says, someone who makes very little can be happy and someone who makes a large amount of money can be extremely stressed over his or her financial situation. Stress is created by our resistance to any situation that we perceive is ‘not right’ or ‘bad’. These mind-created expectations of how your perfect world should be will never be fulfilled, no matter how much money you make, a situation the egoic mind that created them has set up because it thrives on the seemingly separate identity created in your mind when you fear. It is always our perception of situations that creates stress, and never the events themselves.

Understanding this clearly is the first step in creating the freedom everyone wants because it changes our attitude to everything, including money. When you can see that money, financial freedom and everything else ‘out there’ should merely follow naturally as a by-product of the fulfillment and the abundance you feel deep inside you rather than as the false goal or idol you think will make you happy and bring you the inner freedom you really yearn for, you have made one of the most important leaps forward in your journey back to an awareness of your oneness with your divine Source that is All That Is. You begin a journey of discovery into your inner world, looking within to find and forgive all the problems you have created in your own mind whenever there is a problem that appears to be ‘out there’ that would previously have caused you to try and take action on the perceived cause of the problem to ameliorate or remove it. Your locus of control shifts from being external, i.e. controlled by other people and events, to internal, which gives you the freedom to choose your attitude and how you respond to anything appropriately, no matter how ‘bad’ your ego would have you perceive it to be and want you to react with judgment to it.

How do you accomplish this profound shift and make sure you keep yourself there continuously? It comes down to awareness of your thoughts and emotions and the ability to let go of all thoughts and emotions that keep you from an awareness of your essential oneness with everything and everyone else. This can be done through a 10-step forgiveness process, which has been featured in a previous issue of Lifebuilder, but which is so important that it’s worth repeating again here:

1. Acknowledge the Thoughts
   Bring up the thoughts about the situation that are disturbing your inner peace.
2. Be Aware
   Be fully present and aware of these thoughts, remaining somewhat detached and not letting yourself react emotionally to the thoughts so you don’t sabotage this process. Breathing deeply through your nose and raising your eyes to look up will help you to keep a clear mind and remain aware.
3. Remember it’s an Illusion
   Remind yourself that the world and your changing perception of it is an illusion, a dream created by your egoic mind to enslave you that is not real and has never really happened. Only when you truly realise that nothing that has ever happened, is happening or will ever happen in the universe is real, and it’s all a dream dreamt by your mind, which is part of the One Mind that is dreaming the dream of the universe of time and space, can you truly forgive it.
4. It’s your Illusion or Projection
   Moreover, it’s all your projection, even if it appears to be outside and independent of you. Whatever someone appears to be doing to you, you are in fact doing to yourself out of your own unconscious guilt that you have projected out into the illusion and manifested in the form of the situation or person who appears to be causing you pain. Remind yourself again that whatever has appeared to happen in your dream is only part of a larger universal dream that has never really happened.
5. Have Compassion
   Be compassionate towards yourself and all others involved in the situation, knowing that you and they are doing the best they can in their current state of consciousness and all unconscious behaviour happens because people do not feel loved and is therefore a cry for help, so you and the other people involved in the situation need your love, not your judgment.
6. Feel the Emotion
   Feel the emotion the thoughts you brought up in step 1 evoke fully, experiencing the full pain and unpleasantness of the emotion briefly while remaining very present and not allowing the emotion to trigger more negative thoughts or emotions.
7. Surrender the Pain
   Decide that you do not want this painful, negative emotional feeling inside you to disturb your inner peace and cloud the awareness of your true Self ever again, and just let it go by letting go of all the effort it takes to hold on to the thought and emotion. Breathe in deeply and then exhale fully as you do this, visualising light flowing into you as you breathe in and all the dark energy of the thought / emotion leaving you as you exhale. 
8. Realise the Perfection
   See the divine perfection in the situation in that it has brought your own unconscious guilt that may have remained buried in your subconscious mind to the surface so that it can be released and you can be healed and become aware of the peace and love within you that are your true nature.
9. Be Grateful
   Thank the person or people involved and the entire situation for volunteering to be your teacher and for giving you the gift of bringing your own negative thoughts and emotions to your attention so you can release them and be healed.
10. Forgive
    Say to yourself that you have totally forgiven the people involved in the situation and yourself for all your thoughts, actions and words related to the situation, that it has been dissolved into the nothingness it always was and you and everyone else involved has been healed through your forgiveness.

This process is profoundly effective in releasing every negative thought and emotion that could ever plague you and disturb your inner peace, including those around money. Instead of seeing money and financial freedom as the answer to your problems and desperately pursuing these to find your happiness, you will find yourself living a life where your happiness becomes your primary purpose and all else becomes secondary. The secondary aspects then tend to take care of themselves as you live and act in this higher state of consciousness, and you will find that the elusive wealth and financial freedom you sought and never seemed to find before can manifest for you in ways you could never have imagined. Whatever the state of your finances, you will have found the Life beneath your temporary life situation and the tremendous wealth of joy, peace and love this brings you.

This is the truth spoken of by Jesus that will set you free from all the pain and suffering that identifying with the world, and yourself as a separate body and mind operating in the world, will inevitably and always bring you. When you have realised this, you become One with this essence and live in the timeless state of Oneness, which is your true and Immortal Reality.

This article was written by Jonathan Quail, a spiritual teacher, speaker and life coach. See www.successcoach.co.za