So what is slavery?

To expand the idea of what slavery is to include both the world and internal states, I would redefine it as the following:

Slavery is the state of living with no perceivable choices.

You can see how this relates to the common definition of being bound in servitude to another. In such a state, there is no perceivable choice to disobey; punishment is too great and death can be meted out on a whim.

I like looking at slavery in terms of choice, because it shows how much of how we live our lives is enmeshed in a world view without it:

• Much of the employment in the world is where pay is low, there is little respect, and there is little option for quitting because of economic consequences. This is known as “wage slavery”.
• In society, depending on your social circle, there are certain assumptions that are not questioned without severe consequence. Noam Chomsky wrote about this occurring in the media. We’re trained to follow thought patterns by rote, automatically and without conscious choice. This could be known as “thought slavery”.
• In most relationships, each partner soon learns roles to play, topics to avoid, habitual behavior, and ways to avoid triggering pain in the other in order to keep the relationship stable. This is done without awareness or conscious choice, so could be called “relationship slavery”. It does not matter who looks like they have the upper hand in the relationship – if there is no perceived choice, it is still slavery.
• Internally, when we react to fears, we usually feel there are no choices. I may have a fear of missing out on life and losing control of the time in my life, and so I think I have to jump at things in order to both not miss out and not feel the fear. It is done automatically, without conscious choice. This is what fear does. This could be called “slavery of fear”.

Freedom

In the last post on enlightenment, I described enlightenment as simply living in the perception of Who You Are. You could also look at enlightenment as freedom, a state of being conscious of every little choice you have in every moment.

Life is choice. We are here to learn to choose with awareness. This is power.

Even in the self-improvement circles, we’re encourage to think we have problems, and thus cultivate the need to improve ourselves. It’s a need, not a desire. So if we look anew at the word of “need”, it implies there is no choice. The desire for balance turns into another form of slavery.

The term “workshop junkies” can apply to this. When you see something lacking in yourself, perhaps from feeling drained or from believing hype, you do not see a choice – you try to fill the lack. This is a form of addiction – which again is a perception of lack of choice, and therefore slavery.

The power of choice

Meditation – simply being in every moment fresh, aware and expansive – is related the full perception all the choices available. If I am watching my breath and my mind and someone insults me, I can breathe deeply and consciously choose my reaction. It could be a firm response. It could be a peaceful turning of the other cheek. It could be a humorous and gentle response. But if I am fully aware of all my choices, there is a great source of freedom and power available, knowing that whatever the other person does, they can not disconnect me from my inner foundation. If on the other hand, I go into reactivity, it is because I do not see a choice. I am attacked, therefore I must defend myself, even if doing so hurts me in the long run. This is being a slave to reactivity and habits.

If you think about what being loving to another is, choice is present during all manifestations of the expression of love. Often the best gifts are those that open doors and create more awareness of choices that have been overlooked. For instance, if you’re in a funk and depressed, being shown different perceptions, new experiences, new emotions, or new thoughts can offer much more awareness of the choices you’re making that contribute to your depression. Someone trying to cheer you up blinding without this can make you more depressed by contributing to that state of lack. Another possible gift might be to offer the choice of non-resistance – that one doesn’t have to fight depression as there are gifts inside it. This is a valid choice, and one with freedom inside it. But without the element of choice present, there is slavery, and where there is slavery there is no Love.

Simply looking at everything as choice – no matter how demanding it seems – brings us back to ourselves. It is fairly easy to think of the world as being a dark threatening place filled with cold demands, which is the world of slavery – in this world we have no choice but to react. Bringing choice into it shows how responsive the world can be to our creative powers.

The world

Now, Martin Luther King didn’t just speak about race equality. In fact, it’s rarely mentioned in standard history books that for the latter years of his life, he spoke more often against the economic system that creates a form of slavery, as well as the military industrial complex. This was a man who moved from working against one form of slavery to seeing all beings as brothers and working against slavery in all its forms. He spoke equally of the power of love to bring light into the world.

I’m involved in activism myself, and I work for a world where people have all the choices they desire. There’s no reason with all our advances that we need to enforce slavery in any form whatsoever. We don’t need it economically, in parenthood, in relationships, or internally. Giving others freedom brings us all joy because of the vast interconnection we’re a part of. Giving it to ourselves creates ripples that show a better way of living to all the world.

When we inhabit the full power of the choices we have in every instant – which is to say our powerful and creative nature – that is when we learn that our identity is nothing Love. The most creative, powerful force in existence.

Blog roll! I quite enjoyed the Viriditas Spiritual Center blog: she’s an ex-nun working in a homeless shelter, demonstrating her life in a very loving, selfish fashion. It’s amazing how service teaches us not to be in slavery.

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This isn’t particular to sexual abuse; it is quite common to anyone sensitive and emotionally open, dealing with pain in any way. Emotions are emotions. They don’t make sense. If they did, they would be thoughts, not emotions. The heart has reasons the mind knows not of, and never will. Our need to make sense greatly depends on how allowing we are of the emotion. A grand sense of joy flittering like butterflies across our hearts when we see, for example, kittens playing with string for the first time, won’t require much sense. And yet, when it comes to ‘negative emotions’, such as pain, fear, anger, self-hatred, or a mix of them that could be called inner conflict, we often simply don’t allow them to come forward as naturally. We want reasons, explanations, labels, and hopefully a way to protect ourselves against them appearing again. This is the illusion of control reasons give us.

To me, how this manifested was a desire to expunge all the emotions. They obviously caused problems, so it made sense to want to get rid of them. I thought of them as a water well containing nothing but poison stored there from all the past pains in my life. So I tried to ‘get it out’ as much as possible, whether it be via counseling, venting, punching pillows, or even meditation and trying to transform myself in that manner. Eventually, things would be ‘clear’ and I would be more ‘balanced’. Of course, things didn’t work that way, because implicit in all these actions was a fundamental lack of love for those emotions â???? which creates even more negative emotions to vent. The perception that there was something wrong with me created more problems. The never-ending process continued. Thinking there was something wrong with me because I had pain simply created more pain.

A different way of looking at them instead is what was channeled to me recently.

At this time, perhaps you would like to think of your emotions, instead of something you need to get out and express, think of them as art, as a creation that you are constantly perfecting. They’re not finished yet, but you see their beauty in whatever state of creation they are in. You don’t need to share it even, because they are so beautiful. Bring this creation, all the beautiful colors that you know, and all the love you have inside you, for you love this creation. It is the most beautiful creation you have ever made, and you derive great satisfaction from the process of creating it. Take your time. Use visuals if that helps. Look around you. Find elements of what you see that perhaps might be included in this creation of yours. You will know it when you see it – anything that needs to be included. Have fun with this process, for it is yours. It is the first thing that’s truly belonged to you.

This brought up much tears in me, because it went to the heart of who I am: an expressive person with an intense of love of beauty and art. And if I do not see myself as a work of art, then of course there will be a lack of love for Self. Corresponding to this was indeed a visual image of moving and surreal color, much like the movie ‘What Dreams May Come.’ We see art and beauty in Van Gogh, Dali, or other artists who express darkness or ‘craziness’. After all, it’s on the page and there are skills involved. However, there is an implicit dismissal of the skill involved in simply allowing emotions to come to fruition and expressiveness in this society. There is tremendous skill in this. We see this in movies, on the stage, of an actor being very true with emotions, but it is easy to discount this in ourselves. This is not the same as being able to pick the right words and expression of them. It lies simply in being those emotions, in allowing them fully.

As I reach new levels of allowing of my emotions, I’m encountering vastly new perceptions of my life and my past, and even hidden memories. Finally remembering who crawled into my bed at night, the helplessness, shame, impotent kicking, and a split of consciousness that persisted into adulthood. There are, of course, many emotions connected to this journey, much like any prisoner might feel after coming into sunlight after thinking a cell block was home for many years. There is frustration, there is helplessness, and yes, there is self-hatred. I’m finding this isn’t a contradiction in any way to loving myself. It has its own beauty; a disconnected aspect of myself that’s screaming from years of being walled away. There is beauty in goth designs, and there is intense beauty in these emotions as well. They are a valid journey home.

Love, especially for ourselves, isn’t a thing or something to gain, or anything to ingrain into our minds through writing a million affirmations or reading thousands of blogs. It’s a perception – an awareness. Shifting how we look at something, especially ourselves, creates transformations. In fact, every transformation is precisely a change in perception. There is nothing but this, because there is perfection in everything, including intense pain. In the case of emotions, my experiences have created a subtle yet powerful difference in my experience in them. There is wonder in these emotions, simply as an expression of what is. The simply perception of beauty in utter vividness is, in the present moment, more loving than a thousand affirmations.