Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.
(Source: aunahg, via noldarling)
The Tao Te Ching says, When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. When I let go of what I have, I receive what I need. Have you ever struggled to find work or love, only to find them after you have given up? This is the paradox of letting go. Let go, in order to achieve. Letting go is God’s law.
(via sokkasokkawisdom)
There is nothing that is permanent. There is nothing that stays. Everything goes. Which is an interesting fact about life. Everything goes. And when you under stand this, everything goes. There are no restrictions anymore. You can do anything you wish, say anything you wish, think anything you wish, because you’re not trying to hold onto anything anymore.
German Grandmother Lives Money-free and Has Never Been Happier
Most of us could go a day without spending any cash. But a week? How about sixteen years? That’s how long 69-year-old Heidemarie Schwermer, grandmother of three, has lived without money. Schwermer’s odyssey is the subject of a documentary film, Living Without Money, by director Line Halvorsen, which is screening internationally and is also available on DVD.
In 1996, Schwermer, a former schoolteacher and psychotherapist, decided to try to live without money for a year as an experiment. As a child she had experienced deep deprivation as a refugee fleeing from Russian forces during World War II. Her family had escaped what was then East Prussia and ended up in Germany “penniless.” She has always felt a sense of compassion and empathy for the homeless community in the city of Dortmund where she settled as an adult.
Two years before she began living completely without money, Schwermer had opened a swap shop where people could barter services and goods. It was such a success it gave her the confidence to take the leap of quitting her job, giving away all of her possessions except what could fit into a single suitcase and backpack, and moving out of her rental home. According to the Austrian Times, Schwermer says she “had become irritated by the greedy consumer society” she was witnessing.
She acknowledges that her friends were confused and her two grown daughters were initially shocked (she says they now accept her lifestyle). Schwermer lived nomadically, trading gardening, cleaning, and even therapy sessions for food and a place to sleep. She found it liberating: “Living without money gave me quality of life, inner wealth, and freedom.”
Schwermer has written three books about her experiences. She says the first, “The Star Money Experiment” was quite successful and she passed out all the money she earned to people on the street, “in five mark coins,” Germany’s currency before the euro. She waived her advances on the other books and asked the publisher to give her royalties to charity.
Director Halvorsen told Yahoo! Shine, “Heidemarie’s unique story made me want to create a film that challenges the viewer into questioning their own relationship to money and possessions.” She explains, “The film does not teach you how to live without money, but is a portrait of a woman who has made a very courageous and inspiring choice.”
(Source: intrepidwanderer)
Everybody can be freed from nightmares, from sufferings, from miseries, but of course not directly. The problem is that you cannot be freed from your suffering directly because you are clinging to it. It is not the suffering that is the problem, it is you who are clinging which is the problem. You don’t want to leave it. You brag about it, you talk about it. You even talk about how to get out of this misery. But one who has eyes can see that you are clinging to the misery as hard as possible. Just the presence of a master can help you to see whether the misery is clinging to you, or you are clinging to the misery. That is a very decisive point. Once you see that you are clinging to the misery, you are freed. Just the seeing of it, the very understanding, is freedom.
Freedom and love go together. Love is not a reaction. If I love you because you love me, that is mere trade, a thing to be bought in the market; it is not love. To love is not to ask anything in return, not even to feel that you are giving something- and it is only such love that can know freedom.
If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it’s yours. If it doesn’t, it never was. We do not possess anything in this world, least of all other people. We only imagine that we do. Our friends, our lovers, our spouses, even our children are not ours; they belong only to themselves. Possessive and controlling friendships and relationships can be as harmful as neglect.
Libertà va cercando, che sì cara, come sa chi per lei vita rifiuta.
He goes seeking liberty, which is so dear, as he knows who for it renounces life…Mankind is at its best when it is most free. This will be clear if we grasp the principle of liberty. We must recall the basic principle.
- Dante, Monarchy 1309
(via janitoroflunacy)
