Homepage AmonHotepRasta TimesRootsWomen
Rasta Speaks
TrinicenterHistorical ArchiveScienceRootsie Roots




Love and Freedom

We need to follow our freedom. Then we will understand everything. To allow others to be what they are, and do what they do. And know that we can say yes. And no. Even to the ones closest to us, the ones we esteem above all others. Freedom is also freeing others of our expectations. Releasing them from our ideas of who and what and how.
We can share our preferences with those we love, but if they from their freedom choose different, then it is up to us how we will respond.

It is amazing when one sees how unfree people behave. Particularly in the realms of earthly love. To realize that one has always behaved this way. They can encounter one who gives them all of the best of himself, Endless hours of love, encouragement, devotion, and the only string attached is that they give all their best as well. That they come as a free person too.

Then, in some particular he disappoints by not meeting their expectation in that moment. He does not behave as they think he should. Suddenly, everything about him is called into question: his motives, his character... it is disconcerting for an unfree person to see how a free one moves. He loves them, but he is not committed to their expectations of him. He does as he will. What they do not see is that they can too.

True freedom is not achieved without fearlessness.

Unfree people become afraid when this one they love does as he does, is as he is. They have much invested in his being a certain way. After all he has given still they are not content. The very simple reason for this is that they are not living free, and will not be content until they are.

For an unfree person, along with a swim in the sea of love comes a sand-bag around the neck, a sense of entitlement. When one is not free one must try to enslave others; it is unavoidable, no matter one's intention. This can be very subtle and difficult for one to discern in one's self. Unless you are a brute, it is easy for you not to see the demands you come into a relationship with. And if they are not met in all particulars, you suffer a great sense of disappointment. You can try to impose your vision of how he ought to be on him, but if he is free he will always reject it. He reminds you that he welcomes you into his heart and his life as you are, for truly he needs nothing in particular from you. He simply sees and values who you are. And because he needs nothing from you he is able to see you as you are in a way even you yourself cannot.

'I did not like it when you said that. When you did that.' To you, this is the ultimate indictment, because you expect him to do only things you like.

To choose freedom is to become in the ultimate sense unattached to what others do and others say.

He is free to do and say as he will. If you do not choose your freedom, the sign is that this makes you very angry! You want to say, "Don't you see? I have given you everything! I can't say no to you so you should never ask me to do things I don't like. I have given you my whole self, so you have to protect it now. I am Yours!"

A free man will always laugh at this point. And reject this completely. This is not how free people conceive of love. Unfree people go through life looking for that someone they can GIVE themselves to, looking at this not as the ultimate betrayal of themselves, but as the great gift no smart man can refuse. They do not see that what they are talking is mutual enslavement, and not love.

No man who truly loves us will ever buy into this devil's bargain.

When we are truly beginning to grasp the meaning of freedom, we see that in an absolute sense we do belong to our man, and he to us, and indeed that all of us here belong to each other. When we begin to truly love we see that we are all One Self! We can delight each other, share passion with each other, work together, play together: so many things we can do. The one thing we can not do is possess each other in the relative earthly sense.

My man is not put on this earth to be in every particular what I need him to be. What I can depend on with certainty is that he will always be himself, and that he does not require me in turn to be anything other than myself. In the context of true love and freedom, I will not lose his love by expressing my freedom anymore than he will lose mine by expressing his. That I may feel afraid at times to be forthright with him is an indicator that I have a way to go to be free, and really has nothing to do with him at all. He can also choose not to engage my criticisms of his behavior, because a free person knows that criticism of this kind springs from an unfree mind and heart which is disappointed in its expectations.

A free person is a person without hope, without 'should'. A free person simply is, in every moment, free. And a free person is the only kind of person who can be trusted, because he will never try to convince you to be or do anything which you can not, or choose not, to be or do.

One thing though. A free person has little tolerance for ones who are still in slavery and expect him to participate. In this world, freedom is regularly challenged by the ignorant, and always must be defended.



Rasta Speaks Reasonings

Homepage | RootsWomen | Rasta Times | Forums

Copyright © 2003-2007 RastaSpeaks.com
Rasta Speaks