Spiritual Freedom is Discipline – part 1
In many spiritual circles there seems to be a special admiration for the free spirit. The people who can just go with the flow and wing it. The spontaneous ones. They are the people who are supposedly most plugged in to life. But the question is, do those people truly experience freedom?
I have lived a lot of my life trying to be that free spirit, and from my experience, it does not really give you true freedom. In fact, I was experiencing a lot of stress below the surface because there was nothing I could count on and I was often less prepared to get the most out of myself. If you think about it, true freedom or aliveness comes from the interplay of flow and structure. Water flows powerfully in pipes and music has both notes and space. We often mistake structure as something that will keep us rigid, but if used properly, it gives us a powerful way to create.
We are amazed by sports figures like Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky, who seem to come up with moves out of thin air. We love a great guitar solo or a great dance performance. The great performers who create on the fly and make things look easy have spent many hours practicing and are so grounded in structure that they can be completely present. Their total presence in the moment allows them to be spontaneous because all of their intelligences (body, mind, emotions, etc) can work together.
That is what gives us a spiritual experience as the knowledge arises from someplace bigger than ourselves.
You could say that the way to freedom is by training to become present. And to become present, we must be aware of structure and flow. In Tai-Chi, we practice our form (structure) and we practice flow ( how we are moving while doing the form). In pushing hands we practice the interplay of both.
So think about the times in your life you have felt the most freedom with the deepest sense of inner satisfaction, not just a fleeting good feeling. Has there been both structure and flow at those times?
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