Self-Inquiry with John Duncan, September 11, 2025

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The ten participants shared a period of silence to begin the dialogue. A question was asked regarding the silence: Was it peaceful or was it somewhat oppressive? Oppressive in the sense of self-conscious chatter dominating the quiet period. The group felt that just going into the silence instead of moving on to the reading portion was quite relevant and that the silence deserves attention on point. 

The reading was from the Book of Life (October 11 entry) and distinguished between freedom from something and freedom as freedom itself. The group was very aware that freedom from something involves a subject/object relationship ie, me and something I want to be free of. Usually some emotional state of suffering is detected and we want the opposite of that or the disappearance of that. This led the group to question the very nature of the subject and its seeming ability to enter into a relationship with these emotional/psychological states. 

It was offered that the energy inside of us is not human, yes, not human but rather energy inside a body, a container and the container is designed to provide awareness of that energy in any state that the consciousness is in, …. Except when there is an observer, a me that is a pattern of the past, something we were not born with in this body, and which co-opts that energy and creates a reality of experience based on its memory, its knowledge: psychological time. 

Lastly, freedom was observed as freedom, without definition, because definition would pattern the freedom, it would put it in the realm of the known, and then freedom is no longer free, it is limited to its definition. This freedom, being already free, is not attained, if it was it would be something we knew, pursued and achieved. Freedom is here now, effortless as it pertains to achieving it, and it does not come and go based on what is inside consciousness or what the experience is except for when there is the duality of a me and my thoughts which we mentioned earlier. So freedom is free, it is the unchanging force, the natural state.  Experiences, including direct experiences, come and go, and if we depend on them then we are bound by desire. If we understand that freedom is the totality, then freedom and its beauty, its effortlessness, and wisdom are undisturbed and eternal.

 

  • John Duncan