Feel offended by other people's 'non-sociable' personality or practice of silence?

Walk alone, live alone, eat alone and meditate alone. Cut off all connections ruthlessly. Hide yourself away. Do not build ashram. Do not hoard disciples. Do not mix. Do not associate. - Swami Sivananda (excerpts from Concentration and Meditation)

Many friendly sociable good people who are interested in yoga and meditation practice, but somehow, they don't really understand the core teachings and practice of yoga and meditation of silencing the mind, would feel very intimidated or offended by the teachings and practice of turning the mind inwards for self-introspection and silencing the mind, through the practice of seclusion and solitude (cutting off from all social interactions and connections), where the sociable friendly good people would feel very uncomfortable and intimidated being with those who do not engage in social interactive activity and conversation. They criticize people who observe silence, seclusion and solitude as being 'unfriendly', as their minds are being conditioned by certain ideas and standards to categorize people into 'friendly people' or 'unfriendly people' in the social world based on what they think is friendliness and unfriendliness.

Those who don't talk much, or don't engage in a social interactive conversation with other people, or don't invade or interfere with other people's way of life, thinking and behavior, who don't comment or acknowledge about other people (whether it's something good or bad), are being recognized as 'unfriendly' or 'uncaring' in the sociable society.

"People in a room do not talk to each other is so wrong." This is the thinking and belief of the passionate worldly minded people.

People attending a 'silent meditation retreat/course' complain about people in the retreat/course are so unfriendly because they don't talk or aren't interactive with one another?!

But what kind of bad actions have these people who are being perceived by friendly sociable good people as 'unfriendly and uncaring people' done to other people? Nothing. In fact, they are helping the world to have less conflict and have more peace by observing silence when they do not go around judging or expecting other people to behave in certain ways that they think it should be. They do their own things and don't invade or interfere with other people's way of life and do not generate inconvenience for other people. That is already a great contribution to the society. We should be grateful and thankful to them.

The nature of those who observe silence appears to be 'not fun', non-concerning and non-engaging with other friendly sociable people who expect all human beings should be fun to hang out with, should be active in social interaction, to be talkative, to be engaging and connecting with other human beings physically and verbally, it's not surprised that why people feel 'wrong', 'awkward', 'unwelcome', 'disrespected', 'hurt', 'offended', 'intimidated', 'unconcerned', 'unnoticed', 'unacknowledged', and so on, when they come in contact with those who observe silence. All these reactions of a disturbed state of the mind are coming from their own minds reacting towards something that they dislike and disagree with, that is different from their familiar social cultural practice, and it's nothing to do with whether other people are being 'friendly' to them, or not.

People would feel disturbed and offended by other people whom they think are not being 'friendly' enough towards them, as they expect friendly treatment from others the way that they think it should be. There's an issue with themselves, not with other people. Other people have the freedom to behave as they are, to be friendly or unfriendly towards anyone.

Because of most friendly sociable good people would feel greatly disturbed and offended by other people who observe silence of the mind, that's why it's better for the yoga and meditation practitioners to retreat from the society to observe seclusion and solitude.

'Friendliness' in the path of yoga and meditation is nothing to do with accumulating friendships, constantly visiting each other to stay connecting, to be hanging out from time to time to do some social activities together, and get into worldly conversation of commentary, criticism, mocking, flirting, boasting, story telling, mourning, grumbling, debate and discussion, and so on. 'Friendliness' in Yoga is when the mind is being free from ill-thinking, ill-will, anger, hatred, jealousy, dissatisfaction, disappointment, fear, offensiveness, defensiveness, judgment, expectation, interference, invasion, violence or hostility towards all and everyone, free from discrimination of friends or not friends, superiority or inferiority, that based on personal likes and dislikes, agreements and disagreements.

When people don't do anything that intentionally to hurt us, or disturb our peaceful life, or cause inconvenience to us, or interfere with our freedom of thinking, action and speech or way of life and conduct, that is what true friendliness is about.

When people in the society who think they are friendly people criticizing or mocking those whom they think are unfriendly people, then they don't know the true meaning of friendliness, as themselves are being unfriendly, by having such ill-thinking and criticism towards other people whom they disagree with, and feel offended or intimidated by other people's silence of action and speech, and they interfere with other people's freedom of actions, to act or not to act (where the action of not talking to other people when there are people around is being perceived as unfriendly, offensive and wrong for the worldly friendly sociable good people who believe and expect people should be talking and interacting with one another passionately.)

There is nothing wrong, offensive or intimidating when people are not interested to engage in any 'friendly' and 'caring' conversation with us. But the expectation from us towards other people that all 'normal' and 'good' people must somehow be engaging in interactive conversation with us to show friendliness to us, is what make us feel offended, intimidated, or wrong, when we don't receive the interaction the way that we expect it to be. We are the one who is intimidating and offending other people's freedom of action and behavior. But we don't see it this way.

If people truly love the world and want to build a peaceful harmony society, it's not about expecting other people to conform to our own way of life, thinking, belief, cultural practice and behavior that we think is the way it should be. But it's to respect everyone to be different and allowing everyone to be different, without invading or interfering with other people's way of life, thinking, belief and behavior that are different from ours.

It's okay if people don't want to be sociable with other people for any reasons or for no reason at all. It's okay if people are not interested in engaging in some form of interactive activities or conversation with us. It's okay if people want to keep to themselves and are not interested to connect with anyone, to live a quiet secluded life. At least they don't do anything intentionally that would hurt or disturb our life or the environment. We are free to feel what we want to feel, but if we feel disturbed by other people's particular behavior is because we are disturbed by our own mind reaction towards their behavior that we dislike and disagree with.

When people talk too much, or talk non-sense or subject that we aren't interested in, especially when we want some quiet time to ourselves, or when people want to know too many things that we prefer to keep to ourselves, we complain about them for being overly warm and too friendly or busybody.

When people don't talk to us or interact with us, and don't ask anything about us that we would like to share with other people, we also complain about them for being 'cold', 'unfriendly' and 'uncaring'.

Contemplate and be free.

Low self-esteem and the state of being free from pride are two different things

The minds are being conditioned to think and believe in a particular way to categorize everything into good and bad, right and wrong, meaningfulness and meaninglessness, positiveness and negativeness, happiness and unhappiness, appropriateness and disappropriateness, and so on. And once the mind is being conditioned to think and believe in a particular way, it's not easy to allow the mind to be opened to see things as they are, because the mind naturally and autonomously reasons and analyzes everything based on that particular thinking and belief.

People growing up being fed with many information coming from their parents, care taker, friends, religious teachers, society, medias, politicians, or leaders, and went to school/college/university to learn about many things/subjects and gathering all kind of information, and all these information become part of the thinking and belief to reason and analyze everything. But how many would reason the truth of all these information that is influencing them to reason and analyze everything?

Practicing yoga is to learn to inquire the truth of everything, without the influence of the thinking and belief in the mind, but just to see things as they are. Most of the time, people are just being different from one another, and there's nothing wrong or sick for being different from one another. But, those who attached strongly onto their own way of thinking, belief and behavior, will perceive other people who think, believe and behave differently from them as something wrong or sick.

Low self-esteem is being categorized as something not good, bad, or negative in the worldly thinking and belief. It is being treated as a form of physical/mental/emotional weakness that they think it would make a person inferior than other people. But, low self-esteem is just another by-product of ignorance and egoism, just like pride, arrogance, unhappiness, anger, hatred, greed, dissatisfaction, disappointment, hurt, animosity, offensiveness, defensiveness, violence, grief, sorrow, agitation, meaninglessness, worthlessness, loneliness, fear and worry, and so on.

If the mind is free from ignorance and egoism, low self-esteem as well as all the other form of impurities won't exist in the mind.

Worldly minded people think that in order to counter or conquest low self-esteem, they need to develop confidence and pride through accumulating knowledge, skills, achievements, friendships and widening the social interaction network. But they don't see where does low self-esteem come from.

The cause of low self-esteem is not because of lack of knowledge, skill, achievement and friendship, or having limited social interaction network. It is the worldly thinking and belief that is based on egoism about how a person should think, belief and behave in the society that categorize people into 'normal', 'rightful', 'positive' and 'healthy', or 'abnormal', 'wrongful', 'negative' and 'unhealthy', is the real cause of why people are suffering from low self-esteem when they try to comply to all the standards of the worldly thinking and belief that is based on egoism about what is a good and meaningful life that people would feel proud of, but somehow they think they are not good enough when they are unable to achieve the standard of a good and meaningful life that everyone could feel proud of. They were being told to believe that they are not good enough and their life is meaningless, if they don't achieve something that they can feel proud of themselves, or if they are unable to make other people to feel proud of them.

Even many of the yoga practitioners and teachers in the world are not free from being influenced by the worldly thinking and belief that is based on egoism.
This is a common and 'normal' and 'right' thing to say in everyday life,
"I am so proud of myself."
"I am so proud of you."
"You must be so proud of yourself."
"My parents are very proud of me."
"You should be so proud of yourself. How is it possible that you are not proud of yourself?" and so on.

If people didn't make a statement about "I am so proud of you," after other people have achieved or done something that they believe as 'good' or 'great', they will be considered as lack of empathy, unappreciative, stingy to say nice things, or being 'abnormal'. And people would feel disappointed or upset if other people didn't acknowledge their hard-work and achievement or didn't say anything about being proud of them, and it makes them think that maybe they are not good enough to be proud of themselves, or they are not good enough to make other people to be proud of them.

And, in order to help people who they think is suffering from low self-esteem, they think that they should constantly telling people, "I am so proud of you," thinking that this will help people to be free from low self-esteem, so that people won't feel bad about themselves, and will feel good about themselves. What can really help people who are suffering from low self-esteem is allowing them to understand that they are fine as they are, that they can just do their best without the intention of doing something to attain acknowledgement or appreciation from others and to feel proud of themselves, and they don't need to make other people to feel proud of them, or they don't need to keep hearing other people to tell them, "I am so proud of you," to be happy or to live a meaningful life.

It's like some people always looking for love and affection or attention from other people. If they don't hear from other people, "I love you," or "I miss you," for some time, they will feel unloved, left out and miserable. And people think that by constantly showing and telling people, "I love you," will help people to be free from unhappiness or suffering from the sense of being unloved or low self-esteem, but it doesn't, because it only empowers the attachment and the craving for receiving love and acknowledgement from others to feel being loved and meaningful. What can really help people to be free from the unhappiness or suffering from the sense of being unloved or lack of love, is allowing them to understand that they don't need love or appreciation from others at all, through realizing unconditional love in themselves, by freeing the mind from ignorance and egoism.

It's the worldly thinking and belief that is why people create unnecessary unhappiness or suffering in themselves, drowning in the desire of craving, and ceaselessly longing for receiving love and acknowledgement from other beings (humans or animals), by thinking that all beings should give and receive love and acknowledgement from one another, to feel being loved and meaningful.

Those who are free, They are happy and peaceful as they are. They appreciate all the existing love and acknowledgement from everyone as it is, but they don't need to depend on receiving love or acknowledgement from others to be happy, to feel meaningful, or to be who they are. Even if they have no parents, siblings, children, friends, or anyone being there, to show love and care for them or to acknowledged them, but they are still peaceful as they are.

Worldly minded people would relate or refer the people or children who are being free from pride, who don't have the need/desire/craving to feel proud about anything as a form of suffering from low self-esteem, lack of self-respect/self-love, or the sense of worthlessness. They believe that 'normal' and 'mentally healthy' people must have some sort of pride about themselves or towards something that is related to them in life, such like being proud of their family background, culture, religion, country, nationality, parents, siblings, children, friends, or things that they like to do or things that they can do, and etc.

Or else, they suggest that people must be suffering from low self-esteem, lack of self-respect/self-love, or worthlessness, and it's 'abnormal' and 'mentally unhealthy' for someone who doesn't have the need/desire/craving to feel proud of anything, who response to the question of "Do you feel proud of yourself? You must be so proud of yourself. Your parents and friends must be so proud of you for your achievement." with the answer of "No. I never feel proud of myself or anything. Why do I need to feel proud of myself? I don't need anyone to be proud of me either. People can be proud of me if they want. It's their freedom. It doesn't matter to me whether people are proud of me, or not. I am what I am. I'm not interested to be what other people want me to be, so that they will be proud of me."

There are children or people whom the worldly minded think that they are suffering from low self-esteem (which they are not), when they don't need to feel proud about themselves even when they had achieved great results in school or success in career, as the worldly minded think and believe that every normal and mentally healthy person should feel proud of themselves or feel proud of other people around them for being 'good' and for achieving 'great results' or 'success', that it's something wrong in their brain or mind for not feeling proud for something that the worldly minded think is good and great. But actually, people are peaceful, content, comfortable and happy as they are, when they are free from pride or the need/desire/craving to feel proud and meaningful about anything towards oneself and others, which the worldly minded have no understanding at all due to ignorance. These people or children are aware of themselves of what they achieve or don't achieve, but there's no identification or attachment towards the quality of names and forms that they possessed or don't possessed, or what they can do or cannot do, and there's no need to depend on anything to feel proud, in order to feel good or meaningful about themselves or about life.

The needlessness to feel proud of anything and the absence of meaninglessness due to the mind is free from ignorance and egoism, and the existence of the sense of low self-esteem or meaninglessness because people are being informed by the worldly minded to believe that they shouldn't be contented with being what they are, that they always have to be better than what they are, that they have to keep achieving higher standard, performance and success to feel good and meaningful, is two completely different things. And, many people become mentally disturbed, when they start to believe what they have been told by other worldly minded people that it's 'abnormal' and 'wrong', that they are mentally sick for being different from other 'normal' people.

There are children or people who don't feel the need of friends or companionship from others, who are happy being alone by themselves, or they feel fine and happy without mixing or playing or interacting with other children or people, and there's nothing wrong with that, and it's not a form of mental illness to be alone, to feel needless to have friends, or it's needless to be mixing and playing and interacting with other children or people in order to be happy, to feel meaningful, to not feel lonely, or to be 'normal'.

The children or people who are fine and happy being alone by oneself and don't need to feel proud or meaningful about anything, they are not mentally sick or in suffering at all. They are happy and peaceful as they are. But worldly minded people don't think so. They think that these people or children must be so lonely and miserable and meaningless without any friends to play with or interacting with, because that is what was being planted in their mind, "If you don't have friends to play with or interacting with, you must be lonely and miserable and meaningless."

There are people who don't need to feel sad or grief or mourn for the dead, and being indifferent towards birth and death, it's not that they are lack of empathy or mentally sick, but they have realized the truth of life existence and have gone beyond 'normal' worldly thinking and belief about birth and death, where 'normal' people would cheer and celebrate for the newborns as a form of joyfulness and blessing, and they would grieve and mourn for the dead as a form of painful sorrow and suffering.

Meanwhile, 'normal' worldly minded people would feel so unhappy, meaningless, lonely and miserable when they are alone by themselves, when they are not being with other people, thinking that they are being left out and unloved, that no one notice or appreciate them, that no one is there to love and care for them, to be friend with them, or to play and interact with them, constantly craving for and clinging onto 'friends' and 'social interactions' as well as praise and acknowledgement, in order to feel happy, meaningful, loved and 'normal', and there is aversion, fear and sadness towards solitude, illness, old age, death and separation from the people and things that they love, constantly missing the people and things that they loved when they are out of sight or unavailable. But for them, this is 'normal' and 'mentally healthy'.

No wonder the saints and sages in the past declared that "The awakened ones are awake while the others are asleep," and "The unawakened ones take suffering as bliss and take bliss as suffering." There's no debate can change another person's mind. It has to come from everyone's direct self-realization to realize what is going on in their minds.

Everyone is free for how they want to feel and what they want to do with their body and mind. Allowing everyone to feel what they feel and be different from one another, even if people believe that being prideful and full of passionate desires is 'normal' and 'healthy', while thinking that it's 'abnormal' and 'unhealthy' for some other people who are free from pride and passionate desires.

Words of wisdom are neither good nor bad

Words of wisdom are neither good nor bad. They are just what they are. They have no intention or quality to be useful or useless, to be meaningful or meaningless, or to be enlightening or disturbing.

Words of wisdom can be useful and meaningful and enlightening for those who are aware of ignorance in oneself, but they are useless and meaningless and disturbing for those who are not aware of ignorance in oneself.

All minds that are under the influence of ignorance and egoism are being conditioned or influenced by many different types of egoistic thinking and belief that are being imprinted into the mind since the birth of this life existence coming from family and cultural background, religious background, parenting, schooling, social mixing and interaction, social medias, commercial values, political influence, and all kinds of information sources, to live life, to think and feel, to act and react.

Most of the time, we don't really inquire the truth of everything that were passed down to us from generation to generation, and everything that we come in contact with, and we usually put our 'trust' onto 'reliable' or 'respectable' sources to feed or occupy our minds with many different information and ideas, until we start to doubt about something and then we would question or investigate the truth of it, to find out whether it's true, or not. But that usually won't happen until we got into trouble and suffer for the consequences of our own 'incorrect' or 'ignorant' understanding, thinking, belief, way of living, conduct and behavior.

If people don't question the truth of everything, everyone just live life, think and feel, act and react as how they were being told, or educated, or influenced by the elders, parents, caretakers, friends, society, communities, groups, associations, gangs, politicians, religious authorities, school teachers, philosophers, business people, and so on.

In Yoga and Buddhism, one has to question the truth of everything including all the teachings or scriptures of yoga and Buddhism, of what all the teachers said and taught. The real teachers won't be insulted, or disrespected, or humiliated when the students neither agree nor disagree with what the teachers taught them, but being independent and diligent to perform self-practice and self-inquiry to realize the truth of the teachings through self-effort and self-realization.

It's okay if we don't know many things. It won't do any harm if we don't know everything and we are aware of we are ignorant, or don't know the truth of something. But it would be very harmful to oneself and others, if we blind-believe in and blind-agreeing with and blindly sharing information and ideas that we don't know whether they are true, or not.

So as there are many 'yoga teachers' teach yoga to other people according to what they have learned, studied and heard from the yoga courses and yoga books that they have attended and read, just because the books/scriptures/teaching manuals and their teachers say so. Some people don't mind if the teachings are true, or not, as long as they have some ideas of yoga poses practice sequences with some technical information and interesting spiritual stories to teach in the yoga classes to satisfy the people's enthusiasm and intention of joining the yoga classes, and earn a living. And there's nothing wrong with that, and it's everyone's freedom. One is willingly to present something that one doesn't really know what does it really means, while others are willingly to follow something that they don't know where it would lead them to.

The wise never aspire or intent to make other beings to see what they see, or to know what they know. The teachings are everywhere for everyone to take it (practice and realize), or leave it.

Be free and be happy.

No one can discipline our mind for us but the mind itself

No one can discipline our mind for us but the mind itself.

No one can purify our mind for us but the mind itself.

No one can do our practice for us but the mind itself.

No one can free the mind from ignorance and egoism for us but the mind itself.

No one can liberate the mind from suffering of anger, hatred, jealousy, greed, lust, pride, dissatisfaction, disappointment, fear and worry for us but the mind itself.

When the mind is free from ignorance and egoism and impurities, the mind will be peaceful as it is, undetermined by the good or bad condition of the body and the mind, the ups and downs of life experiences, the good and bad relationships with everyone, the good and bad condition of the world and the surrounding environment.

When one thinks and feels and says, "I am contented, happy and peaceful. I'm all good. Life is good. The part of the world where I live in is good. The people in my life are good and wonderful." Know that this mind is not necessarily free. The mind might still be affected and disturbed by what the mind thinks and believes as 'not good', 'bad', 'negative', 'suffering' and 'wrong', based on the worldly thinking and belief that has been ingraining into their minds, influenced by many influences coming from everywhere (The parents, the society, the friends circle, the social network, the education, the religious teachings, the stories told by different people from everywhere, the researchers, the scientists, the philosophers, the medias, the politicians, the world leaders, and so on.)

There's nothing abnormal or wrong for anyone to think and feel contended, happy and peaceful, when one perceives everything about oneself, as well as everything and everyone that are related to one's life, is all good, is the way that how one would like it to be. Or, one should feel grateful when things are like this, and one should feel bad, angry, guilty and shameful when things are like that. And people would hurt themselves or others, in pursuit of a life that they think is 'meaningful', 'fruitful', 'successful' and 'happy', or people might hurt themselves and/or others when they think they should be feeling bad, angry, guilty and shameful about something. People manipulate or make use of other people's feelings and emotions to be 'doing' something for them unwittingly. People stir up other people's anger, hatred and fear to create a situation in the society that will allow them to achieve something that they want.

There are many minds don't mind being 'not free', as they think and believe that that is what human life is about - achieving a life that what they think and believe as 'meaningful', 'fruitful', 'successful' and 'happy'. They are 'free' in their own world when they feel contented and happy (as long as everything and everyone is the way that they like it to be, and all their desires are being gratified). That's their freedom.

Minds that are deeply conditioned by particular thinking and belief to think, to behave, to act and react, to feel confident or not, to feel happy or not, to feel meaningful or not, and to feel good or bad, are easily being influenced by intentional manipulation from those who want to influence the people to think in certain ways and to believe in certain beliefs, so that they can get the support that they want from the people to be in power to achieve what they want to achieve in the world of selfish desires.

The yoga and meditation practice is to purify the mind, to free the mind from the pollution of conditional worldly thinking and belief, which is the product of ignorance and egoism, as well as the fuel that feeds ignorance and egoism. And all these worldly thinking and belief about what is a meaningful, fruitful, successful and happy life, how people should think and behave, act and react, and what people should believe in, are being manipulated by many impure selfish minds. If the mind is under the influence of ignorance and egoism, it is easily be manipulated and influenced by what they perceive through the senses of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching and thinking, that are not necessarily the truth of what things are. No matter how intelligent that the mind thinks it is, it still can be manipulated and influenced by worldly conditional thinking and belief, without knowing that it has already been manipulated or influenced by them.

If one's mind starts to reason/doubt/investigate the truth of the information that has been feeding to it from here and there, it will be hammered and threatened by worldly people around and from part of itself that is being conditioned to believe that 'This is bad and evil!', 'This is wrong!', 'You are bad and evil!', 'You don't deserve love and goodness!', 'You will be condemned to hell!', 'You will be punished and suffered!', 'You will bring shame and suffering to your family!', and so on.

We can understand why many religious people or organizations or politicians or capitalists or business people don't like it if people are being exposed to the teachings of BUDDHISM, YOGA and MEDITATION about SELF-INQUIRY to investigate the truth of everything and be free from worldly conditioned thinking and belief. When yoga is being commercialized with lots of 'yoga products' and 'organic health and beauty related yogic products', and there are many of the 'yoga practitioners', 'yoga teachers', or 'yoga lovers' are being influenced by it without knowing that they have become the 'slaves' of particular people or groups or organizations who are playing the mind games.

Yoga and meditation practice is to free the mind that has been conditioning by all these worldly thinking and belief. And thus, there is a very important part of the yoga and meditation practice that is being ignored or criticized by many worldly people, including those who think they love yoga and practice yoga, which is the practice of SILENCE, to be in solitude and seclusion for a sustained period of time (at least 5-6 years), to move away from the society, stop mixing with worldly people, stop engaging in worldly interactions and conversations, stop reading newspapers, novels and magazines, stop watching TV programs, advertisements and movies, stop all kinds of worldly contact and communication. It doesn't matter whether the mind thinks these 'inputs' of the mind are true, or not true. By allowing the mind to be in silence and cleared out of all the worldly thinking and belief, be free from conditional judgment and expectation based on the worldly thinking and belief, the mind will be able to see the truth of things as it is. This sounds extreme or horrible for many people, but it is the most effective way to free the mind from being manipulated or influenced by ceaseless 'inputs' that are not the truth of what things are. Only those who are determined and are fearless to let go all the worldly thinking and belief as well as worldly identity with qualities of names and forms can truly practice yoga and meditation. Or else, everyone is just doing some forms of different styles and brands of 'yoga exercises' to feel good and look good.

Be free.

Freedom?

Freedom

In theory, everyone wants freedom

It must be a good thing then

In practical, it's a bit complicated

It's not that freedom is not good

But impure minds like to complicate everything

Restrictions are being applied onto freedom

Based on what the impure minds believe how things should be like

Who and what deserve the freedom to be what they are

And

Who and what don't deserve the freedom to be what they are

Based on personal cultural and religious practice

Based on limited worldly thinking and beliefs

Based on what the minds think and believe

What is good and bad

What is should and shouldn't

Everyone wants freedom

Yes, but only limit to themselves

For what they like and want

For what they agree with

All minds fight for the freedom that they want,

But

For others whom they dislike and disagree with

They don't want others to have the freedom

To be what they are

To think what they want to think

To say what they want to say

To behave the way that they behave

Just because the minds dislike and disagree with

What others think, say and behave

These minds think that themselves deserve the freedom

To be what they want to be

But

Others who are different from them

They don't deserve the freedom

To be what they are

It's all ignorance and egoism

Freedom is not being free to think, to say, to behave

According to the egoistic desires of wants and don't wants

Likes and dislikes

Agreements and disagreements

Based on what the minds think and believe

What is good and bad, should and shouldn't

Some struggle

Some confuse

Is freedom good or bad

Some believe it's good

Some believe it's bad

Some believe it has both good and bad

Pure minds see things as they are

Like everything else

Freedom is neither good nor bad

Real freedom is being free from impurities

Being free from ignorance and egoism

Being free from attachment and identifications with qualities of names and forms

Being free from being conditioned by the limited worldly thinking and beliefs

If one's mind is free from impurities derived from ignorance and egoism

Freedom doesn't exist

There's no need freedom

There's no desire to be free

As one is free as it is