BECOMING CALM, SUBDUED AND DIGNIFIED
Rosa Parks, an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott was honored by Congress as the "the mother of the freedom movement.” Here is what witnesses said about her sitting in the Whites section of the bus when she was told by the driver to relocate to the “colored” only section of the bus : “Rosa Parks maintained a calm, subdued and dignified attitude when she refused to move and to leave her place in the whites only section of the bus.”
This was not only a battle with herself but a battle with all oppressive institutions at that time (that unfortunately perpetuate themselves still today). She must have done a lot of inner work to be able to sit on that bus calm, subdued and dignified.
Freedom is two fold:
1) Outer Freedom - Freedom from an oppressive, outer system seeking to control in the spirit of domination and consumption. Democracy and other systems of government, power and oversight do not guarantee through its’ regulations that individual citizens will abandon greed, hatred and confusion. This is a personal journey of deep self-inquiry that everyone must go on and unravel for themselves.
2) Inner Freedom – Freedom from an oppressive inner world of wild fearful thinking, opinions and emotions that cause us to make disastrous decisions that have nothing to do with facts or the emerging present moment.
At Four Ways to Freedom - we define freedom not as a destined place to arrive but
as a transient state of possibility, a bridge so to speak, filled with limitless potential.
We know that freedom changes daily both on the inner and outer planes. The freedoms we support today might not be the freedoms we support tomorrow. Think about how freedom has changed for you over your lifetime, from childhood to adulthood.
As a child, if you ever had a bike, you know the sense of physical freedom and independence that bike took on as soon as you peddled out of sight from your home base. You also know the sense of outer freedom and egoic individuation that took hold as you made your first steps in the world, first job, first time voting, first time having sex.
Can you also track the inner freedom you have experienced by doing hard things, having difficult conversations with difficult people, no longer being reliant on the opinion of others, taking the necessary steps to free yourself from negative habits and thoughts?
At Four Ways to Freedom we are asking ourselves and our clients all day long;
What are you trying to free yourself from?
What are you trying to free yourself for?
Here is our take on Freedom through the lens of the FOUR WAYS
MONEY > Can you honestly say that you have personally mastered the concept of sharing resources, scarcity mindedness and utilizing money as a force for good? How do you free yourself from obsessing, chasing, prostituting, worrying and avoiding responsibilities pertaining to the energy and power of money? When you can sit in the center of attraction and repulsion to money, without mental and emotional disturbance, there is freedom to plant the seeds of conscious wealth.
MOVEMENT > Are you embodying your values and accessing greater creativity? Ask yourself if you are moving toward unconditional love for self & all beings? We are not saying to love all actions and behaviours but being loving and kind in all circumstances. Here, our work is abandoning inertia and stagnation for a greater expression of the heart.
MINDFULNESS > Have you abandoned being a tyrant to yourself? Worry is a chronic condition of being afraid of fear. Fear will arise when we meet life, but your life does not need to be overpowered by it. Don’t let fear dictate your fate. If you master this then you are free. If you do not master this, you will be a slave to your own mind and emotions regardless of supportive outer conditions. Even if you live in your own perfect version of utopia, you will not be free if you have no mastery over your own arisings. When you fear an unknown future, you feed fear into the future - From Fear to Fearlessness.
MYSTERY > Can you imbue every action that you take as important, as a sacred moment of moving from the knowable to the unknowable? Consciousness is sensitive: Consciousness will believe and absorb everything you feed it. So you have to ask yourself, what are you feeding this great ocean of pure awareness?
Rosa Parks - Civil Rights Activist - Mini Biography Video
Civil rights activist Rosa Parks (February 4, 1913 to October 24, 2005) refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a segregated Montgomery, Alabama bus, which spurred on the 381-day Montgomery Bus Boycott that helped launch nationwide efforts to end segregation of public facilities. The city of Montgomery had no choice but to lift the law requiring segregation on public buses. Rosa Parks received many accolades during her lifetime, including the NAACP's highest award.
