Freedom is the Strength of the Soul that helps Love find its home in Your Heart. Guided by Love the Soul travels along the Long and winding path that leads it to its home in the everlasting heart within the Truth.
Among the many worldly, unworldly and surreal adventures and experiences that rock my Soul this note is a special dedication to the community at Soul Rock Nation.
I recently shared a very powerful and enlightening experience exchanging ideas, moments and lessons with a younger Actor/Model friend of mine. I'd like to share with you all a brief prolog of the things that came about as thoughts, exchanges and emotions during that time.
I’m glad to say that being young in this day and age still means being blessed with an innocent heart and an eager Soul. Working and living in Hollywood with that big city lifestyle all around you, can make it all the more vital and important for some of my young and eager friends and people such as myself, Artists and like minded professionals to have a strong sense of self realization, integrity, inner peace, balance, humbleness, faith and spiritual direction. Become what you aspire from deep within the needs and the longings of your heart and Soul. Avoid becoming what society, circumstances, opinions and people may suggest, dictate, force and pressure you to become. To do this is to be able to respect yourself and thus find the means and the heart by which to care for, Love and respect others. More importantly it means to be able to experience life with that most liberating of gifts called freedom. To live freely in the long run on both a mundane and a deeper and higher Spiritual level, makes it possible for us to pursue life with Liberty, and our Souls to pursue the bliss of Liberation. It is necessary to learn to find a way by which to lay a strong spiritual foundation and core within yourself and help lay the spiritual seeds for the same to transpire at its own pace in those around you. The goal is to be able to forge ahead with intent and focus and to cultivate and build on these very personal and unique experiences through life, and make it as creatively and spiritually progressive, self sustaining and meaningful as possible.
Every Seed has a Life of its Own: Lay the Seeds and Create a Strong Foundation with Roots that Run Deep
It could be anything ranging from a simple yet radical piece of advice or an idea you introduce to someone, an experience you share with another, a brief conversation, a more subtle and stronger exchange of deeper and higher emotions. All of these are different ways in which to set forth a liberating intelligence in motion. Trust me every seed has a life of its own and a guiding intelligence innate within it that won’t rest until its purpose is served. A simple piece of advice and a few minutes of your time could mean a lot to someone, it could possibly have a deep and life changing impact on them and possibly their family, friends and those around them. Sometimes you may not really witness the change because this form of spiritual initiation and how it evolves and unfolds is unique to each person in question, sometimes the seeds may lay dormant until the circumstances and environment are more favorable and nurturing. On the contrary the seeds of sin are just the same for they lay dormant and ever present in your intelligence and intellect. And at times when the mind is weak, the body is tired and your faith and free will are off guard, the underlying intelligence of this seed can grow, cause malefic action and sin to bear fruit to more sin. It is funny how easy it can be to tame and root out the seeds of sin in every form once you have cultivated the many faculties of your very human higher-self and developed a clear understanding of the psychological, emotional and spiritual mechanism that defines these seeds of intelligence and knowledge in you.
The Joy of Creation is entwined with Freedom
We live in an increasingly materialistic Society where there is an alarming and growing emphasis on money and the sensual experiences and things that it can buy. There is also an accompanying, and very unfortunate and sad decline in the value placed on human life and human dignity. Where the fundamental rights of one person is very readily denied by the other or the immediate human collective around him/her. Justice even with the most highly respected and expensive attorneys and lawyers can be very hard to come by and injustice seems to spread itself rapidly like a tormenting fire that first takes down the branch and then threatens to turn into ashes the entire tree. When a child is born it has an essential and rudimentary need to breathe and as a person grows older he still has to be granted the essential freedom to breathe emotionally, psychologically, creatively and spiritually. Given today’s lifestyle people increasingly associate their identity and expand the definition of their false ego with the clothes they wear, the cars they drive, the houses they live in, their occupation, their employers and all the other mundane and finite things they acquired slowly. This becomes a burdensome extension of their identity and their false sense of ego. If you were to look at the way a child relates to its world freely it hasn’t quiet entangled itself with any of these things, it has barely got its mind wrapped around the idea that its flesh is who it is or the notion of ‘I am what I see, feel, sense, perceive and own’. The intelligence of its Soul is still free of the illusion that is the ego. Just as you can tell when you look into their eyes that every child is special and unique, so are the Souls within those eyes. The Soul continues to have this need to be free of the illusory effects of the ego and the sensual things that we wrongly associate our identities with. The danger is off course that it has become very difficult to achieve this creatively and spiritually empowering sense of freedom even through intense meditation thanks to the enormous proportions that the false ego is allowed to take on in a society such as ours. My actor friend was shocked to find out that she really didn’t know who she was when she stripped herself and her mind off of the money, expensive clothes, tastes, boy friend, car, house, opinions, emotional strings, pride, vanity, beautiful blonde hair, high maintenance lifestyle, insecurities, entanglements, habits, compulsive social engagements, vocations etc… etc. She didn’t know who she was, or what she wanted and where she was going with her Life. She had inadvertently become a slave to her ego and the things, pleasures and people it associated with, and everything else that fed it. She joked about becoming a rich, powerful soulless zombie (real creatures that have come back to life thanks to the films, young urban pop culture, social conditioning and the trend here in tinsel town). Well, she discovered a neglected train wreck when she finally managed to do some deep and profound Soul searching and look inside herself, but at least now I’m glad that she managed to see the Truth as it was and ceased to be a powerless slave to the lie that she believed and embraced as and when it was fed to her. It is a priceless gift to develop a sense of inner clarity, and it serves as a powerful tool that can expose the Truth to those who sincerely Love, serve and seek it, both within themselves, others and the environment around them. It is like being able to see and perceive the Truth in the world with your eyes closed, a special type of spiritual and divine vision with which to behold and understand all things both beautiful and wicked as the Truth in them defines it to the Truth in you. You can always create and recreate all these worldly things like wealth, fame, honor, comfort, riches, relationships etc. with the tiniest amount of intelligence, will power, creativity and faith. But at all times be sure to give the Soul and the Self within the Soul its rightful place above the temporal and finite ego. Stay on top of the ego at all times to govern, tame and control it, never succumb to its illusions or let your Soul become a slave to its blind, demanding, depleting, degrading and binding servitude. Use it like the masks an actor adorns and carefully inscribes and takes off depending on the roles that he plays on stage and in real life. My advice to her when we last spoke was to strive to identify and correct the flaws she came across within herself and more importantly her self-perception, and see how drastically it alters her perception of the world and the people around her. Your intentions to overcome these flaws within yourself slowly but surely will transform into a mission to help others surmount their own struggles, flaws and challenges in Life
Freedom: The Life & Spirit of the Fruitful Tree
If you were to travel around the world and meet people from all walks of life, cultures, businesses, professions and craft, trust me I guarantee you that you’ll notice that the elite that thrive, flourish and grow the most are the ones that have been granted an abundance of this freedom. You will see it not only in each person in the form of their behavior, inner character and the things that they do, but more importantly in the synergistic vibe of the environment that surrounds them. It’s like they literally feed off of a bounty of freedom innate in the people, opportunities and the environment that surrounds them. Freedom is a quality with many dimensions. If you are like me… multi-dimensional and complicated with a passionate eye for detail you would probably look for it in the psychological makeup, intellectual exchanges, emotional expression and the ambitions and intentions of those who seem to feed off of this powerful blessing called freedom.
I understand that Life can be short, and resources and connections can only go so far for many people who have but an everyday grasp of the realities, forces and principles that govern all things mundane and Spiritual. It can be a hard pressing dream to try and change the world overnight, but my advice to you would be to change your attitude towards others, yourself and your perception of the world instead. ‘Love thy neighbor as you Love thyself.’ And if you don’t Love yourself start doing it right now, it will be your very first step towards perceiving the all pervading realities of the Truth and you will have a life time full of loving still left to do. Take it day by day, one small step after the other and one person at a time. For there is immense victory in doing this, the Truth in it can set you free in more ways than you can possibly imagine. It can set you free for an Eternity. The idea is to learn from the success, lessons and failures of others that have tried to overcome these internal and external obstacles that impede their innate need for freedom and spiritual growth. Treat them as teachers and then try your best to incorporate these lessons into your own life and help evolve the hidden intelligence within your Soul that is ever eager to inspire, expand and grow creatively beyond all the beautiful wonders that your dreams and imagination can possibly fathom.
My deepest and most sincere Love to you all, and especially to those who have cared to read and understand the deeper meaning of these words that have helped clarify, transform and unveil a Soul’s purpose and sense of belonging in this world.
I’m grateful to my friend for having entrusted me with the task of paving the way for her. I’m glad to say that her days are now filled with real happiness and she finds her life to be more authentic, beautiful and meaningful. Thank You for permitting me to write about this story, both yours and mine.
A Note: My Deepest Respect, Regards & Apologies
On a more personal note, spiritually reclusive as I am, I’m thankful to the Supreme for having made many instances of these acts of devotional service, Love and the rest of it all possible for me and my dear friends. Just as some men trust and rely heavily on their guts, instincts, prayers, experience and intuition, I rely heavily on these and the spiritual guidance, wisdom and mandates my Soul receives; this can happen only if you are perpetually situated in a state of Yoga or union with the Supreme. Before I act out even the most simplest of things I fully place my faith and free will in the Loving hands of that which guides, controls and commands my eyes to read, my stomach and flesh to meet, deprive or satiate its attributed needs, and my senses to engage outwardly or inwardly in this world. Perhaps you can guess and tell from my name that I have my lineage, ancestry and its endogamous heritage, liberating values, principles, customs, scriptures and culture to be thankful for. Although outwardly it may seem like many such like minded Souls live worldly lives, inwardly although it may be very hard for the untrained eye to discern, they truly are still progressing and maturing spiritually in their association and union with the Supreme. My apologies to members of my ethnic community and teachers, who perhaps consider and strongly believe it to be more apt, befitting and appropriate to live a spiritual life that is more reserved, private and reclusive; Focusing on my Karmic, social, professional and moral duties and obligations rather than the perpetuation of wisdom and Light to those who may or may not try to learn from it, tarnish it or see reflections of their own self indulgence, desires and vanity in it. My ethnicity, culture, native language, heritage and its ways are dying and being replaced by my own people who have adopted and chosen the ways of the larger herd. I don’t have it in me to do such a spineless and dehumanizing thing when I know I can be both flexible, respectful and strong, my identity is evolving and transforming in a respectful, rational, cultured and civilized manner like it has done for so many others over several millennia. To those who want to throw their authority, ego, base values, worldly ideas, addictions, obsessions and powers around and upon people such as myself, you are more than welcome to try your luck, waste your time, strength and resources. Why use cooperation and prosperity as a pretentious facade for exploitation and give me your coins and treasures when I have no greed, need or use for them. Surely amidst your haste and burning desires you must have overseen the Truth that I have my own and the means and wisdom to multiply my blessings. The Truth weighs the hearts of men as it pierces through the blinding clouds of illusion to reveal itself to those that are deserving and worthy of it. Isn’t it foolish to tell someone who they are or who they should be when they have it in the resourcefulness of their own Soul, intelligence, flesh and the many facilitating processes and blessings of life to discover and define their own story and ever evolving identity? So let them use their freedom and its true meaning to do this. To get to know your own Soul is to know the Soul of the Supreme, the creator, the Divine Spirit, the whole of creation and all of existence, its many expressions, energies and diverse forms. Why not do it when you have all the human and spiritual faculties and the means? I might as well disseminate these words of value here in the West as life presents people and opportunities that are more receptive and enquire of me to do so. I always persist in staying very humble, grounded and blissfully engaged in meditating and serving the Supreme. And the Truth persists, steady, strong and eternal regardless of whether you believe in it or not, it is indifferent and seemingly oblivious to the wild sways of the disillusioned, entangled and conditioned. But remember that its considerate correction, Love and grace are always available to you. The Truth may remain a myth to those who deny it or choose to dwell in the cowardly comforts of ignorance, insatiable desires, lust, sensual excesses and darkness. I see no harm or sin in selflessly going out of my way to help someone who approaches me and requests me for my time, kindness, advice and favor.
The world isn’t a perfect place filled with perfect beings but perhaps together, you and me can stand this test and walk a step closer towards making it so. Divine Grace is truly a beautiful, universal and boundless wonder that applies to all existence and all humanity; it can empower and strengthen faith with each passing moment and fill it with the miracle of heartfelt Love, the mystery of the absolute Truth and the sheer magic of zestful devotion.
~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan
P.S ~ Love, Light, Freedom, Hope & Blessings to you All :)
