There’s no freedom in finding answers to the questions of life.

Not even the best ones.

What am I doing here?

Why do bad things happen to good people?

What can I do to be liberated?

Can I attain lasting happiness?

Do angels exist, or is there God?

Do we have free will?

Is any of this even real?

Deep stuff, but not crucial for freedom.

Freedom is not found in the answers, but in the realization that questions arise.

It’s found in realizing that longing comes up.

That hope is revealed.

That suffering exists, for a while at least, before it leaves again.

That there is sometimes relief, sometimes happiness, and sometimes shyness, elation, hunger, or thirst.

And that all of that, including questions AND answers, is seen and experienced.

It’s the realization itself, the constant awareness.

The Knowing of whatever happens, whatever is created, from the smallest to the biggest things.

It’s the Knowing that is always present, no matter what happens in your life.

The Knowing that is beyond past or future.

The uniquely inclusive Knowing that is SO essential, so vast, so crucial, and so present, that we overlook it.

Because it doesn’t come and go, like anything else, it’s hidden in plain sight.

But you can know that, deeper than any intellectual understanding.

It’s the direct recognition of being that space and that awareness, that has all the room and love in the world for any experience possible.

You are that, this space that contains everything and creates everything.

You can only be that.

The endless space.

Deeply lost in personal, temporary experience.

Lost in human life.

But still, the space.

The still space.

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(Photo by @knipszimmer, for Unsplash)