Mental Slavery

Bob Marley said it, "Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds." This is often quoted but there is a difference between logical understanding and realization. I am not sure that even hours of mediation have brought me to the true realization of freedom, though I imagine it is something we are all striving for whether we know it or not. Suffering is a choice, this does not mean that we should expect at some point to not feel hurt in our lives as an enlightened being but it means that continued feelings of suffering are self-created.  "The  free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it -basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them."- Charles Bukowski said in Tales of Ordinary. Those who choose to live a mindful lifestyle or even those that don't catch a glimpse of that freedom--the exhilaration and liberalization felt in that moment when we let go of everything and we just are. Whether it is in that moment at the top of the summit as we bask in the beauty of nature, whether it is in our unwavering focus as we paddle and feel with our whole heart the harmonious union with a wave on our board, or maybe it's when we stare deep into our lover's eyes and feel true unification with another being. Maybe it's simply in meditation or after hearing a song, whatever it is we have all had that feeling. We live for it. Just as easily we allow for self imprisonment with our own thoughts, we lose touch with our mind. That freedom feels unreachable, as though it existed only in the distant past, in a dream, or as some sort of freak accident. We can only hope day by day, thought by thought, to begin to free our minds.