Fear to Freedom – Holy Triage

Years ago a wise man taught me that "Depression is anger turned inward". Today I often ask… Why did I let that happen? How can I prevent that from happening again? The best anger is experienced when we finally take responsibility for the things that we allow to exist by stopping the blame game. Power is given not obtained, so that which has power over us is being empowered by us. Ungrateful people who complain day after day have chosen to empower their dark side. Do I have a dark side? Of course! Today I make a choice not to dwell within the dark corner of my soul lest I empower it to produce destructive results upon my life.

What initially leads many to Christianity is dysfunction. I used to be a Christian. I became a Christian in my childhood. I was ridiculed as an over weight child and ruthlessly terrorized by bullies. In the middle of this interpersonal struggle my severely handicapped little sister was born. As the bullies at school tortured me I was already being tortured inside my heart watching my new little sister endure risky surgeries and tests at the hospital. At a very important developmental time in my life my vulnerabilities shaped into the perfect victim for fundamental Christianity. At a time when I desperately needed a self esteem boost Christianity told me that god accepted a pitiful mess like me. The god of Christianity became the pimp and I became the whore. Thank God that today I am no longer that victim. Today I use my painful past to connect with the pain of others and free them from bondage.

In the dark corner of my soul I found perfectionism. The form of perfectionism I battle leads one not to play at all for he would rather sit on the sidelines then play an imperfect game. When we expose a demon in our soul it becomes our teacher on its way out the door. It is sad the way perfectionism holds people hostage on the sidelines of life. Perfectionism keeps many people from living out their purpose. Our dysfunction make us vulnerable to both the trappings of extremism and addiction. Christianity made it easy for me to sit in the church pew on the sidelines because the self described experts were there to play the game. In my mind I pictured the day when I too would be an expert behind the pulpit and no longer be a spectator sitting in the church pew. My demons taught me that abusers use hope as a tool to manipulate people. I learned that I was never on the sidelines to begin with.

My life has been a journey to the dark corners of my soul. I have been beaten into shape by my demons. When we face our demons they teach us to dwell in the light. When we ignore our demons they have complete control over us. I have had destructive times in my life where I chose to love the darkness of misery. Misery loves company because the ego is easily insulted by those who contradict our excuses to be miserable. This is why we find herds of miserable people together drinking their sorrows away. Miserable people deeply resent happy people because behind ones misery they are protecting an excuse that empowers misery. Some people are afraid to be happy because of what happiness means. To some happiness means letting go of a dream, an addiction, a religion or for some of the unemployed it means facing their fear of rejection and going on job interviews. Being miserable is far easier then being happy, so some choose misery by building a case to be miserable. If you want to piss off a person who loves misery start jeopardizing the excuses they use to be miserable.

Be fully human. Drop the mask of ego, political correctness and religion. End the performance and become the true essence of yourself. If you hurt then be hurt. If you’re angry then be angry. You’ll never find yourself until you become yourself. Healing begins with the real you, not your illusions created by self hatred. Love who you are in this moment. Give yourself the freedom to be fully human.

Freedom begins when we refuse to be shoved into the box of religion or politics. There is not a box in existence that could contain any human being. People only create labels as a sort of “in” crowd to manipulate others and generate a sense of belonging. Don’t be boxed in by a group or ideology. When you conform yourself to the image of a religion or particular political party it is just the same as worshipping an idol. An open heart and mind makes it far easier to love people from all back grounds. When you open your heart and mind you may discover you have no enemies. When you open your heart and mind you are saying I am not superior to others.

Life improves when one replaces both religion and politics with spirituality. Why? Spirituality states we cannot begin learning until we remove our masks and become our true self. Religion and politics encourage people to go through the motions or to obey without questioning. Spirituality says be yourself, but religion says you are not good enough. Religion and politics replace the freedom to question with conformity. When we are pressured to hide our weaknesses they will never get addressed. Once you label yourself with a religion or political party your pride is on the line and now you feel obligated to defend a religion or political party instead of the truth. Humility is you just being you. Jesus said if we hate or lust in our heart it is the same as committing the actual offense. You cannot grow as a person being politically correct. You will never grow spiritually by conforming yourself to a religion. Growth starts with you just being you. Maybe when we express our hatred we will learn it is not really hatred at all. Maybe if we express our lust we will find our significant other.

Many who say they are not into religion or politics still follow a rigid code of conduct in their mind. A quick way to identify the nonreligious who act religious is by their judgmental behavior. Many who say they are not religious still practice a rigid lifestyle reflective of religious legalism. A person who does not go to the institutional church may still be enslaved by a false perception manufactured by a toxic past. Some are enslaved by a future that may or may not materialize. These people are often isolating them self in the same way that religious people isolate them self behind the four walls of a church. When a person finds a problem with just about everybody they meet… maybe they are the one who actually has the problem.

The greatest sign of spirituality is peace that passes understanding. Those who lack this peace that passes understanding are enslaved to their mind’s attempt to construct a box. Our mind tries to demand that we control a situation by understanding it. Our mind will fill in the blanks or create a fantasy in order to construct the illusion of control. The problem is simply that allowing your insecurities to fill in the blanks will make your life a living hell. WHY? Name one thing you completely understand. If we are honest with our self we will discover that all truths are half truths. If we base our peace upon our understanding our peace will constantly interrupted by hell. Peace comes when we surrender this tendency to fill in blanks. Peace comes when we accept the blanks instead of shoving mental junk inside those blank spots.

Suffering occurs when we resist the moment. What we label inconvenience is that which we refuse to accept. Our mind constantly tries to block or explain the moment away. Be here, now. We can’t change that which is. Change occurs by embracing the moment, not judging it. Rejecting the moment creates emotional static. Love is patient. Patients accepts that which is. Surrender is freedom. Jesus said “resist not evil”

Our reality only furthers our reality… If I wake up everyday believing I am a loser how will that effect my choice of words, my tone of voice, my facial expressions, my level of neediness, my posture, my breathing patterns and my level of awareness? How will the presupposition of I am a loser effect how others see and relate to me? Let’s spin this around and say I wake up in the mirror each day and say I am an almighty pastor? The level of reality we construct is blinding. Why do we even need perception when our only reality is this present moment? Human nature has a tendency to poison the moment with a toxic past or destroy the moment with future fears. Sometimes we feel accepted before we are truly accepted and other times we feel rejected before we are truly rejected. How much of our reality is the construct of our own illusion? Let’s say I show up on a blind date with a woman feeling like a loser… now I am making it her responsibility to make ME feel like a winner? Or let’s say I show up on a blind date feeling like the king… now I am making her sick. A life built upon the fluctuations of perception is a life built upon an unpredictable sea. Why should we attach our moods to the unpredictable stormy weather of perception? Your perception is a liar, but the pure and undefiled moment never lies. You show up on a blind date and make it about her instead of making it about misguided perception. Today I wake up and make life about consciousness instead of misguided perception.

May I burn the box of perception. May my love for myself overcome my fears. May the walls that lock me in & lock truth out crumble. May I refused to be captured, enslaved by or attached to anything as I exchange expectations for the pure & undefiled moment. May I learn that the human experience is a mirror revealing my true reflection. May I have the courage to know myself, so that others can know me better

There are people in this world called sociopaths or pathological liars. A sociopath is a person who turns life into their own fantasy. Sociopaths recreate them self as a character in their own story and they freely construct elaborate lies to reinforce their story. Sociopaths are afraid of the truth so they shelter themselves inside a story. An extreme sociopath is a person who begins to believe their own story and they feel justified in lying to preserve the bases of their story. Today I am going to write about a form of sociopath behavior called institutionalism. Lets look deeper into the causes behind this sociopath behavior called institutionalism…

What happens when a Christian feels obligated to God? What happens when a wife feels obligated to her husband? What happens when a husband feels obligated to his wife? What happens when a child feels like a grade? What happens when an employee feels like a slave? What happens when life feels like a performance, when everything and everyone around you become the props? What does it mean when your passion is gone and you’ve lost touch with both your own humanity and the humanity of others? What does it mean when every day feels the same… that is if you can even still feel? What happens when a woman stays married only because she has no other place to go or no other way to provide for herself? What happens when a man stays married out of guilt, obligation or because the price of marriage is cheaper then the price of divorce? What happens when you go to a building called a church because you have to go and not because you want to go? What happens when life starts to get so cold that your longing for warmth becomes all consuming? What happens when your love for yourself begins to overcome your misery? What happens when your fear of losing everything is overcome by your fear of never finding true love? It has been said in order to win we must be willing to lose. In order to succeed we must be willing to fail. To find our life we must refuse to play it safe. Safe is not fun. Safe is not passionate. There is nothing romantic in playing life safe. Institutionalism is a form of sociopath behavior where playing it safe or feeling stuck leads to living a lie.

Now here is the truth… we all have felt stuck and will feel stuck many times through-out our lives. Life was never meant to be institutionalized and yet many have turned life itself into one big institution. We work because we have to, stay married because we have to and go to church because we have to. I personally believe that love and obligation are mortal enemies, but institutionalism attempts to merge love and obligation. What if life had no strings attached? What if freedom was just a decision? What if a husband and wife were held together by passion, not obligation? What if you could get a new job doing something you enjoyed, so that you didn’t feel like a slave? What if college isn’t for everyone and what if I told you that some of the wealthiest people in the world never graduated from college? If you are feeling stuck then why don’t you look your fears dead in the eyes or at least have the courage to open your eyes? It is surprisingly obvious when a person has lost their passion for you. It is obvious when your boss doesn’t see you the same anymore. It is obvious when you are failing at something or wasting your time? Time is precious, so why would you want a lie built upon obligation instead of a life built upon passion? Why would a person live a lie married to a person they don’t really love or stay married to a person who doesn’t really love them? Why would you want to waste your life in a dead end job or a job that makes you feel dead? Why would you want to keep banging your head against the wall over and over again? If you fail to reveal the truth on your terms eventually the truth will be revealed on its own terms. If you fail to use the truth to set yourself free you will live a lie not a life. We have two choices we can fall on the truth or the truth will fall down upon us. We will either empower ourselves with the truth or the truth will crush us. Why? because the truth is unstoppable.

To be enlightened is to become the truth. The truth flows like water. We must live like water and learn to flow. When water sits in the same place too long it becomes smelly, rotten and it stagnates. What if freedom was just a choice? What if you could be married to a person who truly loved you or be with a person that you truly loved? What if you could make money doing something you enjoyed and even without a college degree? I am realizing more then ever before in my own life that I am never stuck. Today I continue to make the decisions required to live in freedom. I have become an observer of truth. Observation leads to questioning and questioning leads to the truth and truth leads to freedom. I believe life is a journey to freedom that begins the day we are born. All of us have the freedom to make choices that lead to love. I am here today to tell you that you are never stuck. If each day you wake up next to a person you don’t love or next to a person who doesn’t love you, make a change because you both deserve better. You deserve better then to live in fear. You are not obligated to a sovereign God. You deserve better then a dead end job. Quit identifying with what you do. You are not a maid, a paycheck or a grade. You always have a choice and the second that you deny yourself a choice… that very second you have become institutionalized. Love is not a “have to”… love is a “want to”. Love and obligation are mortal enemies that when combined produce institutionalism. Institutionalism is a cold passionless existence, spent going through the motions. Institutionalism is living without being fully alive. If you want to play it safe in life then prepare for a cold, passionless life of obligation. If you want to be free then start questioning everything that is cold and passionless in your life. You deserve better. Time is precious, so why would you want a “lie” built upon obligation instead of a “life” built upon passion?

I love people and I hate fear. When I see people gripped by fear it breaks my heart. Here-in lies a problem because fear and false religious doctrines are often interlocked. How can one trying to eliminate fear not appear as a troublemaker when he challenges fear based doctrines? If our lives are founded upon love then love demands that we be troublemakers at times. I am not doing this for money or attention I am doing this for love. I don’t go to church and I am not selling anything. What I am trying to do is rid the world of fear and you can join me in this fight. If you think deeply it is not hard to realize that fear is behind every religion and every war we have ever fought making fear responsible for the deaths of millions of people. When a person commits suicide it is often because their fear of death is overcome by their fear of life. Nearly every psychological dysfunction is rooted in fear. The more I have meditated upon fear the more determined I become to rid the world of fear. Why don’t you join me on this mission… the first step is restoring your own childlike faith and ridding your own life of fear. Once you rid your own life of fear it immediately begins to benefit your spouse and it will literally transform the future of your children. After you see how eliminating fear helps your family you will soon begin to see how it helps other things like your relationships and your career. The elimination of fear makes it easier to both love and receive love and so you as a person will become more lovable. All this starts when you begin to love yourself so much that you no longer tolerate fear in your life. Maybe it starts when someone loves you enough to send you a note just like this note. OK, so let the battle begin. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. If you are reading this it is because I love you…

We all have equal access to spiritual enlightenment. Many have and many will come in the form of the truth incarnate… known as spiritual enlightenment. Deity exists in everything… Jesus said those who seek shall find. Jesus is God and yet God is in everything. Spiritual enlightenment in general is God… Why? because truth, reality and fully living in the present moment is experiencing God. God is all. Can we worship a tree or an animal? of course not because a tree and an animal are a part of the greater whole… We can only worship what this moment holds because all we hold is this moment. God is one and the entire universe is His reflection. I have seen religion lead people deep into depression… even suicide in a few cases. Religion is man’s attempt to control God. Religion is man’s attempt to herd people like cattle. Walking away from religion makes life better in every sense. Life inside a box is very limiting. Leaving the box of religion will add more life to your marriage; it will improve your income, deepen your friendships and increase your personal feeling of well being. When I stopped attending church I became more at peace then ever before in my life. My own personal reality has become evidence that leaving religion was the best decision I’d ever made. When I thought I had God all figured out it became a great obstacle to my spiritual growth. When I subscribed to teachers who thought they had God all figured out I lived inside their box. The true evidence of ones spiritual practice is their life. When you see the paradox of suffering and joy working together to grow a person then you have witnessed something truly spiritual. When you witness the paradox of love and facing fear working in unison to free a person you have seen something spiritual.

What did spirituality look like before religion? When you can answer that question then you have found true spirituality. Hinduism alone out dates Judaism by thousands of years. What did spirituality look like before Judaism? What did spirituality look like before Hinduism? How did native mankind… including Native Americans connect with God before religion? Answering the above questions takes courage, but the answers lead to true spirituality. What did spirituality look like before the Bible, or church buildings or temples? Remember that the truth unites. All truth is one. After studying the words of Buddha it became apparent that Jesus and Buddha taught identical messages. Buddha taught the same truths as Jesus, only Buddha existed around 500 years before Jesus existed. Now honestly I am not a Buddhist… in fact I will never be apart of any ism or anity ever again. I will never subscribe to any elitist systems. I will never attend heartless meetings or isolate myself to any particular group or category of people. I will never practice cold rituals or follow empty traditions… A man who is truly free will refuse to identify with or to be defined by any system or any person. A free man doesn’t tie his income to his spirituality lest he become a hypocrite or cause his family to live in poverty. A free man isn’t required to warn people he doesn’t know of that which he cannot say for sure. What does spirituality look like… you ask? It looks like a life lived in freedom.

Here is truth… Love leads… while fear threatens… Love gives… while fear takes… Love frees… while fear attempts to gain control. Even Jesus said “those who seek will find”. I don’t live in fear so my words are not polluted by fear. I don’t even believe in the existence of “a healthy fear”. A wise man replaces fear with a form of commonsense that can only be obtained through love. Those who refuse to be lead by love create their own enslavement to fear. The new testament of the Bible defines this as the law vs. grace. The law destroys while grace brings life. We are not under the law, but some choose to place themselves under the law. The law is symbolic of religion… and religion is man’s attempt to control God. Mankind has always sought to control that which he fears. At the heart of religion is a fearful attempt to control, but at the heart of grace is a loving attempt to free. Love and fear are the Yin and Yang of the universe. Life is a scale between love and fear. Love opens our eyes, but fear blinds us. Love is light, but fear is darkness. Love is hot, but fear is cold. Fear crushes people… and love puts them back together. Fear leaves people blind, naked, cold, hungry, thirsty, wounded and alone on a road awaiting the Good Samaritan, but all too often religion gets to them first. Religion exploits the weak and vulnerable. Religion blinds, enslaves and robs people enslaved by fear. Fear comes in many flavors which include guilt, insecurity, jealousy, greed and egotistical behavior all these are forms of fear. Many cultures are built upon fear including religions, governments and corporate cultures. Many Psychological dysfunctions are built upon fear. All the wars in our world are centered on fear. When fear is done away with all become one. The only evil in the world is the fear that veils the fact that all are one.

Last night memories of my past were brought to the surface briefly when I drove past a bunch of religious people holding signs that said repent on the corner of a busy intersection. I used to be a person who handed out Bible tracts to random people on street corners. I used to tell people that Jesus loves them. I used to pride myself on how many people I evangelized each day. I actually grew a public high school Bible study to around 40 kids when I was only 17 years old. I spent at least four nights a week at church then another 2 nights a week on street corners evangelizing people. I spent about 6 years of my life being called an on fire Christian, and then I spent the next couple years attending a Bible college until I graduated. Now in this present moment I am trying to make sense of the 8 years of my life spent being gripped by religion.

In 1990 I actually had a reverse conversion experience prior to attending a small Bible college. At 18 years old I went from an on fire Christian to feeling there was something missing in my life. I told my parents that I was afraid that my heart was drifting and asked them to force me to go to Bible College in the event that I changed my mind. I started going to night clubs where the lights, the beautiful women and the music felt like a piece of Heaven to me. At that point the youth pastor told me that I had to make a choice between being a high school counselor and dancing. The youth pastor said the head pastor was against dancing and therefore he also had to be against dancing (under his breath he confessed that he would have dancing at his wedding). I looked the youth pastor in the eyes and said I choose dancing because I don’t care about the title of being a high school counselor. When I look back I am thankful for this youth pastor because he triggered the anger that freed me from religion.

As I attended Bible College I started questioning everything I believed. By the time I graduated from Bible College in 1992 I was convinced the institutional church was evil. I began writing rebuking articles directed at the church back then of which I still possess. For the first time in my life I felt free inside and out. Over the course of the next 3 years I went out dancing, drinking and truly living from my heart. For the first time in my life I wasn’t living to please God or others and it was absolutely exhilarating. In the midst of this freedom I found true love that replaced the counterfeit love of the church. Every past Christian friend I had easily forgot I even existed. As the many Christian friends I once had refused to reach out to me it became apparent that these friendships were not real. The results of questioning everything I believed actually awakened me from the deep trance of religion. My questioning revealed the difference between truth and lie, friend and foe. Even now as I write this note I am still giving myself new freedoms to question, so many things. Thanks to backsliding I met my wife, I decided not to waste my life playing pastor and on this day I don’t answer to God or people, instead only love is my judge.

When I look back on what I used to believe I laugh. I used to believe that God was an advocate of human sacrifice. I used to call a book that approved of racism, sexism, genocide and slavery the word of God. I used to believe that I was put on this earth to perform like a circus monkey for God to get God to throw me peanuts based on my performance. I used to completely discount science calling it an attempt to eliminate the existence of God. My religious behavior was just me trying to convince myself that I was better then everybody else. Christianity was only a cheap attempt to believe I was somebody because deep inside I believed I was nobody. I embraced religion like some sort of drug to feel better about myself and just like all other addictive substances the artificial high kept wearing off. Christianity was my drug of choice and the institutional church was like a drug pusher that sent me out to evangelize. A drug pusher tries to get you addicted, so you have to keep coming back for more. A drug pusher tries to get you indebted, so you too have to become a drug dealer to in order to pay for your expensive habit. The institutional church makes you feel indebted to God by telling you you’re a sinner over and over again. The institutional church is guilty of creating an abusive God who is a monster that demands blood to appease Him. I recently watched a documentary that traced the religious practice of human sacrifice back to a day long before Judaism even existed. The Jews actually stole the idea of blood sacrifice from the belief systems that existed long before Judaism. Judaism is guilty of embracing the angry God of the pagans that existed for thousands of years before Judaism. Today the very idea of God demanding a human sacrifice sounds so primitive and yet many people embrace this brutal idea.

Some at this point will ask me what I believe about Jesus. Jesus was hailed by three wise men from the east who were not Jews and Christianity did not even exist yet. Who were the three wise men guided to Jesus by their practice of Astrology? When I open my heart to the truth it has become apparent that Jesus was a spiritually enlighten teacher who was exploited by religion. I believe that Jesus was a martyr for the truth. I believe in the wisdom of Jesus, I even believe Jesus was the truth incarnate. Was Jesus the only individual that existed through-out history who was the truth incarnate? NO! Even Jesus points to John the Baptist as Elijah reborn. Now this brings me back to the beginning of this article. Remember when I mentioned the religious people on the corner holding the repent signs? When John the Baptist cried out repent, it was not in a religious way. Even baptism was originally a pagan practice hijacked by the religion of Judaism. John the Baptist was actually speaking out against traditional temple Judaism. Matthew 3:7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Why did both John the Baptist and Jesus come? The Kingdom of God was hijacked by religion and John and Jesus came to take the Kingdom of God back by force. Matthew 11:12 From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it. Jesus own words declare that the kingdom of God can be raided by force or by religion. Today the institutional church is exploiting Jesus via religion and attempting a monopoly on the kingdom of God. If we want to be like Jesus then we need to refuse to be enslaved by any and all religious institutions… even if it gets us crucified.

In order to keep our freedoms from destroying us we need two characteristics, which are courage and respect. Let’s say you had a car that could go real fast, so fast that you bragged about it to all your friends. What if you lacked experience driving a fast car, but in a lack of respect for its speed you insisted on driving it? What if you lacked the courage to drive it and kept it parked in your driveway? OK… Here is another example: What if you were incredibly knowledgeable, but lacked the courage to look for a job that fully utilized your knowledge? What if you just graduated with a master’s degree YET without any respect for experience started interviewing for management positions? Freedom without respect is knowledge without wisdom (experience). Freedom without courage is the fear of potential.

Everything destructive in our world is born out of freedom that lacks control. Freedom means access and access often leads to trouble or living in fear of trouble. In today’s society we have free & easy access to so many things. Where freedoms increase responsibility must follow or freedom itself becomes destructive. In today’s society people have easy access to both drugs and doctors. Our doctors are rewarded for over-prescribing medication. What if I gave my 5 year old child an unlimited supply of candy? Our prisons are full of people who took freedom too far. We are free to desire material goods, but to steal is wrong. We are free to be angry at a person, but to murder them is wrong. We are free to admire a woman, but to rape her in your heart or in reality is wrong. I challenge you to find one harmful thing that is not freedom taken too far. Just because we can doesn’t mean we should. Just because we want to do something doesn’t make it right.

Some dysfunctions are born out of the fear of freedom. Think about fear and how freedom can actually fuel fear. Our freedom to love can create the fear of love. Our freedom to fly can create a fear of heights. Most people have a subconscious fear of their own potential. Our freedom causes the greatest harm when we use our freedom to run from reality. Think about all the dysfunctions linked to the fear of freedom. Dysfunctions linked to freedom are the fear of intimacy, the fear of commitment and the fear of being wrong (living in denial). Jealousy is the fear of giving someone the freedom not to love us. An introvert may fear the freedom to connect, while an extrovert may fear the freedom of solitude. Many people addicted to substances have a deep seated fear of reality (fear of the light). Some people get lost in the freedom to search for reality (fear of the dark).

Many of the same dysfunctions can be born out of both the abuse of freedom and the fear of freedom. A workaholic could be abusing freedom by loving money and materialism to a point where it becomes damaging. YET a workaholic could also be afraid that the freedom to rest may lead to poverty. Greed is a form of fear. All and all we need to learn that we cannot abuse or fear freedom without harming others. All addictive behavior is born out of the abuse of freedom or the fear of freedom. Abusing freedom leads to eat leads some to obesity and the fear of this freedom leads others to anorexia. The freedom to lust leads some to be promiscuous and others to fear sex all together. Abusing freedom leads some to laziness and others to fear laziness ultimately becoming workaholics. Our freedom gives us the ability to either destroy ourselves or build ourselves up. Freedom is by far nothing to brag about because without control we walk a dark path that will inevitably lead us to crash and burn. When we harm ourselves we hurt both those who love us and those who don’t even know us. Freedom puts some behind the wheel of a car while intoxicated as in an out of control person can lead to an out of control car.

In conclusion, I have to ask where do we find the balance on the scale of freedom? It has to be true love that leads us to respect freedom without fearing freedom. True love gives us the courage to exercise freedom without abusing freedom. YET when our freedoms generate fear in others will often lead them to persecute us or avoid us. For example if a person fears the freedom to question reality… then our questioning of reality will make them uncomfortable. This is why all extreme positions in politics and religion are rooted in the fear of freedom. Freedom needs to be respected, but never feared. When we fear the freedom to look outside the box, we become the prey of various political or religious institutions that seek to control us. A religious or political cult is simply an institution that discourages you from looking outside their box.

I leave you with self challenging questions:

How has your fear of freedom cause destruction in your life?

How has your fear of freedom caused destruction in others lives?

How has your abuse of freedom caused destruction in your life?

How has your abuse of freedom caused destruction in others lives?