David Truman - Freedom of Thought

David: Freedom of thought -- what is that? Are you a free thinker just because you're a chronic rebel and a rugged individualist -- even to the point of not thinking about the downsides of your rugged individualism? And even to the point of defending your own thought processes indiscriminately?

Jesus: If you wanted to put it simply, you can say: Humanity should act and think freely, and they should freely tune their thoughts and actions according to what their heart feels and sees about those actions, their origins, their results, etc. You see?

David: Okay, so yes, the freedom to blindly follow a philosophy without the application of intelligence, discernment, and heart-feeling is problematical.

Jesus: Yes, and therefore it begs the question, why is it called free thought or free action if one's own intelligence and sensitivity is not involved in the discernments that determine those thoughts and actions? You know? What makes that free if it is not coming from who you are? It is not free. It is running a program if it is not coming from who you are.

And you can say this: If you want to run a program, you have the freedom to run a program. Alright? A person can run a program all they want, but they can't fool me or anyone else into thinking that that makes them more free than somebody who is acting according to their innate sensitivity and conscience, and their heartfelt desires and love. It's just that they are exercising their free will by running a program, and therefore they are actually less free.

David: Yeah, they create a gold standard and try their best to conform to it. And since they've established that as a gold standard, if their conformance is good, then they consider themselves by definition a superior being. In other words, "This is the standard and I am meeting it, or trying hard to meet it. Therefore, to the extent that I meet this standard, I am excellent and superior." Right? You set up the definition: All people who walk backwards to every place are the best people. Now: "I walk backwards quite a bit, I must be quite superior!"

Jesus: Yeah, and that is what people do. They create a program, they run that program, they don't look at the results, they don't get their heart involved, they don't get their intelligence involved, they don't get their sensitivity involved. They just run that damn program, damn the consequences, damn the costs, until one day they are miserable and alone and they've run their programs successfully for 80 years.

David: Yeah. Or the fundamentalist dentist I had who asked me about my spiritual beliefs, and as part of that he asks, "Are you reading your Bible?" And I said, "Well, not really, not much." And he got a look of grave concern on his face and started to inform me that there wasn't any possible way that I could be a righteous spiritual individual otherwise. See? He had a yardstick by which to measure spiritual rectitude, and he was using it faithfully.

Jesus: Very faithfully.

David: So therefore he couldn't help but pity all those who were not walking according to that drummer. And nor could he help but idolize those who were.

Jesus: Yeah. And then you've also got people like the man who is afraid of commitment, yes? He will not commit, and he will fight in order to not commit, and he will give up the ones that he loves in order to not commit. What is he left with? All he has left is his will not to commit. He gains nothing from that.

No program of thought, action, or behavior that you commit to inflexibly leaves you with anything else. You know what I mean? You always only end up with that program left. Why is that freedom? All it does is chain you to one modality of action for your whole life.

David: Yes, at the cost of almost everything your heart could love.

Jesus: Yeah, and the Bible studier is a good example. He can't go with what his heart says about something, because maybe a few thousand years ago in a book it was written something else. He won't save the lamb on the Sabbath day because the book says don't do a darn thing on the Sabbath day except worship.

David: Mm hm, yeah, that's a great example.

Jesus: Yeah, and I'm glad it exists. I'm glad that one got written down, you know? (laughs)

David: Yeah, really good. You know, for all the evils of your official position as The Great One, there are some very significant benefits that are coming from it all the time.

Jesus: You are right about that, brother.

David: The fact that people can use you as an example that everyone must inherently and dogmatically accept -- it makes your gold standard status a real useful tool. So this is good brother, you can be glad about that.

Jesus: I am, brother. My brother.

David: This one example, I will use it: the sheep and the Sabbath.

So there is an iconoclast, an example of a rebel who would not in fact surrender to a dogmatic system of action, and in so doing was heart-led; and then we have ones that are doing the same thing, and therefore they also are spontaneous and they also are not exactly laying down in subservience to some sort of religious dogmas. But their twisted course is driven by ego whim and personal desires.

Jesus: I wish that they would be honest. The truth is, the ones that want to "think for themselves," in the sense that they don't care what anybody else thinks -- they have made it be that that's what it means to think for themselves simply because they don't have any other good excuses to do that, you know? In all honesty, it is obvious that a person can think for themselves, and part of that thinking or that thoughtfulness would include taking input from others. Responding righteously, thoughtfully to that which happens, that which is demanded, that which is suggested, rather than reactively pushing it away. It is obvious that that is true thinking for yourself.

You see, anything that is made into a dogmatic gold standard will eventually disgust the heart and soul, no matter what it is, because the heart and soul is by nature loving and responsive.

David: As soon as you find a person who is really quite dead set on some sort of method, ideal, or way, even that brings up a feeling of disgust or pity. There's a sense in which no narrow person is truly glorious or enviable. Even though it's important to say that any person who commits themselves wholeheartedly to any endeavor over a period of time could be truly laudable in so doing.

Jesus: Yes, it could be the right thing, whatever it is, if it's the right time for it.

David: The trouble with the damn truth, brother, is that you have to be sensitive to really grasp it.

Jesus: Yeah, you can't quite pin it down.

David: Yeah. It keeps putting you in a position where you have to use your head!

Jesus: That's the truth. You are right.

You know, all the different examples you have given apply to what we just talked about -- about how one's personal fears, limitations, and desires shape a philosophy, like about the Bible or whatever. A person who is afraid of their own and everybody else's perceived inability to make good judgments, to do right by life, is into the Bible. It gives security. You know?

Therefore many rules are created out of either personal fears or personal desires that then the person will make into a dogma -- including "everyone ought to think for themselves."

David: Yeah, that's a very good point. They're afraid of having to use sophisticated heart discernment and sensitivity. Instead, they can take refuge in a single rule: "Don't worry about what anyone else thinks."

Jesus: Yeah, they can take refuge in that, and therefore they can serve their desire to just do what they want. And they can live by their various fears that they have of taking responsibility for a truly right and thoughtful life.

David: Like, "Never take a teacher, because that would make you into a robot."

Jesus: Yes! You see?

David: And you're saying, why, what makes that necessarily so?

Jesus: It's an insane thought, you see, to say that anything is always true -- anything. You know?

David: Mm hm. And, if you see a problem with something, why not set yourself to correct it rather than simply run from it on account of the fact that someone has misused it, someone has fallen into the pitfall. You know, like: "There are these people, read it in the papers, that have done this blind faith obedience to their stupid teacher."

Jesus: Yes. But you have to throw away everything, if you throw away anything on account of that. You see? There is nothing that hasn't been ruined by somebody. You know? And therefore, why are they applying this standard in such a spotty way? You know? Marriage has been ruined by many people. There are a lot of people who want to get married. Percentage-wise I would say there have been more terrible marriages than there have been terrible mentor/student relationships. And yet they are more afraid of teachers than they are afraid of marriage. Not that I encourage them to be afraid of marriage, but you see what I'm saying.

David: Yeah.

Jesus: They are very spotty on the application of these dogmas, depending on their desires.

David: But the thing is, the one who ruined all those marriages, and who made a sham out of those student/teacher relationships, is the one who is using these missteps as its excuse. In other words, the villain in all of those scenes -- the bad marriage being egoized and ruined, the teacher relationship being egoized and ruined, and then the ego, stripping life of its riches by recommending that we avoid all these things -- that ego villain is ever-present in all these scenes. And if one saw that that villain had brought all these things to ruin, one would also be able to realize that if it got a hold of one's own life, it could ruin that too.

Jesus: It could ruin everything. You see? And therefore, in your marriage, in your relationship with a teacher, in whatever, the statistics in the world don't count when it comes to you, at all. What counts is how much ego you bring. You know? You have 0% chance of success if you're being an egomaniac in anything. And you have 100% chance of success if you're being a wholehearted ego-transcending person in any kind of relationship. You see? The percentage in the world is not what determines the odds for you. You see what I mean?

David: Yeah, you determine the odds.

Jesus: You determine your own odds. You see? Let's say only 10% of people who wanted to go to medical college get to go. What are the chances for you? Well, are you a slacker, or are you studying damn hard? You see? That's gonna determine a lot about it. Let's say 50% of marriages end in divorce. Well what are the odds? People say, "Oh, if I get married there's a 50% chance I'll get divorced."

David: Yeah, as if I'm at the effect of those statistics. As if I am the result of a statistic, and not of my own effort.

Jesus: Yes. Exactly. What's true is if you have two people who actually love each other...

David: They have 100% chance of success.

Jesus: Yes, exactly. That's the truth. And if you have a teacher who you choose because of your actual heart commitment to rightness and to love, and you live with them and base that relationship on that, then there is 100% chance of success. If you choose a teacher because you want to get some kind of goodie, then there is about 100% chance of heartbreak. You know what I mean? Which is why most people choose teachers, cause they want a goodie.

David: Yeah, they want a goodie, and they want a salesman who will market them a goodie with lies.

Jesus: Yeah. And that's like a girl getting married for money. You could say to her later, when she's all miserable about the state of her relationship, "You know, this is what you bought into. You wanted money. You chose your man based on that. If you had wanted a functional love relationship you should have chosen based on some other..."

David: I got it, brother! Statistics are effects. They are not causes. But what are they effects of? You see? If a person wanted to get up a little earlier and look at the situation honestly, statistics are effects, not causes. Effects of what? What caused that part of the statistic that you want to be in, to be what it is? And what caused the part that you don't want to be in, to be what it is? That's great, huh?

Jesus: Yeah. So you know, all these people are living with all kinds of fears and desires that cause them to come up with ideas that they cling to as if that were their safe haven. You know?

David: 70% didn't fail because 70% failed. That's not why they failed.

Jesus: Yeah, exactly. You're right.

David: I'm sorry brother. I interrupted you. But I think that's important.

Jesus: It is important, brother. Yes. So therefore the results that are being created by the masses are not what you should judge your own life by, form your ideas based on, use as some kind of measure. If you're at a school where most kids are lazy and they're all getting C's, that doesn't make a C a good mark. You know what I mean?

And therefore the true freedom is the freedom from ideas that have been created out of personal fears and desires in spite of heart sensitivity -- ideas that one clings to that are created out of fears and desires, and the results that you see in the world that help fuel those fears in particular. You see? Freedom from those ideas, including the idea that you have to think for yourself. That you have to.

David: Yeah. And, there is a rightness in that too, thinking for oneself. By thinking for yourself you come to understand the limitations of thinking for oneself, or thinking without input.

Jesus: Yeah, you are right. So that was phrased wrong. The idea that you have to think by yourself is the problem.

David: By yourself. Yeah. Thinking for yourself does not mean being closed-minded.

Jesus: Yes. Actually thinking for yourself is the answer to all these problems that we have been discussing. You know what I mean?

David: It absolutely is.

Jesus: What they call "thinking for yourself" is causing all these problems. And the real solution is actual thinking for yourself.

David: That's exactly right. So, good! So we can come squarely on the side of thinking for oneself without apology. And we can say, a real thinker has enough space on thinking to analyze the effectiveness of his thinking.

Jesus: Yeah. That is not true thinking at all, to ignore the effects of one's thinking. And even in many cases to ignore reality. Many people think thinking for yourself is choosing your idea and then sticking with it. You know?

David: Yeah. The hallmark of a truly free thinker is that he is instantaneously and always willing to question his own thinking.

Jesus: Yes, of course he is. You're right.

David: That would be freedom: freedom from what I think or believe.

Jesus: Freedom of thought. True freedom. Freedom from one's own thoughts and ideas enough to think. You know?

David: Yeah, healthy detachment, even from your own views.

Jesus: Yeah, not to be stuck in them. Not to be too attached to any idea, and therefore, "I am thinking for myself. Never mind what I think that's other than this thought. I'm sticking to this one. I'm going to defend it. Keep this mind on track." That is not thinking for oneself.

David: Great. We got it. Thank you, brother. You did great! My man. You are great. I love you back.

Jesus: I love you back. (they hug)

David: Thank you.