By now, most of us have seen the horrific images of Afghans trying to flee as the Taliban take control of Afghanistan—men and women crammed into a U.S. military cargo plane, or desperate Afghans clinging to the outside of departing military aircraft. And who can forget that heart-wrenching image of an Afghan father handing his baby over the fence to a U.S. soldier? In real time, we are witnessing a nation in panic and chaos. More than that, we are witnessing a country fighting for the most basic of all human rights—freedom! We are also seeing just how far men and women will go to be free—to raise a family, earn a living, walk down the street in peace, worship whomever they choose, and speak their minds.
Of course, if history has taught us anything, it is that pain and suffering will continue—and not everyone will find freedom, at least not in the way we usually define it.
And while some may be tempted to rail against the injustice of life (and even the finitude of life), this approach will only leave you bitter and chained to the earth, while preventing you from exploring just how powerful and free we are.
Yes, we must fight for freedom whenever we can. We must use our votes, our voices, and our actions, but we must also realize that the true path to freedom (true freedom) is an individual and spiritual journey that lives in our hearts. Fortunately, we hold this freedom in the palms of our hands.
Now, depending on where you live or the struggles you’re facing, this might seem like an overwhelming challenge, so we can no longer view the world through the same lens as before. We must redefine freedom.
In 1946, Viktor Frankl wrote Man's Search for Meaning, which provides a vivid account of his experience as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. Despite his unimaginable experiences, Frankl realized that, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own path.” And as if sending a message to our world today, Frankl also wrote: “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are faced with the challenge of changing ourselves.”.
It is a beautiful and empowering feeling. Even more so if we consider this from the perspective that this change could be a call to transform our challenges into a meaning that lives beyond the physical world—a call to define freedom as the spiritual quest to discover the part of us that lives beyond time, space, or matter—or even nationality, race, or creed. It is a call to discover the part of us that comes from (and belongs to) Eternity. The part of us that is love, hope, and freedom; and if Frankl could discover this in the midst of the Holocaust, there is hope for all of us.
Of course, this is not an excuse to ignore the freedoms that are being violated all over the world. We must not ignore pain or loss of any kind. Rather, this is our call to become more than we truly are so that we can bring more love and light into the world. After all, if we want to bring more freedom to the entire world, we should start by bringing more freedom into our own lives.
So, how do we do this?
As the great poet Rumi said: “There are many ways to kneel and kiss the ground.” Likewise, there are many ways to discover our path to spiritual freedom. And it doesn’t have to be as difficult as our minds would have us believe.
I discovered freedom for the first time through my lifelong work with Ho’oponopono, the ancient Hawaiian art of problem-solving. Through Ho’oponopono, I discovered that everything in our lives is a memory—a program playing in our memory bank (our subconscious mind)—that appears in our lives to give us the opportunity to let go and set ourselves free. You could say I learned to let go of what I am not so that I could discover who I really was—and how free I was in my natural state.
This infusion of freedom into my life led me to create Zero Frequency, a program dedicated to helping the modern world experience freedom through the fullness of the present moment (and to do so during the challenging everyday moments of our physical lives).
The truth is, it's impossible not to be free when we return to our natural state of Zero—the boundless state that arises when we live in the now—present, mindful, and free from judgment. It is in this state of consciousness that we will find our own path to spiritual freedom.
One thing is certain: the world will keep turning, shaking, and smiling, and it will challenge us in new and unexpected ways. The only question that remains is: how will we respond? Will we wither away in despair and lose hope? Or will we take root in the knowledge that we are made of love and light, and that we are free in the only place that truly matters—in our hearts and souls?