I published this book in october 2020 when I turned 25. It was a gift to myself. I did not try to sell it or get any reviews for it. I had given this as a gift to all those who wanted to read. All those who read found it to be very interesting and insightful!
However, now as I am trying to reach out to more people with my words and ideas, I realize that this book has a lot to offer. This book is like a hidden gem. You may think there is not much in it. But if you go through it, you will not come out the same. It will make you question many things about your life and yourself!
Intellectual freedom is the freedom to choose your state of mind anytime you want. Intellectual freedom comes from the knowledge that all limitations exist only in the mind. Once the limitations are broken in the mind, one can easily take action in the outer world to progress in any area of life.
Spiritual freedom is the freedom of spirit, the knowledge of Atman, the one infinite that is behind all finite creation. The one immaterial which is behind all material. To reach that One, the non-dual is the ultimate freedom
Why I wrote this book
I had been reading a lot about spirituality and psychology. I also had a blog running with good quality and helpful posts. But for completing 25 years, I wanted to compile my understanding and extract the most meaningful things that I had learned. That is why I decided to write this short book. It also captures the sequence in which I came across these ideas throughout the years. I started with reading basic motivational stuff when I was 17, but through the next 7-8 years there was an amazing transformation in my thoughts and personality.
And that is why, this book may feel more like a story, a journey of a mind which is going through a transformation, which makes it a lot more interesting than I initially thought it would be.
This book doesn’t describe any concepts in detail. Rather it is an overview of the most important ideas on personal growth and spirituality. It is more like the foundation of my work for the next 25 years. My current work on mind gym and spiritual growth would not have come up if this book had not been written. Here are some of the words taken from the book!
Intellectual Freedom
“We notice that the majority of people are just fine with what they are. They want things and try half-heartedly to get them. If they get it, fine. If they don’t get it, they try something else. Greatness doesn’t come that way. Greatness can be achieved only through intense and focused energy put into one burning desire.”
Be it God, intellectual freedom, spiritual freedom or something else, what counts is how much you really want it. A half-hearted desire doesn‟t get you anywhere. You have to put your whole life into it. When you have that obsession with one idea, it is the beginning towards something great.
“The key to achieving irreplaceable personality is to do things over and over. Every Time you do it, you put one more piece of yourself into it. With each repetition, you see your work gaining a new element of yourself which was not there before.”
An architect must design hundreds of buildings before he can achieve his unique style. A musician must create hundreds of musical patterns to discover his own music. True power is not in a great thing done once. It is in a small effective thing done thousands of time. It generates a momentum that is just unmatched.
“You are trying really hard to get to something. You have gotten good success so far but now no matter how hard you try, you can’t seem to go any further. You are frustrated and everything within you says that you should give up and do something else.
At that time you say, “I will continue. There is no other path for me. This is the most meaningful thing I can do.” And you continue. You put even more effort than before. That is persistence.”
For persistence to work at its best, you must get energy from your burning desire. If your desire is weak, you are less likely to persist. When you are taking your first steps, the goal seems too far away. That is why persistence is so important. You start with enthusiasm, but when it fades with time you lose your power to face hardships. Persistence helps you to knock those walls.
Spiritual Freedom
“I want to become successful” is not my desire. I wasn’t born with it. I only absorbed it from the world around me as I grew up. If I drop that, I can work and rest in freedom, without being burdened constantly about being successful.
Why does everyone want to be successful? What is wrong with failing all the time? Why doesn’t anyone say, “I want to fail in life”? This question was raised to understand that objectively success is not different from failure. They both are results. The reason for one being more attractive than the other is only due to the social responses that we get. In society, success is celebrated and failure is looked down upon. But If we are looking for the truth, we don’t need to care about social views, because they are nowhere near the truth.
“Our ego wants to relive that pleasure of a single moment which ended years ago by creating its shadow. It also worries about a certain moment in a future which will come and go (if at all it comes) like a flash of lightning. When we worry about things, we prolong the anticipated moment and trace it back to spoil moment that we are living right now.”
Time is not real. It is simply an awareness which is endlessly flowing. We cannot define time because defining anything would freeze its meaning. But time never freezes. It is always flowing. And yet our mind tries to freeze it with memories and anticipations.
“Close your eyes and listen carefully to the sounds that you hear. And ask yourself, are the sounds coming from outside of you or are they inside your head? Open your eyes and see. Is what you see outside of you or is it a part of your consciousness, a part of yourself?”
Look around the room you’re in. How many different forms do you see? Walls, windows, doors, chairs, tables, various objects… The world seems to be composed of billions of different forms. But are they really different? Or is there only one?
The deception of separate forms is created because we can see the world only in parts. You have a body. It is made up of different parts, arms, legs, head, heart and many hundreds of parts. However, we know from experience that this body is one. We have only created parts because we see the world through the power of attention.
Conclusion
After everything is questioned, one starts discovering ideas that are really meaningful, ideas that point towards the ultimate truth, the freedom from all bondage. The search for success slowly transitions into a search for the ‘true self.’ The last few ideas talk about the highest levels of thought that the human race has reached. In the end, the book leaves you with a question that will make you rethink your life.
Composed of inspiring words, insights, quotes from spiritual masters, and beautiful Zen stories, this book is certainly an amazing read and will surely leave you thinking about your life, your core values, and your identity!
If you enjoyed this post, know that the book is even better! Do have a read and also rate/review the book on amazon so that others also can know about it!
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