8. Inspired Self Responsibility
The practice of liberating freedom is essentially a life-long act of deprogramming the mind from irrationality and volatility and reconfiguring it toward wisdom and goodness.
As Gandhi said, “As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world . . . as in being able to remake ourselves.” He insists that we must “become the change want to see in the world.”
Liberating freedom means looking at the mind and heart as the source from which the world as we perceive it comes into being. It is from the mind that we form identities, create myths, and fabricate illusions. It is from the mind that values are forged, principles are shaped, and freedom is known. Could there be anything more important than to know one’s own mind?
Dostoevsky, the great Russian novelist, directs us to the intimate front lines of the true revolution of freedom with his summoning, “Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible, God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart. . . .”
By realizing that the heart is the source of all that we think, feel, and know—and breaking the addiction to blame—an impassioned sense of self-responsibility arises and with it — true empowerment begins. Entering the epic battle of opposing forces found in the heart of every human being is the greatest of all challenges, spiritual or otherwise.
The Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, in a letter written in 1965 to Dr. Martin Luther King, framed the task of humanity this way:
“I believe with all my heart that the monks who burned themselves did not aim at the death of the oppressors but only at a change in their policy. Their enemies are not man, but are the intolerance, fanaticism, dictatorship, cupidity, hatred, and discrimination which lie within the heart of man.
I also believe with all my being that the struggle for equality and freedom you led in Birmingham, Alabama, is not really aimed at the whites but only at intolerance, hatred, and discrimination. These are the real enemies of man, not man himself. In our unfortunate fatherland of Vietnam we are trying to plead desperately; do not kill man, even in man’s name. Please remove the real enemies of man which are present everywhere, in our very hearts and minds.”