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FREE: The Inside-Out Guide to Life, Unlimited
Many of us yearn for more freedom. Many of us feel trapped or stuck. And, as a result, we suffer. It looks like freedom depends on having more of what we think we need and less of what seems to be in the way. So we try to create the perfect life or turn ourselves into the perfect person. But even when we have what we thought we needed and even when we have ditched what we thought was in the way, we still don’t feel free. There just seems to be more to have and more to ditch. We still feel limited and trapped. In FREE we explore why that is and what it actually means to live a life of no limits. FREE goes to the heart of some of the most embedded misunderstandings of our time and invites us to gain a whole new perspective on who we are and what we think we need. We will realise that freedom is not what we think it is. And we are not the trapped individual we believe ourselves to be. This realisation opens up the space of intelligence, love and freedom that is our true nature. This is life without limits. This is freedom.
178 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 9, 2018
85 people are currently reading
16 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 15, 2018
I really tried to follow this book and get what she was saying, but I didn't. A little too far out there for me, a little too much we're just a brain in a vat kind of thinking.
She says we misunderstand our ability to have freedom because of these 3 ideas:
1. Our belief that we are are who we think we are
2. Our belief that we are separate from objects, others, and circumstances.
3. Our belief that we have free choice.
So to make her point on number 2, she talks about how we can perceive a table differently in the moment we are in, I get that, I can see how I would feel differently let's say sitting around the table enjoying a meal with my family as opposed to sitting at the table paying bills. But that doesn't mean the table doesn't exist.
She says, "A reality in which it looks like there is a table there, for sure, but in which we are the awareness that the entire experience of that table is created through thought in the moment."
The table is still there whether I'm thinking about it or not. So is the broken down car in my driveway I need to fix. It doesn't matter if I think it's a blessing or a curse, a good thing or a bad thing. The fact is the car exists and is still sitting in my driveway waiting for me to fix it and I am in fact separate from the car and the table. They exist whether I am there or not.
I also don't get point number 3 that we have no freedom of choice, that it's just all an illusion. Her weird point is we don't really choose because thoughts come into our head from who knows where, and because we don't know where they come from we really aren't choosing. Maybe I'm just a little too old-fashioned, but we learn from a very early age our actions have consequences and so we learn to filter our thoughts and act on those that are good for us and society. According to this author if I have a thought to kill someone it's not really my choice, because I don't know where the thought came from, but I do have a choice once the thought is in my head whether to act on it or not. So I disagree.
She tries to make the point that we don't really have bodies and they can't limit us. She says, "You might already see that the body, no matter how it appears, is actually not separate from other bodies. That we are not the distinct, separate individual we believe ourselves to be. That the body itself is illusory." Tell that to my out of shape self trying to walk up a flight of stairs. She says that we experience ourselves and other people through our thoughts so if someone dies they haven't actually gone anywhere because if they are alive or dead we experience them the same through our thoughts. I disagree, people are physical and real. I can't ask my deceased father for advice on a problem or feel the warmth of his hugs, can I?
Later in the book, the author tries to make a really convoluted point that empathy for others isn't real, because we can't have the exact same experience as another person, which is stupid. I don't need to have the exact same experience as someone else to know if they are hurting or not. I mean we might as well be no different than an animal if we say that empathy is not real. Empathy is what separates us from a cow or a lion. I strongly disagree with her point and it's where I decided to end my reading of this book.
Here's the quote that cinched it for me, "We start to notice how the hell of other people is really the heaven. The heaven of being given a body and a human experience and senses and feelings and a roller coaster ride from joy to distress, love to hate. This is what people queue for hours for in Disney Land. This is being alive. Without that separation, without the illusion of other people, there would be no experience of self. We would not have the ability to realize that consciousness creates and allows an experience of others as if it were really coming from them." So someone else's suffering is a great thing because it shows me I'm alive? That's all I can gather that she means from this. So if I see someone in pain because they lost their significant other, or someone who lost everything in a house fire, or a woman who has just been raped, or a child who has been abandoned my first thought is great that makes me feel alive? No thanks I'll stick with empathy.
She says we misunderstand our ability to have freedom because of these 3 ideas:
1. Our belief that we are are who we think we are
2. Our belief that we are separate from objects, others, and circumstances.
3. Our belief that we have free choice.
So to make her point on number 2, she talks about how we can perceive a table differently in the moment we are in, I get that, I can see how I would feel differently let's say sitting around the table enjoying a meal with my family as opposed to sitting at the table paying bills. But that doesn't mean the table doesn't exist.
She says, "A reality in which it looks like there is a table there, for sure, but in which we are the awareness that the entire experience of that table is created through thought in the moment."
The table is still there whether I'm thinking about it or not. So is the broken down car in my driveway I need to fix. It doesn't matter if I think it's a blessing or a curse, a good thing or a bad thing. The fact is the car exists and is still sitting in my driveway waiting for me to fix it and I am in fact separate from the car and the table. They exist whether I am there or not.
I also don't get point number 3 that we have no freedom of choice, that it's just all an illusion. Her weird point is we don't really choose because thoughts come into our head from who knows where, and because we don't know where they come from we really aren't choosing. Maybe I'm just a little too old-fashioned, but we learn from a very early age our actions have consequences and so we learn to filter our thoughts and act on those that are good for us and society. According to this author if I have a thought to kill someone it's not really my choice, because I don't know where the thought came from, but I do have a choice once the thought is in my head whether to act on it or not. So I disagree.
She tries to make the point that we don't really have bodies and they can't limit us. She says, "You might already see that the body, no matter how it appears, is actually not separate from other bodies. That we are not the distinct, separate individual we believe ourselves to be. That the body itself is illusory." Tell that to my out of shape self trying to walk up a flight of stairs. She says that we experience ourselves and other people through our thoughts so if someone dies they haven't actually gone anywhere because if they are alive or dead we experience them the same through our thoughts. I disagree, people are physical and real. I can't ask my deceased father for advice on a problem or feel the warmth of his hugs, can I?
Later in the book, the author tries to make a really convoluted point that empathy for others isn't real, because we can't have the exact same experience as another person, which is stupid. I don't need to have the exact same experience as someone else to know if they are hurting or not. I mean we might as well be no different than an animal if we say that empathy is not real. Empathy is what separates us from a cow or a lion. I strongly disagree with her point and it's where I decided to end my reading of this book.
Here's the quote that cinched it for me, "We start to notice how the hell of other people is really the heaven. The heaven of being given a body and a human experience and senses and feelings and a roller coaster ride from joy to distress, love to hate. This is what people queue for hours for in Disney Land. This is being alive. Without that separation, without the illusion of other people, there would be no experience of self. We would not have the ability to realize that consciousness creates and allows an experience of others as if it were really coming from them." So someone else's suffering is a great thing because it shows me I'm alive? That's all I can gather that she means from this. So if I see someone in pain because they lost their significant other, or someone who lost everything in a house fire, or a woman who has just been raped, or a child who has been abandoned my first thought is great that makes me feel alive? No thanks I'll stick with empathy.
August 8, 2018
Reading Clare's latest book, FREE, is an inspiring and transformative experience. Clare writes with such clarity that I experience the freedom directly that she talks about as I read the book. Highly recommended - Clare is one of the most exciting new 3 Principles teachers and writers. I put her up there with Michael Neill and George Pransky as one of my favorites.
November 19, 2018
Clarity from the inside out
As I explore this fundamental understanding of life, Clare provides an opening to the vastness of our being and possibility with clarity that resonates of truth.
As I explore this fundamental understanding of life, Clare provides an opening to the vastness of our being and possibility with clarity that resonates of truth.
August 21, 2018
Hmmm
Not sure what to make of this. Bit heavy going at times with the language and difficult to "get" what it's getting at. Vague and hazy.
Not sure what to make of this. Bit heavy going at times with the language and difficult to "get" what it's getting at. Vague and hazy.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews