The Paradox of Freedom

Ecstasy and Freedom

The Only Way to Be Free

True freedom is in inaction, but only action can build that freedom — and therefore that inaction — for all of humanity. Jean-Marc Tonizzo

The builder-man, the common man, never accedes to absolute freedom. He reaches only its multiple appearances (freedom to act without constraint, freedom of thought, absence of servitude, etc.). By thinking himself free to act and create as he pleases, the individual moves away from authentic freedom.

True human freedom is paradoxical. To access it, one must definitively renounce all freedoms as we ordinarily conceive them. One must abandon all claims to autonomy, all egocentric impulses. One must strip away all attachments in order to accede to the very rare status of a free man.

Only the Saint, the Ecstatic, the Sage, the Beatific Reach This State

By embodying the intimate nature of the creative principle… by becoming a creature full of love (and only that)… by becoming the receptacle of God… by personifying God on earth — man then reaches full freedom. He becomes an accomplished human.

Building the Nest of the Saint

The builder-man constructs the structures in which these accomplished humans will flourish. He gradually elaborates (without knowing it) the future space of the coming wise humanity. He fashions the vessel in which accomplished humanity will flower — free. For this, he must build, judge, demolish, execute, reflect — in short, be active within the illusion of freedom.

His reward? Partial freedoms (human rights, women's freedom, sexual freedom, freedom of the press, freedom of enterprise, etc.). The builder-man works and fights for the evolution of these freedoms. These partial freedoms contribute to the emergence of absolute human freedom.

We are in an inversely proportional system:

• The further man moves from contemplation, the more he accedes to the freedoms of liberalism. The more liberal freedom he has, the more he builds the world. And the more he is in construction, the further he moves from true and absolute freedom.
• On the contrary, the closer man comes to contemplation, to ecstasy, to absolute love, the less he acts in the world — and the closer he comes to true freedom.

During the time of construction, man must prefer the illusion of human and liberal freedoms to the absolute freedom of ecstasy.

In summary, only the state of nirvana, of beatitude, of complete detachment, allows one to be free in this determined world. Only total obedience to the creative principle (loving absolutely) can offer us absolute liberation.

Year 2001
destiny