Freedom: Absolute and Relative

When we think about freedom in a relative sense, we usually associate it with the freedom to simply do what we want, choose what we want, or to actualise our desires in one way or another.

But is there another definition or expression of freedom? Is it possible that we could vastly expand our understanding of what it means, based on an absolute principle – the deepest principle that underlies all of reality?

In the highest spiritual or metaphysical context, freedom is a state of liberated consciousness arising out of a direct experience of absolute reality. It is a profound release from the fundamental sense of limitation that we experience within ordinary awareness and relative reality.

Absolute freedom is the most positive, life-affirming experience we can have as a human being – the most exhilarating, liberating and intoxicating state of being that it’s possible to imagine. It’s a source of limitless inspiration, and a revelation of ultimate meaning which completely reboots our fundamental understanding of reality.

If cultivated appropriately, it is also a wellspring of seemingly infinite creativity, and the primary source of what Andrew Cohen calls spiritual self-confidence. In Andrew’s teaching, the experience of absolute freedom becomes the foundation for a deeper kind of confidence and inspiration to actualise freedom in a relative context.

So while absolute freedom is fundamentally a higher state rather than an action, it provides us with the sustenance – the spiritual fuel, the deep confidence – to make better choices and live up to our highest aspirations. It inspires and motivates a growing desire to discover and express ever greater freedom within the life we’re actually living.

Without this absolute foundation, it is almost impossible to access a deeper kind of choice-making that is ever more liberated from negative expressions of egoic desire.

Andrew Cohen invites us to explore the many different definitions and manifestations of freedom, pointing towards a new relationship to the whole idea of what freedom might mean. His evolutionary teaching adds a vertical dimension to our understanding, enabling us to reach an ever higher, more coherent, and subtle appreciation of freedom in both absolute and relative contexts.

For those of us who yearn for a more enlightened actualisation of our own agency, or freedom to choose, Andrew offers a simple and positive pathway towards greater clarity, redefining what freedom means at ground level, within the complex setting of our own lives.