I understand if you believe that freedom in a pandemic is an absurd idea. The times we are living in are unprecedented for our generation. You may also find yourself out of work, or that you can’t leave your house, or you’re ill, or perhaps someone close to you. And, like everyone else, you are most likely surrounded by endless stories of anguish and sorrow, economic ruin, illness, death, and a virus that seems unstoppable. It’s hard to feel free.
But what happens when we don’t feel free? It is very likely that we will also feel trapped and maybe angry or depressed. We lose hope. And, even worse, we start playing the waiting game. We wait for a vaccine, for better times, and a return to normal. We wait until we are free again. And happy. And peaceful.
Of course, the real truth is (and deep down in our hearts we know this), the pandemic is not what keeps us from being free; it is how we look at the pandemic. It is also waiting. Waiting is what makes us prisoners. Waiting is what makes us captives of our minds and slaves to the future. Simply put, waiting is hoping the world changes, instead of ourselves. Waiting is what keeps us from the present moment, and the present moment is the only place where we will ever be truly free.
Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in a narrow, cramped prison cell. Eighteen of those years were spent on a remote island, where he was forced to work alongside others in a lime quarry. He was imprisoned for all that time because of what he was: a black man. While he endured unimaginable suffering and isolation, he survived because of his unshakeable belief that his freedom (also peace and happiness) was a product of his spirit or his “interior life.” As he often said, “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.” Nelson Mandela knew what all conscious beings know: we must take responsibility for our own peace and happiness.
As I have often said, if we are searching for freedom and peace outside of ourselves, we will never find peace within. As challenging as the global pandemic may be, we have been given a unique opportunity to grow and evolve. We have been given the opportunity to use these difficult times to shift the way we look at the world, or in the words of the philosopher, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, to realize that “we are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
I have dedicated my life to this higher awareness. It is why I created Zero Frequency, a program dedicated to helping us experience the peace and fullness of the present moment (and to do it in the everyday challenging moments of our physical lives).
I call this journey a return to our natural state of Zero — the limitless state that comes when we live in the Now — present, conscious, and free of judgment. It is in this state of awareness where we will find that freedom and peace are possible, even in an imperfect pandemic world.
For many, this journey might seem like pushing a boulder uphill — hard work, painful, and even impossible. And also frightening. As Nelson Mandela said about his time in prison, “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
In my Zero Frequency program, I teach that we must conquer this fear through surrender, letting go and trust. We conquer this fear by getting rid of the memories that play inside us — the old tapes, outdated beliefs, opinions, and judgments that enslave us. We conquer this fear by becoming so clear that we can finally see what is real, and so that we can transcend our earthly challenges in pursuit of higher consciousness.
My message is clear: we must stop waiting for freedom and peace and realize that freedom and peace are already here. They are within us, and always were.
And here is the bonus, which I like to call the Universe’s great gift. Once we accept this freedom and peace as part of our new reality, we can then change the world.
And we won’t need to shout our truths from the rooftops, or tell someone how to act, or think, or what to believe. We will let our actions speak for themselves. We will inspire by example, by living a free and happy life. And from this new state of awareness (Zero), we can then expand and create a new pandemic — a pandemic of love and peace.
And I will tell you this, my friends, there is no vaccine in the world that can stop love or peace.
And it all begins the moment we choose to be free.
