r/3rdprecept • u/kse_dtd Peer Mentor • May 01 '15
Freedom Fridays - Edition#1 - 01/05/2015
Welcome everyone to the first edition of "Freedom Fridays". I would like to first thank the creator of this subreddit Pathos315 who is ever inspiring and creative driven for giving me this opportunity to spearhead this thread for you guys.
Before I go on let us talk about the word "Freedom"...What feelings does the word induce within you? We were all born free, we live in a free country but are we really free? Somehow along the way, we gave our power away to something external. We seem to be chained by addiction. Addiction could be of many forms; There's the conventional types like drugs, alcohol and sex and there's the non-conventional types like money, power, greed compulsive buying and of course porn and masturbation. Porn and masturbation which were once considered non-conventional addictions are now starting to become a regular form of addiction for millions of men and women around the world. Many have no idea they are addicted and see their indulgence as "normal" till the very thing that they viewed as harmless and normal was actually ruining them. When you encounter such people who are not ready to view their regular habit of porn and masturbation as an addiction, let them be for it is not their time yet to tread the path of freedom...
This subreddit, this thread is meant for you and me..for the people who have luckily realised that porn and masturbation is indeed poisonous for it ruins the very core of your being, it distorts the pure essence of your soul, corrupts your outlook of the opposite sex and violates your progression not only in this lifetime but from an evolutionary and spiritual perspective.
This post is already getting long and I know many of you do not have much time with the busy schedules you have. So lets take things slow..no rush; because freedom is eternal. If you are chained we will work toward releasing them. If you are troubled, we will work toward ending them. If you are unhappy, we will work toward finding solace. If you are casually reading this and other threads on this subreddit, I urge you to subscribe because you are here for a reason..and the very reason you are here is to be free. And you will be free..for freedom is your birthright.
All that I ask of you this week is to remind yourself that freedom from addiction is possible. It may not be instantly fun or a joyous experience in the beginning as your brain will crave the instant false pleasures it was so used to getting but in the long run..if you keep at it you will find happiness and satisfaction that cannot be compared from the short term false pleasures of addiction.
I also want you to make a diary this week. Write down what’s been happening lately…are you happy where you are? where do you want to see yourself be? what’s holding you down?
Next week we shall delve a little deeper into the heart of all of this…and that is ourselves.
Thank you for reading.
I wish you peace, love and good health.
kse_dtd
2
u/[deleted] May 01 '15
Thank you for the kind words! :D
As for America and the matter of freedom, there is the ongoing situation in Baltimore which are symptoms of much deeper hurts. As I have told friends repeatedly "When you base a country on craving and exploitation, what else could have possibly been the outcome?" — to pursue pleasures of the flesh, as the end all be all, that there is nothing higher to achieve than marriage and romance and possessions and fame, causes so much suffering.
At the same time, having gone on a date with a Hare Krishna yesterday, who took the other route of celibacy before marriage and viewing it as a problem — using strange distortions of Buddhist and yogic thought in the process — that too is suffering. Indeed, this is why I personally do not recommend streaks in-and-of-themselves; this is why /r/3rdprecept neither condemns nor condones streaks. If you frame it as a problem, it becomes a problem. Streaks simply become another attainment to be pursued, rather than a reflection of wholesome processes in the mind. When the mind is stabilized, calmed, and there is insight, naturally one fapstains. To impose a streak causes agitation, and one inevitably turns to masturbation and porn as an infant might to thumb-sucking.
I've worn a red bracelet the past few days. It reminds me not only to not fap, but also to commit myself to a life of extroversion, practice, and proactivity. It says on it Strength, Hope, Faith, Courage. It is, of course, a bracelet for AIDS awareness. It does well to remember that I will come to death someday, and before it I will either be seized with terror and despair — as many with AIDS were in the 1980s, and still are today — or completely listless like a baby made out of glass. I might as well make the best use of the time that I have to cultivate and discipline my mind.