The Path to Freedom

Teorija i iskustvo

No matter how much we explain to someone what the taste of an apple is like, the smell of a pine tree, or the color of a sunflower, our description and their imagination will never be able to encompass or replace the unique direct experience of a person who would bite into an apple, smell a pine tree, or see a sunflower.

On the other hand, if we skillfully, purposefully, and meaningfully use theory and conceptual knowledge, they can be the roots from which a beautiful (unique) tree springs through experience. They also give us a reference point for better understanding our personal, lived experience.

Theory and experience are thus very closely interconnected: theory gives experience a frame and possibility of deeper understanding; experience gives theory meaning and constantly assesses its validity.

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Integrative and holistic approach

Integrative means incorporating diverse, mutually complementary elements.

Holistic means that we do not break something down mechanically, rigidly, into its constituent elements, but rather view it as a whole, which is greater and different than its interdependent parts – just like we are as human beings.

My understanding and approach are a combination of Buddhist psychology and philosophy, contemporary psychology and various psychotherapy approaches - Gestalt therapy and approaches based on mindfulness. In the background is my personal path of practice and reflection.

Human beings represent holistic uniqueness. Due to interbeing of countless causes and conditions, inside and outside of us, we are in an endless process of change. We are a reflection of all prior causes and current conditions - which are immediately different with each passing moment.

We are the process of change.

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Our Personal Experience in the Present Conditions

I encourage us to explore what is beneficial and liberating for each of us personally at this moment and in the present conditions, bearing in mind our wider environment - our situation, and our relationship with it.

We seek to recognize what is supportive, healing, beneficial, empowering, and fulfilling for us. We seek to realize how we can relate more skillfully and wisely to the totality of the present moment – ​​to ourselves, others, and the wider environment.

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Let's explore your Path

Each of us has our own reality, our own subjective world.

This world of ours consists of all that we experience as “I, me, mine” and all that we experience as “not-me” It also includes that interrelationship – what happens between “me” and “not-me.”

"Me” represents the entirety of what we experience. Our body, feelings, perceptions, thoughts, emotions, volition, and consciousness itself.

“Not-me” is everything we see as separate from ourselves. However, it does not only refer to our current environment. In the broadest sense, it is everything in the past, present and future in our immediate space but also outside of it, which in some way affects us or we affect it. It is everything with which we are in interrelation.

The real question is how aware are we, of what is available here, now, in our world?

Everything is here, present at every moment, just within reach. However, it is quite possible and very likely that our experience rarely confirms this. This may seem as very unrealistic or mere idealism to us. Let us therefore ask ourselves a few questions, as an introduction to our Path:

Where are we stuck in the originally fluid and ever-changing process of existence?

What fixed patterns, rigid “personalities” and automatic habits are we led by?

What are all the ways in which we analyze this all-encompassing immensity, holding on to just a few stars while forgetting the universe?

Genuine curiosity and openness for investigation can light up what is smoldering deep inside of us. It can spark the will to develop the mind, awareness, virtues and well-being. Open the path leading inwards, in each of us, towards the only world we always have - in our immediate, here and now.

And if we feel the call to move, or if we are already counting many steps, we do not have to take the next step alone.

Let's walk together on your Path to Freedom.