Free Your Mind - What does that mean to you?
 

You've heard this before in all sorts of contexts - Self Healing, Religions, Get Rich, etc...but what does this really mean?

"Free Your Mind" to me, means let yourself go - be free to act on your intuitions, your most primal feelings, your conscienceness so to speak...Hannibal Lecter touches this when he speaks to young William ( Red Dragon) referencing the other "dullards" who don't think or aren't capable of thought beyond what society has conditioned them to be or believe in.

Does this somehow draw a reference to one's intelligence? Its always been a postulate of mine that those who are - let's just say, not the sharpest knife in the drawer are incapable of thinking beyone their immediate surroundings - somehow anchored by their mind.

Why is it that 'smart people' who are capable of thinking higher thoughts and 'freeing their mind' most often expend a great deal of effort to think acceptable thoughts and act in a manor that is acceptable to society?

Music is a good measure of one's ability to 'free your mind'. If a person is easily moved by music (doesn't really matter the genre so long as its not a fake affinity for classical) then its been my experience that that person is more in touch with life - that is the ability to "think simple" and really understand people.

At any rate, I'm just trying to strike up a good conversation...any takers?

_______________________

"I ate all the rest and now I've gotta eat you."

Re: Free Your Mind - What does that mean to you?

To me it means to stop thinking.
Thoughts are nonsense.

free your mind: forget logic and sollutions and simply focus on the outcomes.

like...... if your mind were doing a very complex math problem and you are too tense to do it and then you realize there is a way to see the answer without the question, that can be a way of 'freeing' your mind.

I think mostly it's just an unbiased, unover-analyzing way of thought. to hold no opinion on anything. you also must contain the ability to think of two or more opposing thoughts.

Some might argue that alcohol frees the mind . . . . . . removes the inhibitions and restraints on our behaviour. Ther have been a lot of regrets the morning after people have 'freed their mind' the night before.

To me, it is not stopping the process of thought or will.

Free your mind means release...
All your expectations.
All your viewpoints.
All your illusions.
All your definitions.

Then desire is not relevant & more relevant at the same time.

Nothing truly matters, but your intent.

the last time i heard free your mind was in the matrix. That was a good movie.. theres my point of view take it and spread the word

Freeing one's my mind sounds like giving up to me. More of an escaptist route. I always favoured filling up on knowledge and tackling the problem head on, but that's just me.

To me, the phrase "free your mind" means to allow your brain to think outside of the limits that you place upon it. A similar phrase would be "think outside the box." I take it as an attempt to allow for creativity, partially by ignoring the physical limits which we must consider every day. For instance, the Wright Brothers were able to build an aircraft even though no known human had flown before; they removed this as a constraint of their belief system. They had to believe that humans could fly and that they only had to find the means. Maybe a weak example, but I hope it gets my point across.

As the phrase "free your mind" conjures up a sense of absolutism, or at least, vast generalization, the majority of our responses have been of the over-generalized, absolute type.

I'll move this forward a bit by revising mine to be less rhetorical:

edit:
To me it means to stop thinking.
Thoughts are nonsense.

to:
To me it means to stop almost all thinking.
nearly all Thoughts are nonsense.

I have a fetish about the errors of language - how it replaces our experience with abstractions and unreal logical potential.

See new thread regarding language and reality.

I'll stick with my definition.

It is in my nature to ponder, to analyze...sometimes it is a burden.
I use the technique of "stopping thought" to help cleanse at times.
And yes, I do agree that sometimes instinctual or "just doing it"
is a more efficient way of getting things done.

However, I would prefer perfecting my desire/goal oriented definition.
Take my analytical mind and clear a path for it. (so to speak)

To Act with Intent.

Stop conforming to what your mind tells you to do...

i think it's easier said than done; simply surpessing your thoughts lets your mind rest but i think freeing your mind is something much more spiritual and is something only few people ever attain.

like how monks meditate for hours to reach a higher level of conciousness, etc..

like the part in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, when the monk dude is explaining his meditation

maybe, none of us is able to understand the act of "free your mind" because none of us has reached the wisdom required for such action

Just a thought

To me, "free your mind" means to open your mind to the truths that are out there. Don't let preconcieved notions of things, prejudices, or anything internal cloud what the truth really is. See things for what they are, not for what your mind may like you to think they are.

MacGnG,
I know it's an old shibboleth that these states are available to only some tiny number of people - monks or whatever. This is a romantic notion that makes everything seem so mysterious.

It's one of those ideas to free our minds of that inhibits us from experiencing what is and what isn't.

Look, eons of evolution have equipped us very well with all we need to perceive things as they are. It would be wiser to trust the evolutionary process than to believe there's some arcane knowledge one needs to possess in order to live as a free-minded human being.

The response given here by Empty_One, is just fine and all you need to know.

Free your mind to me means to free my mind of all constraints such as ignorance. Try and take all bias away as you judge what is thrown your way. Do not be afraid to learn or admit that you were once wrong about something.

Allow yourself to see the world without any bias, without pre-concieved notions of how things will be or should be, sort of like taking the filters off of a lens and capturing everything exactly as it is.

free your mind, would, surely, be to acheive a state in which the mind works without the constrictions of the body.

personnally, i prefer the idea of freeing the self.

To me, "free your mind" means to get past the idea that objective reality is all there is. I sit at my computer typing these words and I feel my fingers move across the keyboard. To take a line from the Matrix, "there is no keyboard". Everything we perceive as physical reality is an illusion our minds create to help us deal with this reality.

I don't think meditation is about arcane knowledge. To me it's about stopping the constant chatter of thoughts in my head. If I can stop my mind from bringing up one idea after, one more chore to do, one more person to deal with, then I can be in the present. I can be fully here and not distracted by the past or the future. If you've ever read "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Heinlien, he touches on the idea.