Free!?

Alcatraz had been a federal prison for over 29 years. Its most famous inmates included Robert Stroud, Al Capone and George “Machine Gun” Kelly. There is no recorded escape from that prison. The water around it is freezing cold and has strong sea currents. Would it have been possible to escape from “The Rock”?

Looking at Alcatraz it reminds me on our minds. It was not a pleasant place to be, one of the toughest prisons ever. Living a life controlled by our mind is not pleasant either. It is not even life that is unpleasant what is unpleasant is the illusions our mind constructs. It creates unnecessary pain and suffering. It sabotages our lives and then torments us and convinces us that we cannot live without its guidance.

It keeps us imprisoned on a rock surrounded by ice-cold water with us feeling we cannot escape. Our fear to jump into the cold water, to be pulled down by the strong currents is too big to even attempt to break out. We much rather surrender to our imprisonment, to our suffering, to the mistreatment.

I myself never met somebody who fully escaped. I never met anybody who transcended his or her mind completely. But I met a few people who are swimming. Will they make it? Unlikely. There is probably not more then one person per generation who is able to accomplish that task. But at least they are trying to break free. After jumping into the water they found out that the water is not that cold and the currents not as strong. They actually have a pretty pleasant swim.

But even though they are still in the water and have not reached solid ground yet they are at least partially free.

"Free!?" San Francisco/California/Alcatraz/The Rock 05-10-08 at 03:42 PM

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