?As a hu­man be­ing, I have the ca­pac­i­ty to think in­de­pen­dent­ly of all oth­er hu­man be­ings and so do you. We all have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­flect on our lives as in­di­vid­u­als and to find our truth–that is, the truth res­onates with us in­ter­nal­ly and gives a sense of in­ner calm.

How­ev­er, we are born in­to a world in which oth­ers are al­ways try­ing to take con­trol of our minds by dic­tat­ing to us how we should think and how we should be­have. Over time, we can be­come men­tal slaves to oth­ers by buy­ing in­to their forced in­doc­tri­na­tion. In do­ing so, we ab­ro­gate our ca­pac­i­ty for in­de­pen­dent thought; we si­lence our con­science; and with­out think­ing, blind­ly be­come the fol­low­ers of oth­ers and their of­ten-mis­guid­ed philoso­phies and be­lief sys­tems. In song, Bob Mar­ley chal­lenged us to eman­ci­pate our­selves from this men­tal slav­ery. Mo­han­das Gand­hi chron­i­cled his de­sire to be men­tal­ly free when he wrote, "I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my win­dows to be stuffed. I want the cul­tures of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as pos­si­ble. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any. I refuse to live in oth­er peo­ple's hous­es as an in­ter­lop­er, a beg­gar or a slave."

In my own life, I have been en­gaged in a life-long search for per­son­al free­dom. Of­ten, I have got­ten lost along the way. I am in search of the free­dom to think, free from all oth­er in­flu­ences and to be able to ex­press my­self truth­ful­ly at all times. It has not been easy to deal with the hu­man ten­den­cy for self-de­cep­tion. And I am still to at­tain the per­son­al ex­cel­lence that I know is pos­si­ble.

In Feb­ru­ary 2005 I sought to cap­ture my freely formed thoughts and be­liefs. I chron­i­cled as fol­lows:

I be­lieve in the pow­er of free will

I be­lieve that I have the po­ten­tial to think freely and to act ac­cord­ing to con­science

I be­lieve that I have hu­man good­ness–a good­ness an­chored in moral­i­ty

I be­lieve that my hu­man good­ness is my in­ner re­al­i­ty–my true re­al­i­ty

I be­lieve that the ex­pres­sion of my hu­man good­ness is de­rived from my in­ner pow­er

I be­lieve that there is a uni­ver­sal spir­i­tu­al pow­er, by what­ev­er name you may choose to make ref­er­ence–God, Al­lah, Ram, Jah, uni­ver­sal con­scious­ness

I be­lieve in the spir­i­tu­al­i­ty of the hu­man be­ing

I be­lieve in hu­mans' spir­i­tu­al con­nec­tiv­i­ty to the uni­ver­sal spir­i­tu­al pow­er, to oth­er hu­man be­ings and to the uni­ver­sal en­vi­ron­ment that we are a part of

I be­lieve that our free will and our hu­man good­ness are de­rived from our spir­i­tu­al­i­ty

I be­lieve that I have the abil­i­ty to grow my in­ner pow­er so that I can bet­ter ex­press my free will, my hu­man good­ness and my spir­i­tu­al­i­ty

I be­lieve that I can grow my in­ner pow­er through be­com­ing more prin­ci­ple con­scious, by dis­cov­er­ing and liv­ing my pur­pose, by cul­ti­vat­ing greater emo­tion­al mas­tery, through a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of change and through be­ing more knowl­edge em­pow­ered

I be­lieve that in grow­ing my in­ner pow­er I be­come spir­i­tu­al­ly stronger and more in­spi­ra­tional to oth­ers

I be­lieve that hu­man de­vel­op­ment re­sides pri­mar­i­ly in the ex­pressed moral­i­ty and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty of the peo­ple

I be­lieve that ac­cel­er­at­ed hu­man de­vel­op­ment comes from cut­ting new paths, rather than mim­ic­k­ing what ex­ists

I be­lieve that spir­i­tu­al pover­ty is the most wide­spread so­cial dis­ease

I be­lieve that a lack of un­der­stand­ing of self, and the po­ten­tial there­in, is the biggest prob­lem in our de­vel­op­ing coun­tries

I be­lieve that most peo­ple are trapped in a men­tal syn­drome of self-de­cep­tion, in­se­cu­ri­ty, dis­hon­est self-rep­re­sen­ta­tion, beg­gary, pre­tence, ar­ro­gance, greed, buf­foon­ery, cre­ative in­tol­er­ance, de­pen­den­cy and out­right stu­pid­i­ty

I be­lieve the po­ten­tial for great­ness lies in all hu­man be­ings

I be­lieve that peo­ple will on­ly de­vel­op when they are pre­pared to de­vel­op them­selves

I be­lieve that the world is a place of op­por­tu­ni­ty for all

I be­lieve that those who are awake to their po­ten­tial great­ness are those who will even­tu­al­ly lead the world

I be­lieve that the so-called de­vel­op­ing world has the op­por­tu­ni­ty to lead in the fu­ture de­vel­op­ment of the world

I be­lieve that there is a moral line

I be­lieve that right and wrong mat­ters

I be­lieve that hu­man de­vel­op­ment is about moral progress

I be­lieve that I have the pow­er to re-de­fine and to re­make my own life

I be­lieve that I can un­do my un­want­ed con­di­tion­ing

I be­lieve than I can let go of my ex­ter­nal re­al­i­ty

I be­lieve that I can be what life wants me to be

I be­lieve that I can be the leader of my life

I be­lieve that I can ex­pe­ri­ence hap­pi­ness every day of my life

I be­lieve that I can on­ly change oth­ers by chang­ing my­self

Feb­ru­ary 2005 (abridged).

(From: Chron­i­cles in My Search for Truth and Free­dom (soon to be Web pub­lished.))

Five years lat­er, I still hold the same be­liefs. How­ev­er, I have learnt that my state of mind and my sense of free­dom are al­ways con­tin­u­ous­ly chal­lenged by oth­ers and by cir­cum­stances of my en­vi­ron­ment. I am chal­lenged to be men­tal­ly strong every day. I have learnt that I must con­tin­u­ous­ly grow and sus­tain a high state of per­son­al free­dom as a co-req­ui­site for my hap­pi­ness. Thus, I must con­tin­u­al­ly work to strength­en my in­ner pow­er. I be­lieve that true eman­ci­pa­tion can on­ly come when the minds of the peo­ple are free. It is hoped that the thoughts and per­spec­tives I share in this col­umn will help you in your own per­son­al jour­ney to greater per­son­al free­dom and men­tal strength.

Over the years, I have ob­served that the chal­lenge of find­ing per­son­al free­dom seems in­sur­mount­able to many. Some see it as an un­at­tain­able ide­al. Hence, in my work­shops I am of­ten asked the ques­tion, "Is per­son­al free­dom re­al­ly pos­si­ble?" In re­al­i­ty, what peo­ple are seek­ing to con­vey to me through this ques­tion is their own doubt about their abil­i­ty to at­tain per­son­al free­dom. Some go so far as to tell me that you are ei­ther born with the ca­pac­i­ty or you are not. In oth­er words, they see free­dom as some­thing that can­not be cul­ti­vat­ed.

For­tu­nate­ly, my own per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ence tells me oth­er­wise. I now firm­ly be­lieve that we can all strength­en our in­ner selves and thus en­joy more ful­filled lives. Lead­ing From Above The Line fo­cus­es on strength­en­ing our­selves through the five sources of our in­ner pow­er–sources that I con­tin­u­ous­ly tap in­to to help nour­ish my in­ner pow­er as I pur­sue greater per­son­al free­dom. In­tro­spec­tion, as a tool, fa­cil­i­tates the process. Please join our free one-day in­tro­spec­tive re­treat sched­uled for May 2. To reg­is­ter please vis­it my Web site: www.the­ofer­gu­son.com or call 662-5967 or email to re­treat@the­ofer­gu­son.com.

?THEO FER­GU­SON

Lead­er­ship ed­u­ca­tor

fer­gu­son.theodore@gmail.com

www.the­ofer­gu­son.comM