Living free from tyranny
Talkin' 'bout a revolution
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I woke up the other morning and discovered that a tyrant was in charge of the world. There had not been an election. Nobody was in the White House implementing totalitarian or Project 2025-esque policies or stripping away anyone's rights.
No, this tyrant was me. Not the higher divine Me – but the small, selfish, dictatorial me – the small "s" ego-driven self that believes in manipulating the world around it to get what it believes it needs to make it happy. Like the warrior Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, I was facing a coup by the egoic forces within myself who were ready to take over the governance of not just my body, but my heart and soul.
I spent most of the day living under this tyrannical ruler who assured me that I was not good enough, smart enough, talented enough and nobody really liked me anyway and never will. I'm sure there are days, maybe years, that you've awakened to this kind of ruler in your own heart and mind. The tyrant who does nothing but mercilessly berate you for your shortcomings, telling you the beatings will continue until morale improves.
The good news is that I recognized that this dictator is not truly the boss of me. It's not the boss of any of us, even though many of us have just given in to its dictates without questioning its actual authority over us. I think the fruit of any spiritual life is awareness – a higher Self awareness that allows us to see behind the mighty Oz's curtain to find a scared little child at the controls of our lives.
It's time for a revolution.
This, however, is a bloodless coup. We are not marching off to war, intent on doing harm or violence to our ego. It is a part of ourselves, after all. It's not so much the enemy as it is a frightened child that we have allowed to be in charge of our lives. We all have patterns – coping mechanisms that we have developed over the years. Those habitual ways of reacting to the world worked well when we were five, eight or even 20 years old. The problem now is, they're no longer working and that tyrant in our mind is just those old patterns repeating and repeatedly no longer working.
I allowed an angry 9-year-old girl to run my life for at least two decades before I realized that being an angry 9-year-old in the world wasn't doing me any favors. I had to look at the root of that pattern, which was my parents' divorce, and then begin to heal my feelings around that and break the patterns of anger, cynicism, hatred, and fear that had sprung up from this experience.
This is how I know a bloodless inner revolution is possible. It didn't happen overnight, but I changed the world within me – a world that revolved around anger and hatred. Everything in the outside world reflected that back at me. I had angry, cynical, selfish, and unloving friends. I constantly watched murder shows and anything that would show me a world gone mad with fear, hatred, and anger.
When I gradually began to weed out the root of anger from my life and began to plant an inner garden of love, peace, generosity, compassion, understanding, and gentleness within, my whole world outside changed. I found myself surrounded by loving, kind, gentle, generous, funny, delightful, and compassionate human beings. Everywhere I looked, everything affirmed the goodness and beauty of the world.
Are these rose-colored glasses? Not really. Instead, it was an awareness – a realization that we're all one and we're all on a path to experience this world in our own ways. Some of us are more loyal to that tyrannical ego than others and they find it more difficult to stage a coup against it. Others see that the tyrannical ego has brought them worldly wealth, fame, and power and why would they ever let that go? They're "happy" with the situation, though I would argue it's a counterfeit form of happiness.
Knowing that we're all one and working out our karma in different ways sparks within me a sense of compassion for them instead of a sense of hatred or fear. They're working on what A Course in Miracles would call their specific curriculum. I have my own to work on. My call is to love them, even as they stumble and bumble through the world. My call is also to be more diligent in my own work, because if I can generate more love and help others do the same, then we will act as a buffer against anyone else’s unconscious deeds that are causing unnecessary suffering and harm in the world around us.
This is often the most overlooked power spiritually aware people possess. We can change the world around us by changing the world inside, as I've proven to myself over and over again. Why is the world around us such a mess then? Because most of us prefer to live under the tyranny of ego instead of going within and rooting out the causes of all of our pain and suffering. Why do we prefer that when we say we want peace? Because those patterns that were formed and stored with pain will be painful to root out. Most of us aren't willing to do that. That's why it's imperative for those of us who embrace a deep spiritual path to do our inner work. Only by launching our own inner revolution against the fearful, selfish ego will we ever create a world without fear and selfishness.
The tyrannical ego is very cunning and easily twists the ideas we have around concepts such as "freedom." In the ego's world, "freedom" means that you have the right to manipulate your circumstances to make you happy. You have the "freedom" to avoid that which is painful and try to make everyone else around you avoid those things too, so you don't have to see, let alone work on releasing, your harmful and useless patterns. The ego promises you "happiness," as long as you can arrange the world out there to never trigger any old wounds or traumas in here.
We see this played out in our politics all the time. One group always wants to control the movements, freedoms, or rights of another group because the first group finds whatever that other group is doing offensive to something they hold dear, whether it's a tradition, a god or an economic system. They fight to control the mechanisms of power in this world so they can arrange the outward circumstances of an entire country or world to not offend them or hit their particular triggers. All this fighting and division just so none of us have to deal with the tantrums of our inner 9-year-old. What a way to run a railroad!
There is a better way: Revolution. Instead of listening to the dictates of your inner child, it's time to be the adult that now lives in your body. Believe me, your inner child will be happy to go back to playing with dolls or trucks or whatever gives it true joy. That tyrant – the ego – doesn't really want the job. It's in charge because you don't want to do the painful work of healing that part of yourself.
This is what true freedom is about: The freedom to simply be happy. The ego tells us that's a pipe dream, but it's not. There is a part within you – within us all – that is always okay. Every one of us is already whole and complete. We don't need anything from the outside world (save for food, clothing, and shelter, of course). No matter what is happening outside of us, whether it's a true dictator taking power, a loved one dying, a relationship breaking apart, a job lost, there is within us, an eternal joy, a happiness – a wholeness – that is unshaken by any outward circumstance.
The point of freedom is to live in that place of wholeness, where you can experience all the great and horrible things that happen in this life and still know the peace, joy, love, and true freedom of that inner peace. If we truly believe this, then whenever we find ourselves unhappy, we won't ask, "What do I do about it?" because that invites the ego to find yet another way for you to rearrange the world so it won't upset you, or to arrange it in a way that will make you temporarily happy.
No, the question we must ask if we're ever unhappy is this: "Why am I not feeling whole and complete?" Most likely it's because you're expecting something outside of yourself to bring you a sense of ultimate joy, peace, and happiness. Spoiler alert: Nothing ever will.
That doesn't mean you don't do things with your life or pursue the things that make you feel good, even if it's just for a moment or a season of your life. Instead, it means that whatever you pursue in life, you do it purely for the joy of it. You don't ask anything you do in this life to be the source of your joy. You already have that source, and nothing can take it away from you. You can forget about it, bury it, ignore it, or even say it doesn't exist. But it's always there, ready to be discovered and fully lived into.
We're here to play with life. To enjoy it. To fully feel it, whether it's bringing us sorrow, boredom, or joy. This life is our classroom. We're here to learn how to overthrow the tyrant of the ego and allow that deeper, complete, and whole part of us to create a peaceable realm within, because this is ultimately what creates the peaceable realm in the world around us.
I know this is easier said than done. I've lived my whole life asking for things outside of myself to be my "purpose" in life. I wanted journalism to bring me purpose. I wanted being a pastor to bring me purpose. I wanted being a writer to bring me purpose. None of them ever have.
Interestingly, though, as I mull this idea that we're here to just be happy, whole and complete without insisting that the world give it to us in some tangible form, my thoughts turn to music. I've always loved music, mainly listening to it, but as a teen I gravitated toward the guitar and am mainly self-taught. In my late teens and early 20s, I was in a punk band. We played Athens, Ga., about the same time R.E.M. and the B-52s were being launched to fame. We thought we had the juice to make it.
Obviously, we didn't. After the band fizzled, I put the guitar down. It wasn't going to make me rich and famous, so I struck out for other things to help me do that. None of them did, of course. After retiring last year from leading Jubilee! Circle – the spiritual community I started in Columbia, SC, 14 years ago hoping it would make me rich and famous – I found myself with more time on my hands. Music has returned to fill it. I'm writing songs. I'm going out and performing at open mics and other events.
Only, this time it's different. I'm not expecting music to make me rich or famous. I'm doing it because … wait for it … it's fun. It's so much fun, I'm making my first album at the age of 59.
A Course tells us that all things that come to us that we don't recognize as holy the first time around are held in trust for us and brought back around when our spiritual awareness has been enhanced. I believe that music is back in my life for this reason, because now I'm truly ready to appreciate it as something that brings me joy and I hope brings joy to those who may hear my music. That is all I expect from it.
This is my revolution. When I realized that all I needed to do was live life for the absolute joy of it, living fully into my wholeness no matter what is happening around me, the tyrant was ousted from office immediately.
This is how you mount your own revolution. Live life because it's fun. Yes, there will be unfun moments where you have to pay bills, bury loved ones, go through airport security, get your pet euthanized, and park far away from your destination. If, however, you can remember that every moment is inviting you to see life for what it is – a chance to go deeper within yourself and root out anything that stands between you and inner peace – then you will finally understand freedom.
Welcome to the revolution.
Music for the Journey:
“Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution” - Tracy Chapman
About the Motley Mystic:
The Motley Mystic is an online community for people who have realized that the truth speaks with many voices. There is no one religion, philosophy, institution, or dogma that captures the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth. No one needs to swear allegiance to one line of thought or belief to discern Truth, because Love is the only thing that’s real. That’s what we explore at the Motley Mystic - all the tools and strategies we need to remove our barriers to Love and live fully as our true Divine Self.
Candace Chellew is the founder of Motley Mystic as well as Jubilee! Circle, an interfaith spiritual community in Columbia, S.C. She is also the author of Bulletproof Faith: A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians published in 2008 by Jossey-Bass and the founder and senior editor emeritus of Whosoever: An Online Magazine for LGBTQ People of Faith. She is also a musician and avid animal lover.