How The Rich And Famous Can Find True Peace And Freedom

The famous seek anonymity.

The anonymous seek fame.

It is far more difficult to be rich and famous, than poor and anonymous.

And it is a great irony that the rich and the famous are the most ignored group of individuals in society.

For it makes little intuitive sense to try to help those who seem to “have everything.”

Years behind velvet ropes and behind the scenes, out of earshot of the roaring crowds, have taught me that the rich and the famous are more tormented by the mind than almost anyone else.

For in the unique situation that wealth and fame provides, the mind has many angles from which to attack the human.

You have found wealth and fame. But peace is nowhere to be found.

The adulation was gratifying in the beginning. But years later, it does not have the effect it once did.

You sometimes sit in the quiet of your room, saying to yourself, “If they only knew . . .”

You are sometimes made to feel guilty for your success.

Society puts you on a pedestal. But in other ways, it treats you like a show pony.

Absolutely everyone wants something from you.

Everyone.

True relationships are almost impossible to forge.

Life has become a prison, as much as it is a gift.

What the media says Does bother you. And it hurts.

And the one secret that the world will never understand is that no matter how many people are around you, you feel totally, completely, and helplessly Alone.

Why is peace so difficult to find?

Why is freedom so elusive?

Because the thing you seek freedom from is not the media and the fans.

The thing you seek freedom from is yourself.

The self that has created a name and a persona that Ten humans couldn’t carry, much less One.

You seek freedom from yourself.

Freedom from the incessant critiques of your mind. Freedom from its worries.

Even when you are behind closed doors, the mind creates a live feed of the media in your head.

You are Always on stage. Even when you are not.

What you miss is the unstructured, and unrehearsed and innocent beauty of a random and anonymous life.

Your art has also suffered on account of this.

It is not quite as pure as it was in the beginning.

The hunger isn’t quite as deep.

And you chafe under the thought that you are drifting toward becoming a “performer,” rather than the Artist you were created to be.

In a desperate, grasping-at-straws attempt to get you feeling semi-normal enough to walk into the limelight, you have been told to “be yourself.”

But this is such a loaded and confusing statement that the one who says it has little insight into what they are truly saying.

For you do not yet know who “yourself” truly is.

And the only “yourself” you have known has brought you nothing but anxiety and a feeling of imprisonment.

In many ways, the last thing you want to be is “yourself.”

For “yourself” seems to be a trap in every possible way.

What you long for is for everyone to just go away.

Not so that you may have a moment’s peace (Quiet is something you understand. But “peace” remains very much an elusive and mysterious concept).

But so that you may delicately tease away and preserve the remnants of your innocence you once knew, from the chaos and the miasma that has become your daily existence.

Meditation may give you a moment of stress reduction, but it will not rescue you.

Mindfulness will set you on a course of endless questioning for which no one will give you true answers.

Yoga, exercise, breathing, massage, psychotherapy, retreats, and all the clever modalities that are sold in the marketplace will be temporary non-solutions to a problem that is deep and complex.

Then what is the way to True Peace?

How can you find True Freedom?

What is the way to be Unaffected by anything you choose to be unaffected by?

Begin by understand this:

There is not a single thing you can do to make your circumstances suit your needs.

You cannot control the critics.

You cannot control the fans.

You cannot control the media.

The wise person does not attempt to stop the rain.

He devotes his time to creating a weather-proof umbrella, that can survive any storm.

But the world has never told you this. It has only given you endlessly ineffective and juvenile “prescriptions.”

A True Artist is a Master of oneself.

He or she is completely in control. Even when he or she wishes to lose control.

But without Freedom in all its glory, an artist is broken.

To be imprisoned by the world is terrible.

To be imprisoned by the Mind is to be left with nowhere to turn.

There is no greater tragedy in a human life than this.

When an artist finds True Freedom.

The artist’s Art, and life, become a masterpiece to behold.

Namaste.