Freedom Beyond Conditioning

If we live in the Western world we are said to be free. But are we? To what degree are we bound by our thoughts and emotions? What fuses us to habitual patterns of thinking and behaving? Are we ever really free of conditioning? Freedom Beyond Conditioning: East-West researches the complex world of emotional life. It looks at the multifaceted relationships between body and mind; and the body-mind fusion that is emotion. Using empirical data, this book investigates the correlations between emotional life and mental freedom: analysing the experiential nature of a conditioned existence, while answering some difficult philosophical questions. Freedom Beyond Conditioning presents an interesting anthology of some of the world's most critical thinkers. It suggests that freedom is defined through its etymological links to friendship and justice, revealing the quintessential paradox of "responsible freedom". This book blends the subtleties of Eastern theories of energy, and their relationship to freedom, with the Western world's science-based approach to mind and body. Ultimately, Freedom Beyond Conditioning synthesises a healthy expression of emotional energy with the achievement of balance and wellbeing, and offers it as a true representation of freedom, one that is revealed through the paradoxical freedom of restraint.