Being liberated means there is no clinging to anything; there is no worry, no concern, no heaviness. The mind is not fixated, focused or bound to any particular content; you are aware of whatever arises in the mind, without effort, without even trying to be aware. You don’t care whether you are sensing your essence, or even whether your essence is there. Whether you are happy or sad, whether a person is there with you or not, none of these things seem important. For the moment you’re completely free from all the concerns in your life. This state can never be achieved by striving for it. It will just happen one day, and if you notice it you won’t think it’s a big deal. You’ll go on eating your dinner or whatever you are doing. The moment it becomes a big deal, it’s gone. The moment you have the attitude of, “Oh, wonderful! I want to know what’s going on—I want to hang on to this,” it’s gone. Holding on is exactly what is absent in this state, and because of the tendency to grasp this subtle state, it can be very fleeting. It’s very simple, the simplest thing there is. Young children are in this state much of the time, a state without concern for anything in particular, daydreaming or playing. But because of our early experiences, our minds become set in a certain direction, so that we fixate on a certain part of reality and reject the rest. This selectivity is the loss of the state. It occurs very early in life, but the fixation doesn’t usually become dominant until age five to seven. Until then, the experience of this state comes and goes, but gradually is experienced less and less often. Throughout life it comes and goes, for some people more often than others. It is a state of release, but without a conscious feeling of release; everything is loose. This condition of freedom is not like liberation from some particular oppression; it is the raw state of liberation itself, so liberating that it doesn’t matter what your experience is. You don’t care what you’re experiencing. Your heart is open and your mind doesn’t fixate on preconceived ideas or worry about imagined possibilities. You’re completely accepting without thinking or feeling that you’re accepting. Essence will be there freely in whatever way your being needs at that moment, but still the presence of essence is not your focus, it’s just who you are, what is present in your experience now. – Diamond Heart Book Two: The Freedom to Be, Ch. 1