GREETINGS OF THE INDEPENDENCE DAY !! LET’S UNDERSTAND THE ESSENCE OF FREEDOM .......!!! WHAT IS FREEDOM ? A MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION –

GREETINGS OF THE INDEPENDENCE DAY !!

LET’S UNDERSTAND THE ESSENCE OF FREEDOM ................... !!!!

WHAT IS FREEDOM ?

A MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION –

At the outset let me tell you I examine this question as the ALCHEMY OF FREEDOM.

WE LIVE IN TURBULENT TIMES, a time of accelerated change on many fronts that includes a great deal of upheaval. It is in the context of such changing times that I am introducing this most recent teaching, which turns the known paradigms of spiritual awakening upside down, questioning them while still upholding their validity. True living necessitates an environment of FREEDOM.

But in today’s world of disparity and inequality the word – INCLUSIVITY is added to FREEDOM. INCLUSIVITY AND FREEDOM ARE VALUES THAT EMERGE IN THIS LIFE-AFFIRMING AND HUMAN-CHERISHING EXPLORATION.

The essence of reality about FREEDOM turns out to be a kind of simplicity difficult to appreciate or grasp because of how indeterminate it is. And this is true for the beings experiencing it as well. Emptiness simply expresses it; so does awareness, love, truth, or creative dynamism. And as they express it, they also reveal that they are limited in encompassing what this essence actually is, even though the realization of any one of them is awakening and enlightenment. We begin to appreciate that the freedom of reality expressed in the complete and fulfilled life all human beings seek—and few find—is actually the simplicity of the ordinary.

If a young man who is the heir to his father’s business chooses not to pursue an education he is exercising his choice. Another man who has no money and does not have the choice to study is enslaved to the deprivation of education. The former is free, while the latter is not.

A woman who chooses, without any external pressure, not to earn her livelihood—for motherhood, lack of interest, or any other reason—has freedom. A woman who is either forced to work due to financial constraints or any other reason or forced not to work is enslaved.

When we think of freedom, we usually think of civil and political rights. But for a person who is hungry, or is having to take on a burdening loan because there is no governmental health care, freedom means the freedom from that hunger or debt or the kind of insecurity that causes him to kill himself. For a person who wants to study but is held back by finances, freedom is getting an education. For a woman who is prohibited from going out to work, freedom means having the choice to pursue her aspirations outside the domestic setting.

The birth of India was marked by political freedom, which meant freedom from external government coercion—and nothing else. It did not mean freedom from hunger, exploitation and disease. There are many other forms of freedom that are needed to guarantee a fulfilling life. We cannot evolve if we are not free to do so. Only if we are granted free movement can we explore. If our sexual freedom is curbed, we can certainly not procreate. I sometimes think how humans are instinctually predisposed towards survival, evolution, exploration and procreation. But a prerequisite for us to abide by these instincts is freedom.

I would therefore argue that the crucial difference between freedom and slavery is a person’s voluntary action, as opposed to compulsion. Elaborating this argument, I am raising few questions : Are we really free if bound by law (especially as the law is subjective anyway, changing from one country to another)? How can we exercise individual free will if we are pressured to conform to certain societal values we might not believe in? I feel like discussing the idea that in India, politics, society, corporations and religions have become contraptions of our own making that restrict our ‘absolute freedom’. We created these institutions, which have now laid out rules that frame our life. The collectivist voice of these institutions tells us, ‘No, there is no absolute freedom. You need to enslave yourself to gain a livelihood, and society holds the right to limit your individual freedom.’ Should we listen to this collectivist voice and drop the delusion of our ‘freedoms’? Should we suppress our instincts to freely evolve, explore and procreate as per our choice? Should we accept that our freedoms are whatever society decides they are?

My quest for answers to these questions has not been merely an intellectual exercise. I am no economist sitting at my desk and commissioning research reports to then write about the report’s conclusions from a bird’s-eye view. Instead, my academic training has equipped me to scientifically investigate and objectively study my intimate experiences and involvement with India. What I have experienced and felt in India has been the key to the comparisons I have made with the experiences and feelings of others in India and abroad. It has made me read about various approaches to the same issue, because surely, there are several perspectives other than mine towards a country as vast and wild in its beauty as India. These are the reflections that I have, in all naked honesty.

In doing so, I have been well aware that my ability to recognize and follow my instinct has been a gift of my education at home, at school and of my explorations as a young adult in the world. But I have also long realized that while this gift has empowered me with volition, it has been my volition and the consequent life choices I have made that have almost made me feel apologetic towards the society of the country that I belong to.

I remember Economist Amartya Sen’s perspective of ‘substantial’ freedom, as he writes of it, is concerned with becoming ‘fuller social persons, exercising our own volitions and interacting with and influencing the world in which we live.’ But in reality, volition took me—as it does many other youngsters in the country—on a tough path that has only threatened their social relationships.

In my opinion, it is not the legal framework of the Constitution, nor the religious scriptures and certainly not society that can prevent us harming one another. It is our education that teaches us to respect the right of another man to live and that prohibits us from harming or killing him. Unless we have this respect, no amount of rules curbing our various freedoms can save man from man. But if we, one, have this respect, and two, are able to exercise our rational faculty in our actions, even if society’s arbitrary rules ask us to harm another man, we will choose to disobey. Of course, the human mind is not infallible. We are not always capable of thinking rationally, and might make the wrong decision. But when rationality fails, respect for the other intervenes.

In essence, another man’s survival requires that those who are free must also be rational and educated enough to respect one another’s lives. These two preconditions are essential. This is why no matter how many legal or societal rules we create to control our freedom, if we as a nation do not nurture respect, rationality, and the ability to independently think and judge, as well as implement our volition, we will continue to kill or harm each other on the slightest pretext.

Rationality and freedom are therefore two sides of the same coin. We can only be rational when we think with a free mind, and when we are rational, freedom can win. One does not really exist without the other. So a rational mind does not work under compulsion. Once it perceives the situation, it cannot be subservient to anyone else’s orders or controls. Such a mind can therefore be perceived as dangerous to political harmony. If a person equipped with such a mind cannot be cajoled, manipulated or forced even at gunpoint, how can a political leader have their orders obeyed?

If encouraging rational thinking amongst our people is detrimental to an Indian political leader’s tenure in power, what incentive does he have to encourage quality education in India? This brings us to our profession of EDUCATION.

I refer here to the kind of education that opens up the mind with questions rather than closes it with answers learnt by rote; the education that teaches us to respect each other as human beings, and not pull one another down even when scrambling for the same resources; the education that persuades us to stand with our head held high despite all our perceived flaws and not idolize a stereotype; the education that asks us to think for ourselves and speak our opinion, not pander to those of others.

And to sum up the whole thoughts – Tagore’s poem –

Where The Mind Is Without Fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high

Where knowledge is free

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

By narrow domestic walls

Where words come out from the depth of truth

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit

Where the mind is led forward by thee

Into ever-widening thought and action

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

THIS IS WHAT I CALL MY ALCHEMY OF FREEDOM FOR THESE

TURBULENT TIMES IN WHICH WE ARE LIVING !!

I WISH YOU TO ALWAYS BE IN THIS ALCHEMY OF FREEDOM !!

sudhanshu