To live freely - what does that signify? It does not mean doing exactly as
you please, it means living with joy, with happiness, without the bondages
of conditioning. It emphasizes living with a true understanding of who we
really are and not from a learned presumption. Freedom here is not
willfulness, but immunity from the enslavement of those seemingly
indelible imprints of a world order that has forgotten what peace is; from
societies bound together by hatred; from paranoid and bigoted leaders who
are perennially whipping up ideologies that foment inequities and
intolerance. They mass hypnotize people who have surrendered their power
to think for themselves and propel them on to a manic spree of fury and
revenge, often over dubious threats or for misdeeds centuries old.
During the 1992 communal riots I was in Surat and watched with mounting,
helpless dismay as amicable neighbors and even friends turned on one
another with unbridled frenzy. Hitherto unsuspected passions were
unleashed. The instantaneous transformation was unbelievable! What was
even more incomprehensible was how the very mobs that put themselves at
risk to salvage the meager belongings of a poor bicycle mechanic of one
community, ransacked property of others from that very community, with
unabashed glee! The forces of good and evil, the apostles of God and the
devil, were driving them from within. The mischief mongers just needed to
give a slight nudge.
We are full of contradictions, dualities, sorrow, aggressiveness, greed,
and selfishness. We are carved up on the inside – organized religion,
nationality, cast, creed, mine and yours, superiority and inferiority – by
a divisiveness, which prevents each of us from functioning as an
individual whole. We do not act. We are under absolute control of ‘the
other’ in as much as we react to what ‘the other’ says or does. Our
reactions are contingent on that fragment within us which feels
predominantly threatened by the other’s actions. We respond without
thinking, from a compulsive reasoning which assures us that we need to go
on the defensive or offensive. Violence that is continually stoked and
keeps stewing within, erupts and mindlessly scorches everything in its
path. Violence burgeons forth from our own centers.
J. Krishnamurthy says, “We have built a society which is violent, and
we, as human beings, are violent; the environment, the culture in which we
live, is the product of our endeavor, of our struggle, of our pain, of our
appalling brutalities. So the most important question is: is it possible
to end this tremendous violence in oneself?” We all need to address
this portentous question with honesty. Can we rightfully blame others for
the messes of our own making? We blatantly let our emotions be played
upon, we absolve ourselves from guilt by running away from our
responsibility and then we cry for freedom!
To live freely implies that we put aside what was taught to us from
childhood; to probe without pretense and to find out without prejudice who
we really are, so that we may understand from personal observation who
‘the other’ is and will respect the difference, if we perceive any. To
understand denotes looking at our selves with an impartial willingness and
accepting the reality that underscores all humanity. There is no easy
formula for that. It requires a lifetime of discipline and scrutiny. It
demands that one by one we negate all our impressed beliefs, our
apprehension of ‘the other’, the arrogance of birth or race, the paranoia
of losing our national, religious, ethnic, social or any other identity
and rediscover the magical values of patience, compassion, love, mutual
respect and tolerance. It entails giving up little by little every concept
dear to us, held in our bosoms from time immemorial as the one eternal
truth. It connotes a profound, revolutionary change that will turn us
inside out. It would be tantamount to bringing down an endless wall brick
by brick, examining deeply embedded subconscious frustrations, angers,
jealousies, pettiness; and opening up oneself effortlessly, without fear,
to alien panoramas. To do so all alone necessitates tremendous courage,
faith in our capacity to watch diligently and accept as true what our
personal watching reveals to us without recourse to any authority
whatsoever. This initiates always adopting an attitude of personal
responsibility.
Dr. Radhakrishnan thought that freedom from error is the only true
liberty. This eight-word sentence is a very weighty one. Freedom from
error! From mistakes! What error, which mistakes and whose mistakes?
Answering these questions again warrants deep reflection on our part. It
is easy to pinpoint the errors of others – family, friends, strangers,
leaders, saintly people, even the blunders of those who made history. What
is crucial is being able to detect and accept our own flaws, our own
erroneous thinking; to take responsibility and be open accordingly to
restructure the entire thought process; to unfetter the mind from the
tyranny of judgmental inferences about others. The eagerness to arrive at
a better understanding of where the others come from, a deliberate attempt
to appreciate our differences and a thirst for freedom from our ignorance
will be further stepping stones to true redemption. Once more we must
conclude that persistent striving and not wishful thinking is w hat will
get us there. Arthur A. Motley, publisher of Sunshine Magazine, put it
this way: “All the freedom man has achieved to date has been achieved
only because individuals accepted responsibility, assumed obligations,
performed on promises, and delivered to the rest of mankind whatever gifts
and talents with which they were endowed. For those in future generations
who would be free and help others achieve freedom, there is no other
course except to live our daily lives as individuals responsible for our
own morals, our own character, our own family, our own industry, our own
jobs.”
Free living positively does not absolve us from responsibility. Another
quote from Arthur A. Motley sums it up very well: “Our present and
future danger may lie in our failure to recognize that if we were to
achieve freedom from responsibility, all our freedoms would be lost. All
the freedom mankind has achieved to date has been achieved only because
individuals accepted responsibility.”
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