Love and Happiness: Road to Freedom is Less Travelled

By Rajesh B Gajabi

Freedom is understood as the absence of physical and mental boundaries or restrictions. Physical freedom is when you enjoy freedom of movement. Mental freedom is when you are free to choose and make your own decisions.

Both of the above freedoms are external. True freedom, however, is internal. In the external freedom, although we seem to make our own choices, in reality, the decision-making apparatus, the mind, has itself been formed through many layers of societal influences in the form of ego.

All decisions are made at the behest of the ego, and not the true Self. It's like the man who says that he is completely free to do anything so long as his wife approves everything! The presence of a "master" means the absence of freedom.

In external freedom, you feel free if you have the option to choose between 'A' and 'B'. But true freedom is when the desire to acquire something emanates not from the ego but from the true Self. In external freedom, the mind and body are free, they are still slaves to the ego, which is so subtle that it is confused with the Self. So externally you are free to decide or do, but internally, you are still controlled by the ego which creates desires based not on true needs but on societal influences.

Florida Donner in Being-in-Dreaming answers the question, "What does freedom cost you?" She says, "Freedom will cost you the mask you have on, the mask that feels so comfortable and is so hard to shed, not because it fits so well but because you have been wearing it for so long". Then on, she defines freedom as "the total absence of concern about yourself".

Enlightenment is the complete and total absence of ego or false Self. This can also be the definition of true freedom. Wayne Dyer says: "Freedom is the ability to leave the single room of awareness you were born in. In that room, you learned the limits of your life. Outside of that room you learn that your life has unlimited possibilities".

True Freedom lets your "individuality" bloom and helps you shed the "personality". Personality is created while individuality is the realm of the Soul. In this state, your true Self, uncontaminated, emerges. Values of life are intrinsic; they don't have to be taught. A still mind, in perfect Yoga is close to the ultimate. Once the ego collapses, true freedom is experienced. Then the whole universe appears as one.

"A mystical union with the entire world may be established. The feeling of ecstasy or bliss associated with this union... is much more stable and lasting and ultimately satisfying", says M Scott Peck in The Road Less Travelled.

The Gita says: "A person who has given up all desires for sense gratification, who lives free from desires, who has given up all sense of proprietorship and is devoid of false ego, he alone can attain peace... Such a liberated (free) person is not attracted to material sense pleasure but is always in trance, enjoying the pleasure within. In this way, the self realised person enjoys unlimited happiness, for he concentrates on the Supreme".

"And if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed", advised Kahlil Gibran.

When a machine is well lubricated or oiled, an engineer or mechanic refers to the parts being 'free', meaning they now have little or no friction in movement. Similarly, in true freedom, once the ego which causes friction is removed, the conscious mind comes in direct contact with the Universal Self in a smooth and almost effortless manner.

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See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul

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