I apologise to all my regular readers for failing to post a blog last week. I was incommunicado on a self-imposed retreat in Bali. Whilst there I attended a couple of talks about karma and destiny, where a thought provoking and interesting point about freedom was made.
Most of us assume that freedom means being able to do anything we want(within the bounds of legality of course) without restraint or interference. Not only do we need certain laws and social conditions but our notions of freedom are also entangled with money - that true freedom cannot exist without full economic freedom.
The logical extension of this perception is that we cannot be free unless we live within certain physical circumstances and conditions. We need the wherewithal to live the life of our dreams, and that requires money (in endless supplies), a progressive and liberal government structure and society, and access to opportunity for us to be free to live our dreams and fulfill our potential.
What we don’t spend too much time thinking about is how much our own thoughts, desires and appetites actually bind us to a life of misery and suffering. No matter how ideal are the circumstances of our lives, no matter how much freedom we may have to be the person we want to be, living the life we want to live, true and total freedom will elude us if we do not have freedom from our limiting beliefs and desires.
It’s over a century and a half since the abolition of slavery in America. Slavery officially ended as an institution and all the laws of the nation were amended accordingly. But no law can ever eradicate the slavery we impose on ourselves through our limited beliefs and perceptions.
No one walks American soil with iron shackles on their limbs in the 21st century but even a cursory observation of American culture and modern life provides evidence suggesting that so many Americans do not feel free.
For instance, the enormous power of the mass media, which is instrumental in defining public notions of beautyand success to such an extent that it could be argued that it determines and defines the parameters of social and popular culture. Indescriminate and undiscerning absorption of, and conforming to, what the media dictates as both cool and socially de rigeur**leads young (and in many cases, not so young) women and men to willingly (if unconsciously) fetter their own freedom.
Consequently so many young women feel the need to wear six inch stilettoes (which prohibit physical freedom almost as effectively as chains around the ankle) and submit themselves to the intense physical pain and the impediment to movement they necessitate.
And so many people, desperate for the outward symbols of success and desirability enslave themselves to bosses (and jobs) who know they have the upper hand because of their emplyee’s innate fear of unemployment, and they shamelessly exploit that fear.
So many ways to limit our joy, our peace of mind, and our achievements and all of them in our own heads. They have nothing to do with the laws of the land.
Freedom for *is merely the external framework for full political and personal liberty, powerless to create true freedom for anyone. It is only *freedom from limiting and fearful thoughts, perceptions and beliefs that we have any hope of being truly free.
