Freedom

 

Freedom:

The last two posts I penned brought an interesting consideration to mind. In the Hanuman Chalisa related post the theme was becoming a servant of God. In the subsequent page about money matters I acknowledged how being able to make money gave me a broad sense of freedom.

Being a servant of another entity and being free? These two concepts sound quite contradictory, dont they? Can these two things coexist?

It is perhaps going to be easier to sort out if we first understand the basics of freedom. And to understand freedom, it is necessary to understand the various levels of consciousness within us. There is a body consciousness , emotional consciousness, intellectual consciousness and creative consciousness. In addition there is a spiritual dimension to consciousness that gives the energy and substance to all these subordinates. 

Someone close to me confided not too long ago that they don’t feel like they have freedom. This is a person who is completely financially free and successful in career, has remained happily married for three decades and raised two good kids who are themselves now independent. Yet the feeling of not being free bothers the person deeply. When I compare my situation, my self perception of freedom has avoided the nagging feeling of being in bondage of any kind. Yet it seems rather crass when I see that financial independence made me think I am free to do whatever I want and that I am not answerable to anyone for what I do (with the money). Although it did avoid a lot of mental grief that comes from the thought that you are not free, it doesn’t negate the fact that my feeling of freedom was marred by ignorance. 

Ignorance is bliss they say. 

The ignorant side is the fact that the freedom I felt was really at a body consciousness level. Physical consciousness was dictating the mind. Higher intellectual consciousness was asleep so to say, and in many ways disconnected from the mind or body consciousness. Body consciousness asserted physical freedom. It fooled the mind into thinking physical freedom is all  there is and all that matters. Had I not gone deeper into the network inside the mind I would never have realized that there is more to freedom than asserting oneself amongst other physical beings. 

I have discussed the issue about higher consciousness in a previous post where a question was raised : Is it enough to live a righteous life and not pursue spirituality per se? My stand on it was being righteous permits status quo, not growth. You will continue to reap the rewards of good deeds but condemned to the cycles of life and death, rigors of uniting and separating from people you love. Unless you strive and upgrade to higher consciousness you will have a limited understanding of who you are and where you belong, for an infinite time. 

It is only after you arrive at higher levels of consciousness that’s when you really start getting the bigger picture. 

Ironically as I am discussing some positive things I am reminded of a rather poignant Marathi poem by the poet B R Tambe( listen to its beautiful rendition by Lata Mangeshkar).

कळा ज्या लागल्या जीवा मला कीं ईश्वरा ठाव्या
कुणाला काय हो त्यांचें कुणाला काय सांगाव्या
कळा ज्या लागल्या जीवा

It tells about how the deepest pains endured by any person are often inexpressible. No one cares to know or is even capable of understanding. Until now I had never considered nor knew that, just like pains, there can be some joys that cannot be expressed or understood by anyone except yourself. The only witness to these is God or the higher consciousness within you. 

In the process of studying the workings of my mind I began to encounter certain maladjustments, patterns of erroneous thinking and behaviors that connected with pockets of pain and suffering. It was hard to figure out what came before the other, pain or maladjustment! I could see that they both had surely been feeding into each other. It seemed like this awful network was like a heavily knotted mess which, in the absence of supervision from a person who knew better, was getting increasingly messier by itself. Anyone who is familiar with sewing can understand how your work comes to a standstill when the thread you are working with gets knotted. Smaller and more the knots are, more difficult and time consuming it gets to untangle them. It sort of becomes an obsession to remove the last of the knots before you quit what’s at hand. 

Now imagine this seamstress is sitting in dim light trying to remove the fine knots and struggling hard to get to the bottom of it. Just then something changes. The sun rises and peeks through the window and now, although the knot remained as snug as before, the light makes it easier to put a needle through and open it up. That’s the kind of experience I began to have as awareness got better with time. The needle here is the power of reason and understanding! 

Lo and behold ! Each knot that opened inside the mind brought a sense of relief. A change in attitude. A feeling of released pressure. A sense of being loved and being able to love more consciously. The peace, the joy, the bliss that was experienced was real, unlike what you simply read or talk about. 

And the freedom that came was of an entirely new kind. 

At some point it became evident to the mind that it has no business to believe that it is smart and knows the best !! Mind came to recognize the supremacy of awareness and the need to pay heed to something above itself for its own good. The body consciousness which had been the boss for the longest of time began to relinquish its power to the higher consciousness. The work is just beginning. But the effects are already experienced on a daily basis. Contradictory as it seems at the outset, surrender and freedom are going hand in hand, happily. Just the old guard is changing.

Long time back some lines had spilled out of me into a poem, undoubtedly from the pure consciousness within. Today, over three decades later, I understand them in better light.

स्वातंत्र्य परि मम देहाते 

स्वारस्य असहाय 

I may blend with everyone and everything and sacrifice everything I have. But I will exercise absolute freedom with this body and enjoy the taste of life without external aid.

In other words I don’t need objects or favorable conditions in order to taste joy, love, peace. I don’t need to compromise my ideals to attain anything. 

It is not that the body doesn’t matter. It is also not that money doesn’t matter. But when considering financial independence it is important to examine closely, who is calling the shots? Body consciousness or not. Real freedom is that when the shots are called by the consciousness that transcends the body awareness. And when that happens freedom is experienced at multiple levels. There is much more space and open ventilation with regards to emotions, courage, thoughts, creativity, understanding, communication, and action. Charity acquires the support of clarity. The sense of freedom is no longer defined or shackled by the obscene condition of money. You understand unmistakably that the joys that come from things that money can buy stop at the level of body consciousness.They don’t add or take away from the joy that is inherent to the higher consciousness.

My brain has been used to a life in the medical profession and it has not come across a better healer than consciousness. If healing had offsprings they would be called joy, love, peace and freedom. Indeed when consciousness reaches out with its healing hand it draws you closer and closer into itself. At some point the lines are going to be blurred between consciousness and your brain , your brain and the world. 

Saree is a Motka/matka silk jamdani from West Bengal. It has temple motifs in silk and ghicha threads along the borders and large paisley motifs on the pallu. The blouse that came with the saree has stripes all over.