Freedom has two sides. Freedom from and freedom to. I have to be free from any situations and attachments that bring me down or hold me back. I also have to be free to be able to express my true potential.
As a child, I loved going to deserted beaches. I would sit for hours watching the seagulls happily playing and gliding around. I would ask myself why the adults around me were so complicated and weighed down by their own problems.
Even at that young age, I too was bound by many things I did not want to do. Much later, I understood that the sense of freedom of the seagulls was probably connected to their closeness to being as natural as possible. In other words, they were just being themselves. In the same way, grass grows without any effort. Clouds form, rain comes, the sun shines. Nature unfolds in an inexorable symphony of what it is.
One of the greatest paradoxes is that freedom is part of the original nature of the soul itself. Before we come to this physical dimension, we have no thoughts and even no relationships with anyone or anything. In that sense, we are originally free. That is why there is such a yearning for a sense of spiritual freedom when we do not have it anymore.
Being true to myself, to my deep inner qualities and to my relationship with the Divine will automatically show me how to remain free while doing things and interacting with others.
All of this brings us back to the basic question of ‘who am I?’ — the eternal teaser for questing minds.
We develop what we think is intelligence and get into all sorts of bondage. We obey our appetites and become prisoners of the objects of our senses. Like birds holding onto the branches of trees we pray to God to free us from whatever mess we have succeeded in creating for ourselves. The Divine looks back at us and says the branches are not holding onto us, we are holding onto them.
Ken O’Donnell, an author and international consultant on strategy and leadership, is the director of Brahma Kumaris’ services in South America.