Skip to main content

Free Yourself


I am not free to jump from the balcony of my residence.  If I jump, I may break one of my limbs. Because I stay on the first floor. 

Freedom does not mean permission to do whatever I like.  “We are free only where we know,” said Will Durant [The Story of Philosophy].  Knowledge gives freedom.  Knowledge is freedom.

Most of us make the mistake of thinking that doing what we like to do is freedom.  What we like is determined by our knowledge or awareness or consciousness level.  The rapist in Delhi whose number keeps rising by the day (in spite of the equally rising number of religious leaders) thinks he is free to rape a child. His knowledge or consciousness level is too low to understand why his act is based on an incomplete understanding of himself.  

Passion is good and necessary for any human being.  Anyone without passion will be as good as a rock in the denuded Himalayas.

Freedom is not freedom passions. 

Freedom is freedom from uncoordinated or un-understood passion.  Freedom is the freedom from the thief within me.  From the politician in me.  From the assaulter in me.  From the rapist in me...

Freedom does not make me a superman who is free from social restraints.  Freedom does not make me a Spiderman of filmy heroism, either.  Freedom does not make me a godman or godwoman who will condemn other people as irredeemable... or see oneself as capable of working miracles in any institution.

Freedom is understanding myself properly and working toward my own self-fulfilment.  Unfolding my individuality.  Achieving my potential to its fullest.  Becoming what I can.  What I really wish.  What my heart really wishes.  And helping other individuals unfold their potential in the process.

In the words of Will Durant, “To be great is not to be placed above humanity, ruling others; but to stand above the partialities and futilities of uninformed desire, and to rule one’s self.”

To rule one’s self.

To rule one’s self.  That’s the real freedom. That’s the real power. 


PS.  This post is dedicated to a person whose speech I listened to this morning.  Yet another speech ad nauseam.

Comments

  1. I agree that knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery.

    Nice, thought-provoking read.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery is ancient wisdom, Easwar ji. I was just repeating it in different words. People simply refuse to understand it, you see.

      Delete
  2. very nice post sir....I believe it is even so more important for the todays youth to understand these as we get flown away in today fast life and the rat race....and then form our over skewed definition of life...

    InkMyTravel

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There's so much lack of self-understanding today, Vishal, which leads to so many problems.

      It is a skewed definition of life, as you say...

      Delete
  3. This is so true, if we rule ourselves everyone can enjoy freedom in real sense. Freedom for someone should not become slavery or drudgery or opression for someone else!
    A very good and meaningful post.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Everyone can live happily on this planet if everyone thinks a little differently... Thanks.

      Delete
  4. Sir, you have definitely defined freedom to its best .. and that is knowledge ... the fact that many of our lives are restricted from this beautiful freedom .. understanding the knowledge of freedom is in itself freedom ! a must read for all the youth !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm indebted to Will Durant and his essay on Spinoza for most of the views expressed here. Thanks for your appreciation.

      Delete
  5. As an aspiring entrepreneur, I can relate to each and every word of this post. In fact, it reflects the deepest thought in my mind right now. Thanks for writing this at this point in time!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm immensely happy to hear your words, Malini. It's good to know that my writing makes sense to people.

      Delete
  6. Freedom - So truely defined! Liked the words of Durant:)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Durant can teach us all much more than all the contemporary psychological writers who give easy solutions to everything...

      Delete
  7. Thought Provoking. Simply Great!!!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I won’t vote

From Deshabhimani , Malayalam weekly Exactly a month from today is the Parliamentary election in my state of Kerala. This time, I’m not going to vote. Bernard Shaw defined democracy , with his characteristic cynicism, as “ a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve .” We elect our government in a democracy. And the government invariably sucks our blood – whichever the party is. The BJP and the Congress are like Tweedledum and Tweedledee though the former makes all sorts of other claims day in and day out. BJP = Congress + the holy cow. The holy cow has turned out to be quite a vampire and that makes a difference, no doubt. In our Prime Minister’s algebra, it is: (a+b) 2 which should be equal to a 2 and b 2 . There is an extra 2ab which is the holy cow. In George Orwell’s Animal Farm , the animals revolt against the human master and set up their own nationalist republic. Soon politics develops in the republic and some pigs become leaders. The porcine

Prelude to AtoZ

  From Garden of 5 Senses, Delhi [file pic] Hindsight gives an unearthly charm and order to the past. There can be pain too. A lot of things could have been different, much better, if only we possessed the wisdom of our old age back in those days. As a writer put it, Oedipus, Hamlet, Lear and a lot of those guys must have thought, “I wish I had known this some time ago.” Life is a series of errors with intermittent achievements. The only usefulness of the errors may be the lessons they teach us. Probably, that is their purpose too. We are created to err so that we learn, I dare to put it that way. I turn 64 in a month’s time. It’s not inappropriate to look back at some of the people whom life brought into my life so that I would learn certain lessons. No, I don’t mean to say that life has any such purpose or design or anything. Life is absurd. People come into your life as haphazardly as vehicles ply on your road or birds poop on your head. Some of these people change the chemist

How Arvind Kejriwal can save himself

Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have a clear vision. Eliminate all opposition. Decimate them or absorb them. My previous post [link below] showed a few people decimated by them. Today let’s look at the others: those who are saved by joining the Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP]. 1. Himanta Biswa Sarma  This guy was in Congress and faced serious charges related to the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam. He also faced corruption charges related to drinking water supply in Guwahati. His house was raided by the Central Bureau of Investigation [CBI]. Then he switched over to BJP and all his crimes just vanished. It’s as simple as taking a dip in the Ganga and all your sins are forgiven. Today he is the chief minister of Assam. Nothing is heard of all the charges that were levelled against him. 2. Amarinder Singh  This former Captain in the Indian Army was a Congressman until Modi’s Enforcement Directorate [ED] started raiding him, his son and his son-in-law. He put an end to all those raid

The Good Old World

Book Review Title: Dukhi Dadiba and irony of fate Author: Dadi Edulji Taraporewala Translators: Aban Mukherji and Tulsi Vatsal Publisher: Ratna Books, Delhi, 2023 Pages: 314 If you want to return to the good old days of the late 19 th century, this is an ideal novel for you. This was published originally in Gujarati in 1913. It appeared as a serial before that from 1898 onwards in a periodical. The conflict between good and evil is the dominant motif though there is romance, betrayal, disappointment, regret, and pretty much of traditional morality. Reading this novel is quite like watching an old Bollywood movie, 1960s style. Ardeshir Bahadurshah, a wealthy Parsi aristocrat in Surat, dies having obligated his son Jehangir to find out his long-lost brother Rustom. Rustom was Bahadurshah’s son in his first marriage. The mother died when the boy was too small and the nurse who looked after the child vanished with it one day. Ratanmai, Bahadurshah’s present wife, takes her

Good Friday and Some Arithmetic

Two and two is not always equal to four, my young friend Tony says. 2 + 2 ≠ 4, he reasserts. Tony doesn’t think linearly though his thinking has the precision of mathematical logic. See these two, Tony offers an illustration, Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. Then add another 2 to them, Ambani and Adani. What do you get? I smile in answer. It’s dangerous to answer Tony verbally. Now, Tony continues, let’s take two beggars from the street. And then add you and me, another two, to them. What do you get? Tony goes on with more arithmetic because he thinks I didn’t get it. (Modi + Shah) + (Ambani + Adani) = 4 persons (Beggar 1 + Beggar 2) + (You + I) = 4 persons Is the first 4 equal to the second 4? T oday is Good Friday. Good Fridays are sad because they are about the victory of vicious political power over simple goodness. Just a few days back, on what’s known as Palm Sunday among Christians, Jesus was led like a hero to Jerusalem, a political fulcrum in those days, by a hu