The Great Rebellion

Chapter 4. Freedom

The sense of Freedom is something which has not been understood by Humanity yet.

Very serious mistakes have been made about the concept of Freedom, which is always presented in a more or less erroneous way. Certainly, we fight for a word: we come to absurd conclusions, commit all kind of abuses and shed blood on the battlefields.

The word Freedom is fascinating, everybody likes it. Nevertheless, we have not true comprehension of it; confusion exists in relation to this word.

It is impossible to find a dozen people for whom the word Freedom has the same meaning and in the same way.

In no way could the term Freedom be comprehensible for subjective rationalism.

Each person has different ideas about this term: people's subjective opinions lacking in any objective reality.

When the question of Freedom is laid out, there is incoherence, vagueness, incongruence in each mind.

I am sure that not even Emmanuel Kant, the author of The Critic of Pure Reason, did ever analyze this word to give it the exact meaning.

Freedom, beautiful word, charming term; how many crimes have been committed in its name!

Unquestionably, the term Freedom has hypnotized the crowds; the mountains and the valleys, the rivers and the seas have become stained with blood by the spell of this magic word...

So many flags, so much blood and so many heroes have succeeded one another in the course of history, every time that the question of liberty has been put onto the gambling table of existence. Unfortunately, after every independence achieved at such high price, slavery continues within each person.

Who is free? Who has achieved the freedom everybody talks about? How many people have emancipated? It is painful to answer this...

The adolescent yearns for freedom; it seems incredible that many times, although we have food, clothes and shelter we want to run away from the house of our parents searching for freedom.

It is incongruous that the teenager who has everything at home wants to escape, to run away from his home, fascinated by the term freedom. It is strange that enjoying all kinds of comforts in a happy home we may want to lose what we have, to travel around the world and be submerged in suffering.

It is right for the unfortunate one, the pariah in life, the beggar, to yearn truly for leaving the dirty hovel, but for the well-off child, mother's golden boy, to want to escape, to run away, is incongruous and even absurd; however, this is how it is; the word Freedom fascinates, bewitches, although nobody can define it in a precise way.

That the maiden may want freedom, that she may yearn for changing home, that she may want to get married so as to escape from the home of her parents and live a better life, is partly logical because she has the right to be a mother; however once she is living as a wife she finds that she is not free and that she must continue carrying the chains of slavery with resignation.

The employee, tired of so many rules wants to be free and if he manages to become independent he finds himself with the problem that he is still a slave of his own interests and worries.

Certainly, every time that we fight for Freedom we find ourselves disappointed despite triumphing.

So much blood shed pointlessly in the name of Freedom and yet, we continue to be slaves of ourselves and of others.

People fight for words which they never understand even if explained grammatically in dictionaries.

Freedom is something that can only be achieved within ourselves. No one can achieve it outside himself.

Riding upon the air, is a very Oriental phrase which allegorizes the sense of genuine Freedom.

Nobody could really experience Freedom as long as his consciousness remains bottled in the oneself, in the myself.

Understanding the self, me, what I am, is urgent when we very sincerely desire to attain Freedom.

In no way could we destroy the shackles of our enslavement, without having previously comprehended all this question of “mine”, all that has to do with the “I”, with the myself.

What does slavery lie in? What is it which keeps us enslaved? Which are the obstacles?

All this is what we need to discover.

Rich and poor, believers and nonbelievers, all are actual prisoners although they may consider themselves free.

As long as the consciousness, the essence, the most dignified and decent part within us, continues to be bottled in the oneself, in the myself, in the self, in my cravings and fears, in my desires and passions, my preoccupations and violence, in my psychological defects, we will remain imprisoned.

The sense of Freedom can only be wholly comprehended when we have annihilated the fetters of our very own psychological prison.

As long as the “self” exists, the consciousness will stay imprisoned; to escape from that prison is only possible through Buddhist annihilation, by dissolving the “I”, by reducing it to ashes, to cosmic dust. The free consciousness, devoid of “I”, absolutely lacking the myself, without desires, without passions, without cravings and fears, directly experiences true Freedom.

Whatever concept of freedom is not Freedom. The opinions we may hold about Freedom are very far from being Reality. The ideas we may form on the subject of Freedom have nothing to do with genuine Freedom. Freedom is something we have to experience in a direct way and this is only possible by psychologically dying, by dissolving the “I”, by ending the myself forever.

It would be of no use to continue dreaming of Freedom, if at any rate we carry on being slaves.

It is better to see ourselves as we really are, to carefully watch all these shackles of slavery that keep us imprisoned.

Auto-knowing ourselves, auto-seeing what we interiorly are, we will discover the door of authentic Freedom..

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