Our Pseudo-Freedoms

Many of us like to think of ourselves as “free” people. It cannot be denied that many of us enjoy considerable freedom at the social, economic, and political levels.
       But it would be foolish to imagine that we are free in every possible way. Moreover, all of our freedoms have their limits. As someone famously said, “Your freedom ends where my nose begins.” Our freedom is also restricted by factors related to time (the body does not last forever), capacity (the mind and the intellect have their limits), and the force of habit. Can we say in all honesty that we are absolutely free from jealousy, anger, hatred, dislike, and attachment?

       Spiritually speaking, we are bound by the limitations imposed upon us by our body, mind, intellect, and ego. Freedom--real freedom--means not to be bound by these limitations.
       Until that real freedom is attained, we need not make a big deal about the pseudo-freedoms that we seem to relish at present. That would be like the inmates of one prison boasting about their “freedom” to the inmates of other prisons who supposedly have less freedom.
       Let us get out of the prison first. Only then will we know what real freedom means. It is this getting out of the prison of the body and mind and ego that the Vedanta calls “freedom” or mokṣa.