EVERLASTING FREEDOM

I love the poem, “Where the Mind is Without Fear” written by Rabindranath Tagore, in which he pleads to God to free his countrymen from the bonds of social evils, and expresses his vision for an independent India.

What does freedom mean to you? It means different things to different people. In pre-independent India, everybody looked forward to the freedom of the country from the British. That became the vision of an entire nation. One common goal. They had to go through physical, mental and psychological trauma to finally achieve freedom. There were many forerunners for this Cause, who laid down their lives for the freedom of the country. We call them as martyrs.

Today, our challenges are so different. We are imprisoned by our own thoughts, beliefs and actions. We are not fighting any enemy outside of us. It is within us. Our tendency to get angry for the smallest reason, our lack of tolerance and patience, is plaguing the society. Sometime back I saw two people having an argument over parking their two-wheeler. The argument became heated and they started hurling abuses at each other. Then it went to the extent of hitting each other with slippers! Mind you, this was between a man and a woman. Both educated. But no point, as civil behavior was not on display.

At the slightest provocation we are ready to throw away all the decency, grace and dignity that should actually rule our life.

Can we be polite to each other and treat everyone with courtesy? In such cases, where we are controlled by our anger, rather imprisoned by it, we should strive to free ourselves from this. Liberating ourselves from the shackles of this emotion is freedom to us.

Buddha said, “You will not be punished for your anger. You will be punished by your anger.”                     

Some of us love to sleep for long hours. All our life should not go away in sleep. We need to have a goal in life. So, we have to enthusiastically wake up every day to move closer to the goal. If we are unable to have a fixed time to wake up every morning, we will not achieve anything in life. Conquer your sleep. Don’t be imprisoned by this habit. Come out of the shackles of a lethargic life. Pump energy into your everyday activity. Break yourself free from the dilemma of asking everyday whether you should press the snooze button and extend your wake-up time.

We have a practice called “Weigh to go.” Every Monday, the staff has to weigh themselves and check their blood pressure. This is to create an awareness in them about staying healthy. An ideal BMI should be within 25. These are just indicators for us to take care of our health.

We want them to practice mindful eating. Eating mindlessly will lead to so many health issues. Today’s food is tomorrow’s health. So, we need to count our calories and not fall into the trap of eating tongue conscious food, rather, develop the habit of eating health conscious food. We should inculcate the discipline to choose the right food.

Then we can liberate our body from all the aches and pains and the freedom of good health can be enjoyed.

Why is it that when someone achieves a feat, instead of admiring them and getting inspired, some of us feel jealous of their achievements? Now that is a trap. We will reach nowhere by feeling jealous. At least we can garner some ideas from them and improve ourselves, if we cannot do it on our own. But we won’t.

Jealousy is a disease. We need to insulate ourselves from it. Else, we will be using our strength to defend our weaknesses, instead of overcoming it.

I always try to escape from the company of people who keep complaining. They keep whining about their problems. Being with them drains you of your energy. Sometimes I feel they enjoy talking about what is going wrong in their life. It is a habit for some of them. It creates a lot of negativity around.

The more we talk about problems, we will experience the recurrence of the same. It will become a vicious cycle. Life has to be an upward spiral.

Don’t get caught in your disturbances. It will suck you in. Free yourself from this habit of complaining. Set your mind free.

We are sometimes punished by our own wrong actions or inaction. Overcoming our weakness and making it our strength is what true liberation is all about. Why should we remain in a cage?  Let’s free ourselves from whatever is holding us down. We are meant to fly in the vast open sky, as a free bird. Come out of the fetters of negativity and attain everlasting freedom.

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