The Nature of Personal Freedom
Excerpt from THE NATURE OF PERSONAL FREEDOM
GURURAJ ANANDA YOGI: What is nature? And what is freedom? You ask this question about freedom because you feel that you are bound. If you feel that you are bound, then by what are you bound? Can we put the question in another way? What is the nature of bondage, so that freedom can be known?
What are you bound by? Is it the process of your personal thoughts, or the patternings of your own mind, that makes you feel that you are bound? Or are you really in bondage? Do you think that you are bound? And if you think that you are bound, where does this form of thinking come from? Because your very nature is freedom. If Divinity is omnipresent, and if Divinity represents freedom, then because of the nature of omnipresence, which is freedom itself, you should feel free.
So now you find this bondage that shackles you; these handcuffs, this ball, this chain, that does not allow you to move as you want to move. Where does that come from? Does it really exist? And if you do find any reality in it, is the reality of your mind, or is it an actuality?
There’s a difference between reality and actuality. Reality could be appearance while actuality is that which is. (For example,) you (might) go and see a magic show and you find the magician cutting a woman in half. You know it is an illusion, and yet it is there; it seems real. But is it actual? (Because) the woman will turn up a few minutes later, more alive than ever. So what is bondage? Can bondage (also) be described as an illusion? Are you living in illusion, or are you living as you really are?
Teachers tell you to be like Buddha, be like Krishna, be like Christ. But I tell you to be yourself. And by being yourself, you can get rid of the illusion of bondage. You that are boundless; you that are boundaryless, why do you go through the suffering of the sense of bondage?
Read the satsang here.