by Naresh Jotwani
Not many will dispute that ‘freedom’ is one of the more popular words in English language today — in spite of the fact that, as we shall see, this word does not even have a well-defined meaning.
Despite lacking a clear meaning, the idea of ‘freedom’ is much loved the world over. Would any human being ever choose ‘not being free’ over ‘being free’? That is unimaginable. And yet human beings may put up with lost ‘freedom’ today, with the promise of ‘greater freedom’ tomorrow.
In its literal meaning, the Indian word closest to ‘freedom’ is mukti. Knowing this does not help much, however, because the major Indian viewpoints prevalent today do not provide a clear definition of the word mukti either.
So we are left with no choice but to apply a bit of logical analysis to the word.
Clearly ‘freedom’ means ‘the state of being free’; but it is the latter which does not have a well-defined meaning. In fact, a moment’s reflection leads one to the conclusion that the word ‘free’ cannot have a meaning which is independent of its context. By way of contrast, we may consider simple words such as ‘air’, ‘water’ or ‘river’, each of which has a well-defined meaning independent of its context.
The word ‘freedom’ is definitely not in the category of such simple words.
Suppose a person says, ‘I want to be free!’ Then the natural question which arises immediately in the mind of the listener is, ‘Free from what, my friend?’
Is the person talking about freedom from hunger, from debt, from disease, from addiction, from corruption, from confusion, from stress … ? Which one is it? Indeed, is it freedom from ‘all of the above’ — or perhaps even freedom from ‘any conceivable form of lack of freedom’?
In a purely literal sense, therefore, and unless the context supplies a clear meaning, any expressed desire for ‘freedom’ has no well-defined meaning!
During India’s Freedom Movement, the prevailing political and social context provided the clear meaning that ‘Freedom’ meant ‘freedom from British rule’. Even during that period, the simple-minded amongst Indians might have dreamt that ‘freedom from foreign rule’ would also bring with it ‘freedom from hunger, disease, debt, addiction, corruption … et cetera’.
However, without any doubt, even during that time of patriotic fervour, there would also have been the cunning in India — and there are many! — who would think, ‘Freedom means that we make all the money rather than the British’ or ‘We have all the power rather than the British’.
There is no question, therefore, that the word ‘freedom’ has a context-dependent meaning.
Indeed a poet may wish to be ‘free as the bird’. But how do we know that the birds are really free? Are the birds free from the cycle of birth and death? From hunger and thirst? From having to care for their young? From being preyed upon by other animals?
To the poet, a chirping bird seems happy and free only because of an outward projection of the poet’s own longing for happiness. But, as we have seen, the poet’s own longing is necessarily rooted in the poet’s own life. The longing does not ‘fall from the heavens’; neither is it a ‘gift from god’.
When another person reads the poem, the word ‘free’ would have a different meaning for that person, depending necessarily on the specifics of the person’s own life.
‘Freedom from want’ is often rightly stated as a desirable goal of any well-governed society. In this context, the words have the well-defined meaning that members of the society should not want for food, water, shelter, education, health and justice — that is, the basic necessities of human life.
But when ‘rampant consumerism’ becomes the ruling mantra of a society, ‘freedom from want’ may also be taken to mean ‘unlimited supply of all possible consumer goods and services’ — which is in reality no more than an unattainable mirage.
No matter how we examine the word ‘freedom’, therefore, we are left with some unanswered and indeed seemingly unanswerable questions.
But we have not yet explored one other possible avenue which may lead to ‘the true meaning of freedom’. In India, over the last few millennia, many seers and sages have given deep thought to this question, and their answers are definitely worth considering.
‘Freedom from the cycle of life and death’ is one common way to express this particular mode of freedom. Every human life is necessarily bracketed between life and death. Therefore this particular mode of freedom, if it exists, would have a meaning which applies to every human being — regardless of specific historic, geographic or social circumstances. But there is a definite lack of clarity in the words ‘freedom from the cycle of life and death’. After all, we — stuck in the midst of that cycle — cannot even begin to imagine what that freedom would be, and which specific benefits it would bring.
Gautam Buddha’s deep analysis led him to list dukkha, or dissatisfaction, as the first of the ‘four noble truths’ of human life. Suppose we follow up logically on this profound observation. We then see that all the previous unsatisfactory meanings of ‘freedom’ resolve or merge themselves into one.
What is the one simple and clear meaning that we now find?
Buddha’s clear and profound insight was to see ‘freedom’ in its truest essence as ‘freedom from any dukkha or dissatisfaction’.
Depending on a person’s specific circumstances of life, dukkha may take the form of hunger, debt, disease, divorce, ungrateful children, neglect, loss of power or wealth, addiction, loss of dignity, having to kowtow to a foreigner … and so on. Every person wants freedom from the specific dukkha in his or her own life. No human life is totally free from problems. The longing to be free from such problems is the ‘longing for freedom’ that is the common human experience.
This is indeed a great unifying thread of experience common to all human beings.
Alas! There is also a dark side to this simple and unifying definition — and one which is particularly applicable to the modern age of mass propaganda.
An ugly fact of life is that any human longing can be exploited by the cunning. For example, exploitation of hunger results in bonded labour, child labour, debt traps and so on. The natural human longing for good health can give rise to exploitative or even sham health care systems.
So the question arises: Can the longing for freedom also be exploited?
Unfortunately, yes.
One blatant form of this exploitation lies in the incitement of people against their own governments in the name of ill-defined ‘freedom’. Cunning cabals — usually secret — can and do incite masses of people to rise against their own governments in the name of ‘freedom’.
Of course no government is perfect, just as no human being is perfect. But the key point is that the incitement to ‘freedom’ is carried out with ulterior and malevolent motives. Masses are used as pawns — or rather as one big pawn — in the political games of the cunning. The aim of the cunning cabals is, quite simply, ruthless economic exploitation. An outward show of benevolence is of course made, since no masses will rise if the true goal of ruthless economic exploitation was known to them.
Another politically crooked version of ‘freedom’ is the modern ideology of ‘free markets’ — which has come to mean ‘unrestricted rights to exploit nature as well as human societies’. This ideology is sugar-coated and marketed with an attendant and totally false ‘pie in the sky’ promise of ‘one day everyone will be happy’ — which is like saying ‘one day everyone will be in paradise’.
Needless to say, the two politically crooked versions of ‘freedom’ outlined here invariably go ‘hand-in-glove’ — since they share the goal of unrestricted exploitation of nature and of human societies.
***
We see that our quick tour of the possible meanings of the fascinating word ‘freedom’ has thrown up one very clear meaning — and any number of either unsatisfying or downright crooked meanings.
Unsatisfying meanings of ‘freedom’ are provided by honest individuals who are under an acute and specific form of ‘lack of freedom’. After all, ‘freedom’ to a hungry man would and should mean only one thing: freedom from hunger. As they say, you cannot teach a hungry man philosophy. Similarly, ‘freedom’ to a harassed spouse would have a different specific and genuine meaning.
Downright crooked meanings of ‘freedom’ are propagated and exploited by the cunning for their own hidden economic and political goals, which usually go together.
The meaning of ‘freedom’ which satisfies the need for total clarity — for there is also such a human need! — is the one provided by Gautam Buddha.
While Buddha’s is certainly a unifying and illuminating definition, further immensely fruitful exploration is still possible of that profound meaning of ‘freedom’. So we must move on.
In human history, the development of language and thought has occurred in several different regions and cultures, which are often referred to as ‘cradles of civilization’. Certainly great sages and saints in regions other than India have also reflected deeply on the meaning of ‘freedom’, and suffering of one kind or another has been associated with ‘lack of freedom’.
Several cultures have in fact opted to ‘kick the can down the road’, in a manner of speaking, by hypothesizing the existence of a ‘paradise’ or a ‘promised land’. Belief in ‘paradise’ or ‘promised land’ may indeed make it possible for people to bear with the vicissitudes of life — dukkha — without posing difficult or inconvenient questions to their ‘tribal elders’. Such belief systems, requiring unquestioned allegiance, do of course serve a social and political purpose. But obviously such belief systems cannot provide an answer to the question to which we have focused our attention.
Jesus Christ has made a profound observation on this topic: ‘You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free’. To draw a clear parallel, Buddha has showed a path, the noble eight-fold path, to guide a person towards realization of the truth — and thereby freedom from suffering.
The names of Jesus Christ and Gautam Buddha are associated with two great religions of the world. But of course the truth of existence is one and indivisible. Therefore there can be no doubt whatsoever that these two remarkable men, in their two inimitable ways, were both referring to the one undeniable reality of human longing for freedom from suffering. If one of them used an Aramaic word which we today translate as ‘love’, the other used a Pali word which we today translate as ‘compassion’.
In this context, a famous statement of the Sufi sage Jalaluddin Rumi can also be cited: ‘Love is the astrolabe to the mysteries of the universe’.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a sage of more recent times, wrote that he found freedom once he was jailed, because in jail there was nothing to lose. In jail —under severe physical restraints, while others might have turned bitter — Solzhenitsyn freed himself of the fear of losing the good things in life.
We cannot doubt that loss of fear is also a form of ‘freedom’, because fear is a form of dukkha.
A message often seen on the backs of trucks plying on the roads in India is, in rough translation from Hindi: ‘Think deeply about what will go with you’. The clear hint in the message is to ‘the hereafter’ — and to the need to free oneself from attachment to material possessions.
Indeed, the question of ‘freedom’ is very closely linked to that of ‘attachment’.
Suppose a person is ‘attached’ or ‘strongly attached’ to someone or something, say X. Then the clear psychological meaning of the statement is this: ‘The person is incapable of even contemplating life without X’. Or, quite simply, the person ‘cannot do without X’. That is surely a lack of freedom, because one possible mode of life — that is, life without X — is thereby closed to the person.
Given that anything can happen in life, it certainly seems unwise that the person is totally unprepared for the eventuality of ‘life without X’. Gautam Buddha listed anitya, or the ‘impermanence of all things’, as a fundamental attribute of life. It is then irrational for the person to exclude the possibility of having to live without X, whereas freedom from suffering requires a rational approach to all aspects of life.
Ascetics presumably wish to free themselves from the need for material possessions and comforts. Insofar as they attain the freedom sought, of course their asceticism has served its true and noble purpose. But asceticism as an end in itself becomes an attachment — with only a superficial ‘display’ or ‘circus’ value — and then we must conclude that the ascetic in question is not really free.
Being able to sleep on a bed of nails, in other words, does not necessarily indicate a state of being free. The person who can sleep on a bed of nails should also be equally at peace on a luxury four-poster!
We have already noted that the longing for freedom can be exploited by the politically cunning. The following typical example of ‘political freedom’ is often in the news nowadays:
A person wishes to denounce, using a megaphone right in the centre of the capital city, the political head of a country. Does the person have a fundamental right to that kind of ‘political freedom’?
The answer to that question cannot be given without conceding that denouncing the political head of a country is much easier than carrying the responsibility for the complex set of situations facing a country. Usually the denouncers have no capability or experience of carrying a heavy responsibility. There can even be doubts as to the integrity of a denouncer, since exchange of money can also play a role.
So should the ‘political freedom’ in question be available as a fundamental right?
If the general population of a country is not well-educated, and therefore if it is susceptible to the ill effects of inflammatory speeches and unable to discern the underlying truth, then unrestricted political freedom may well create more problems instead of solving existing ones.
But then are we not condemning that person — the wannabe denouncer — to a pitiful state of lack of freedom? Is that not cruel and unusual punishment? Does that not go against what Buddha, Christ, Jalaluddin Rumi and Solzhenitsyn have taught?
Not really.
The person in question needs to first become free from the illusion that denunciations shouted out from the centre of the capital city would achieve anything constructive. If the person also suffers from an unhealthy desire to gain ‘fifteen seconds of fame’ in front of cameras, the person needs to understand that such a desire cannot bring about lasting happiness — even if it is satisfied momentarily.
The person demanding ‘freedom to shout’ in fact needs freedom from illusion and unhealthy desire. Giving unrestricted freedom to such unwise persons cannot bring about any benefits in society. On the contrary, such persons fall into the hands of cunning cabals exploiting the longing for freedom.
The person needs to gain freedom through inborn wisdom, enlightenment, truth. This is the freedom which will bring the person durable happiness and peace of mind — ‘peace that passeth understanding’. This freedom is internal. There is little that ‘political authorities’ can do to take it away; indeed they may not even wish to take it away, since a wise person is an asset to society and not a threat to power.
A person at peace does not have any use for ‘political power’. Indeed, competing ruthlessly for ‘political power’ is not even the best way to address the genuine needs of a society.
Another typical example relevant to the times we live in:
Consider an immensely wealthy and powerful person, who has the ‘freedom’ to buy and to sell, to hire and to fire, to bribe and to conspire, to marry and to divorce — and much more besides which cannot be mentioned in decent company. Clearly, such a person has immense capacity to influence society.
Surely such a person must be judged to be ‘freer than most others’, right?
Wrong. If the person’s immense capacity to influence society is not being put to use for a greater good, then the person cannot be judged to be ‘free’.
Why is that?
The argument runs like this. We have posited ‘freedom’ as ‘freedom from suffering’. So ‘freedom’ has immense positive value; it is something worth aspiring and striving for — and therefore also allowing to others. This is no more than the basic principle of reciprocity in human interactions.
So if a wealthy and powerful person has indeed found ‘freedom’, then why is that person’s overall impact on society not positive? Surely, the presence of a veritable ‘repository of freedom’ in a society should result in ‘freedom’ being witnessed all around! Sadly, however, only a kind of ‘police state’ prevails around the powerful and the wealthy, without a trace of freedom and benevolence.
The absence of ‘freedom’ all around proves the absence of ‘freedom’ at the core. If a wealthy and powerful person was indeed free, the good effects thereof would be seen all around in society. We may even recall in this context the way in which Jesus Christ compared wealthy men and camels.
It is quite simple, really. Rich or poor, black or white, tall or short, smart or dumb — a person who is driven by internal compulsions is not ‘free’. A compulsion is a lack of freedom!
[Modern day economists, who seem to consider themselves the greatest of all sages in human history, seem to have only one metric for the well-being of a society – namely, ‘money’. It takes the examples of only one wretched wealthy man and only one happy poor man to understand that human well-being cannot be measured using the single metric of money.]
***
Sadly, much of today’s geopolitics is being played out in the name of ‘freedom’. In earlier periods of history, wars between tribes or nations were fought openly for wealth, resources or territory. There was evidently no necessity of dressing up wars using labels such as ‘freedom’ and ‘civilization’.
Times are different now. Education and communication have enhanced many-fold the awareness of multitudes of common people on every side of an actual or imminent war. Therefore the politically cunning are today obliged to dress up their dark and rapacious designs using soft words such as ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’, or ominous phrases such as ‘threat to freedom and democracy’.
At such a hugely critical juncture in human history, we hope that a fuller and deeper understanding of the true meaning of ‘freedom’ — defined in terms of the actual, experienced reality of an individual human life — will prove to be beneficial to those who make an effort to understand.
In Russia there is such a concept of “freedom from the brain.” This is when they demand freedom or something else, but they can not clearly determine how to achieve this, and do not think what will happen next. The example of Ukraine is the brightest. The whole country went under the knife under the slogans of some imaginary freedom.
A memorable sermon. The “person shouting freedom through a megaphone” (and arousing the herd for personal gain) is a potent symbol of our disturbed times. The author quotes Prince Gautama Buddha (ca 500BC) whose message reached Palestine half a millenium later – and now has adherents all over the world, in 4 great, interlinked religions of peace: Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. So why do we still have no peace in the world? I think the author has put a finger on the essential message, as I see it, of Rabbi Yeshua of Nazareth (near where I live in Galilee): there cannot be political peace without internal peace, there cannot be political freedom without personal freedom from greed. “The Kingdom of God is within you” — Tolstoy. Our top Kleptocrats, who hire agents provocateurs to blare “Freedom!” through an MSM megaphone, appeal to the latent criminality within us, to our Darwinian impulses toward theft, rage and deceit – to our original simian inheritance. “True civilization is neither gas nor electric nor nuclear; true civilization is to diminish our traces of original sin”. — Baudelaire
This is a most welcome and fundamentally relevant topic.
Thanks to Saker for inviting this guest and thanks to Naresh Jotwani for a cogent examination of a complex, nuanced subject, that like the sun, can be difficult to stare at directly.
It seems that one way to examine freedom more effectively, would be the indirect approach of examining its opposite. What it is NOT.
I submit that freedom is not slavery. Is there a better opposite to examine?
Yet the complexity continues: Some would become free of the necessity of enduring hard labor by enslaving others and forcing them to do that labor, while the slavemaster enjoys the material fruits.
What about the spiritual fruits? There they are very poor, indeed!
Isn’t this the essence of the NWO satanic, pedophile “eliite”? Wretched slavish poverty of spirit, an inability to ever be satisfied, a slavish compulsion to play God by controlling and enslaving others, despite the realization that such evil is not freedom, but enslavement of themselves, as well?
Why does this compulsion, this psychopathy exist?
As crazy as it sounds, the answer that rings the most true to me, so far is: Cosmic Abandonement. The damaged psychic and or physiological aparatus that cannot feel any connection to any transcendant goodness in the Universe and is compelled by this emptiness to play God themselves.
Slaves to their own evil and emptiness, seeking freedom from that emptiness, but trapped by their emptiness into only getting more and more enslaved to Fear. Especially fear of their loss of control of the material realm, and loss of control of the mental realm of all other beings, including themselves.
That’s how I see The Empire: Slaves! The “elite” of a spiritual garbage dump. so abandoned, cosmically, that they LOATHE themselves and everyone else, as well.
An almost unfathomable darkness of spirit. The Biggest Slaves, left with their miserable egos, their self-loathing selves…..as their evil, lying, non-loving “God”…….in this tiny corner of the Universe.
The Worst Cosmic Joke!
I’m not particulary geared toward belief, except negatively. I disbelieve that that bad of a cosmic joke can long be tolerated by the Universe, anywhere in the Universe that consciousness that messed up…. somehow comes into existence.
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“Buddha’s clear and profound insight was to see ‘freedom’ in its truest essence as ‘freedom from any dukkha or dissatisfaction’.
Depending on a person’s specific circumstances of life, dukkha may take the form of hunger, debt, disease, divorce, ungrateful children, neglect, loss of power or wealth, addiction, loss of dignity, having to kowtow to a foreigner … and so on.”
This is a widely held, fatal misunderstanding. Dukkha is something altogether different.
Dukkha means greed, jealousy, lust, lust for power, but also fear, anger, hatred. Dukkha, in short, is ego. Dukkha is mind. The natural world – mineral, plants, trees – is totally dukkha-less, as all living things simply flow with the Tao, with the law of nature, without ever being in conflict with it.
Only man with his higher faculties has the privilege to be able to go against the oneness of existence and thus getting trapped in the swamp of dukkha. It is unavoidable, actually, man, through his socialization will be forced to have an ego, be aggressive, narcissistic, annoying and so on.
But there is a way out for those who start feeling the suffering from being cut of the paradise of innocence, non-doing, simply being. This is what Gautama Buddha teached.
Your definition is way too narrow and Mr Jotwani’s is correct, ‘dukkha’ means suffering, dissatisfaction, the pain of ordinary living which none of us can escape, try as we might, since none of us can turn the clock back to a mythical time of innocence. Once something is known it can be forgotten but it cannot be unknown. That knowing has consequences and changes a person in subtle ways—there is no going back for any of us, there is only going through.
Thank you, Mr Jotwani, for this timely reminder of ageless, universal truth and wisdom
‘let yourself be your light and your refuge; seek no other refuge. Let the Dharma* be your light and your refuge; seek no other refuge. ‘
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma
Where do you see suffering in nature?
In the wind? The fire? The birds? The trees?
Life is Life, not suffering.
Pain is pain, not suffering.
Suffering means going against life,
by pretending to know how life should be
instead of witnessing life as it is.
This very body, the Buddha.
This very place, the lotus paradise.
Man externalizes G-d in order to have a relationship–therein lies the problem and the duality and the “otherness”. who ? “abandons” ? whom?
People abandon and disappoint ( there is another translation of Dukkha i.e. disappointment) you. The ONE-ness never can because it always is, has been and will be.
There are two kinds of suffering: obligatory ( the pain of a broken leg, hunger and then there is voluntary suffering ( really, everything else whereupon the question becomes , how long is one going to hang on to disappointment?)
there is a philosophy that has an idea of sorts…
”conscious labour and intentional suffering”,
which probably requires just as much thought
and contemplation as th above article on freedom.
That word freedom has in someways always “horrified” me. For its “misuse”,or attempt to cover up other purposes is so common.Examples of which are “they hate us for our freedoms”,which is meaningless since no one says “exactly “what” freedoms are we hated for.And more ironic why we’d be hated for them. Then there is “freedom fries”,coined to show hated of France. When France wouldn’t join the illegal Iraq invasion. It taunted them that we “were free” and to prove it,we enslaved another country. But the irony is loss on Americans. And then there is, we are the, “leader of the free World”. In which we include Saudi Arabia and Israel as a part of. But sadly,even that supreme “irony” isn’t understood by Americans. So my usual first thought in hearing leaders talking of “freedom” is to check for the trick always involved somewhere.
Another, and if possible, more horrifying word used is “democracy”. Its usually used in comparison to “not having democracy”. Personally,as functioning in today’s World, I consider it a failed system. Or maybe as the author says about the word “freedom”, something without a firm (or understandable) meaning. We in the West are said to be democratic. And the old USSR was said to have not been democratic.Of course the meaning of that is really another one for “free”. As democratic countries are always also called “free countries”. But how democratic, or free is a country when the “democratic” state,always ends by being ruled by a wealthy oligarchical power structure (always). In which only its elite determine who will rule over everyone else. They control all levels of state power. And almost all the wealth in a country,as well as the means of propaganda and learning. How that equates to “freedom” escapes me. And how is that “somehow” more democratic, and free than a state controlled by “party “officials. I can’t understand that one either. On the one hand the oligarchical wealthy elite uses the country’s resources purely for their private purposes. While at least “part” or most of the wealth produced in a country ruled by the “party officials” goes for the country’s purposes. And yet the one is said to be “free” and the other “not free”.Maybe they mean free to steal,who knows. Though I suspect that might be the deep meaning of it.We can see an example I think.
Before 1992 the USSR ,even after losing a generation in WWII. And having almost all the progress of the years between the Revolution and the war wiped out in the war. Was able to rebuild the economy to the 2nd greatest in the World. Around 67% of the US in GDP,a country that instead of suffering from the war ,greatly profited by it. And with all that, the USSR provided its citizens with free education,free health care,sports,vacations,housing,full employment,and old age pensions. As well as becoming a military superpower and space pioneer.But after 1992,they too became “free and democratic”. So instead of the “party officials” running Russia. The oligarchs came to power bringing all the “western” democracy and freedom” available in the West. No more need for industry,advanced educational standards,and all the “undemocratic” things that people “suffered with” before,like jobs,free housing,free sports,etc. So by time Putin was able to start to make changes. Russia was collapsed as an economy,broken apart,robbed of 500 trillion in stolen wealth, a population that lost 18% of its population,and was considered a “gas station pretending to be a country”. And at best a “regional,local power”. But at least they were considered by the West “democratic and free”. So yes,it’s always a problem for me hearing the West talk about “democracy”. And when they couple it with “freedom”. I think maybe its time to run.
Or stand your ground and shift your wallet to your front pocket. LOL.
There’s another tip for Saker, if his lower spine is ailing:
One of the first things a chiropractor, in his home studio in Copenhagen told me, years before my eventual back surgery was, “You need to take this large object out of your back pocket. It will completely screw up your alignment.”
He placed it on a side table and continued his vertebral adjustments.
I left without it. Knocked on his door, and after much laughter, placed it in front pants pocket, never again in back.
Freedom as it stands today, is essentially to be free of Talmudic Jewish influence and control.
That’s right, that means free from nefarious usury ( which has enslaved the majority of mankind), inherent racism, blackmail, war and discord between peoples on earth.
Might sound harsh and narrow, but take a minute and think about it.
Talmudic Jews have achieved great positions of power and influence. Good for them you say? Well, I think not for the rest of us, you see, Talmudic Judaism advocates racial supremacism. Couple that with their beliefs that the rest of us are nothing but cattle at best, therein lies the big problem.
This comes from the ‘best’ of Talmudists . Take a look. This is what they teach their children and unequivocally believe in :
https://www.biblebelievers.org.au/repute.htm
Too complicated Naresh.
To be free means to be responsible under God´s rule only, independent and free from any other man´s demand or rule.
Whoever God you have, our purpose here on earth is to develop and liberate our divine abilities forward and up towards the light.
The reason why freedom is for sale by national movements, campaigns in MSM, presenting itself as a buzz word, is semantic manipulation, trying to steal your force and energy toward the light to instead benefit fraudsters.
A beautiful and profound essay by Mr. Jotwani, even if it may have erred too much towards metaphysics for modern tastes. But then, where does the error lie: In religion and metaphysics, or in the modern, rational and materialist ethos of our times? Mr. Jotwani politely reminds us that at the least we need to reconcile two seemingly opposite ways of thinking about ourselves and our world.
That the usage of the words “free” and “freedom” emanates right out of modernity’s garbage dumps is made clear by him. My own take is that “free” constitutes the most slippery set of four alphabets ever strung together in the English language. Having learnt that the marketer’s ploy of “Buy one get the next free” is nothing but a deceitful ploy, mankind has sadly not learnt that the politician’s offer of “freedom” on a platter is nothing but a gigantic fraud. If Americans had even for a moment paused to think about exactly what “freedoms” they sought to impose on the world by force of arms, the world would have been spared most of the wars, bloodshed and destruction that have taken place over the past sixty years.
What grievous error in the human brain causes us to uncritically accept deceitful word-plays like “free enterprise” and its twin “free market”, “free sexuality” and its cousin “free love”, “bringing freedom to country x” by “bombing it back to the stone age”, and “free elections” that have been emptied of all content? Perhaps if we take out the words “free” and “freedom” from these phrases, the remaining words would have to contend with facts and bear examination on their own. There can be much rational and kind debate about “enterprise” when it is detached from “free”, for it is in combination only that “free” and “enterprise” bring out passion, greed and fraud in public and intellectual discourse.
So here is a thought: How about banishing these two “f words” from mankind’s public discourse? The rabble rousers would then have to offer tedious details of what exactly they seek to make us free from and the megaphones would cease to be the weapons in the hands of the unscrupulous. Let eggs be pelted on public speakers who offer this or that free and on those who come bearing gifts of freedom on a platter.
“That the usage of the words “free” and “freedom” emanates right out of modernity’s garbage dumps”
“How about banishing these two “f words” from mankind’s public discourse?”
There is nothing wrong with the word freedom – moksha, freedom from nirvana. But like all great human qualities like love, innocence, bliss, it cannot be bought or sold. It is not a thing. I belongs to the inner world.
Or course, our minds strives to find freedom in the outer world and thousands of snake oil salesmen are ready and eager to sell it to us. Looking for something in the world that only can be found in the inner world is the exact definition of ignorance, suffering, dukkha.
Even if we would banish the word freedom from our dictionaries, our innate longing for freedom would still be there. It is this longing that makes as truly human. Without it we are mere bio-computers.
What if inner freedom influenced outer actions, if inner freedom made us’ change our mind’, and determined the outcome ?
What if “Russia” defined some concept of “freedom” that we don’t understand, but aspire to in blindness, ‘in the longing that makes us truly human’ ?
What if that definition of freedom was the source of fear and envy ?
What if we regained our sight and saw the truth ?
Christ was in the desert fasting, 40 days and nights, before He was tempted by Satan to turn stones into bread. We are living in a moral, spiritual desert, and easy prey for the worlds fraudsters.
Dostoevsky, one of Russia greatest writers, wrote of this in The Brothers Karamazov :
“Do you see these stones in this bare, scorching desert? Turn them into bread and mankind will run after you like sheep, grateful and obedient, though eternally trembling lest you withdraw your hand and your loaves cease for them. But you did not want to deprive man of freedom and rejected the offer, for what sort of freedom is it, you reasoned, if obedience is bought with loaves of bread?”
Oh yes, from the speech of the Gran Inquisitor—truly a prophetic declamation of the spirit which rules our times at least in the West.
Dostoyevsky really riffs on Pride and all its different forms and of course the opposite in the understated humility of the monks and the acolyte monk sent into the world to serve, Alyosha.
Bro Karamasov is totally awesome!
So we can talk of the “freedom to act” and also “freedom from others actions”? I take the political/philosophical meaning of freedom to be related to the latter, as in freedom from slavery.
The use of “freedom to act” as a virtue is an example of modern sophistry, see for example the “free market” which is really just the “lawless market”. A truly free market requires laws to prevent slavery, e.g. literal slavery, slavery to debt etc…
Does this mean Liberals were always charlatans? ;)
This text isn’t bad, but I consider it largely irrelevant, since probably 10 out of 10 people with megaphones lack the intellect to comprehend its conclusions. It’s philosophy for philosophers, not for simple people.
This article: https://www.rubikon.news/artikel/der-leise-tod cites a Syrian “freedom fighter” with the following words (German, translation below):
>>Meine Freunde haben mich aber mit jemandem bekannt gemacht, der sich an Anti-Assad-Demonstrationen beteiligt hat. Ich fragte ihn, wofür er demonstriert hätte, und er antwortete: „Für die Freiheit.“ Als ich ihn fragte, was er unter Freiheit verstünde, sagte er: „Freie Religionsausübung. Ich will das Recht haben, dass meine Frau einen Schleier trägt und sich mir unterordnet, so wie es unsere Religion verlangt.“<>My friends aquainted me with somebody who partcipated in anti Assad demonstrations. I asked him what he demonstrated for, and he replied: “for freedom.” When I asked him what he understood by freedom, he said: “freedom of religion. I want to have the right that my wife wears a hijab and subordinates to me, as our religion demans it.”<<
That guy doesn't even get how stupid it is to demand the "freedom" to reduce other people's freedom.
I disagree, truly simple people, as opposed to the stupid or lazy, with the ability to pay attention to the world around them and their responses to it, have no problem grasping these ideas. They were, of course, formulated over thousands of years by simple people.
A man wants to be free. There is a word : “want” which means, he wants to have free will. Free to act in fact, cause the freedom on thinking cannot be taken by anyone. Free to act : to make good or make bad, there lies the question and that implies the knowledge of what is bad and what is good, as the example of Adam and Eve in the Garden. – Now Man, you are free to chose from those fruits but do not touch that fruit of knowledge because it will hurt you in many ways – cause that fruit of knowledge is a double-edged sword, once you tasted it, the illusions will come to life and you’ll be longing one after the other till trough long suffering you shall discover you have deceived yourself again and again, then you’ll see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Freedom; “A meaningless noise word”.
“Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a sage of more recent times, wrote that he found freedom once he was jailed, because in jail there was nothing to lose. In jail —under severe physical restraints, while others might have turned bitter — Solzhenitsyn freed himself of the fear of losing the good things in life.”
I hope nothing, I fear nothing. I have been redeemed from mind and heart. I have been raised higher. I am free.
Nikos Kazantzakis, Ascetics
It is simple: I moved to Russia eleven years ago, from America. I found freedom in Russia. Therefore. freedom to me is Russia, for America was very repressive and oppressive and suppressed in my mind and eyes…
Freedom: It is all in the eye of the beholder…
Thanks Kyle, This is a hugely illuminating story of personal experience, validated over eleven years. If you can throw just a little light on what you, as the beholder, see as the key elements of the freedom you have found, it may help others elsewhere. Perhaps, with a hint from you, a small community somewhere can become a little less repressive and oppressive. Just a hope :)
Naresh
I have been reading Saker for a good while & unless I make the effort to look back to my store, I can’t remember what brought me here first. Also this is my first comment here, is what I wanted to say too.
And the recent cafe brought me to this essay, and also the one by PCR on slavery. The thing is, I had looked up both these stories on the day they printed, and as it usually happens with me, I marked both for a later read. But for cafe, that later perhaps would not have arisen, like it didn’t with so many stories I sense many mark & move on. Point is, kudos to cafe.
Coming to another thing I wanted to add is, a bit of looking up on political science 101 and the definitions therein lays the path to read the freedom & liberating liberty like stuff terms. Also, a look back on FDR’s 4 freedoms, which in a way was also from one of those way back launches at globalisation, helps.
And no matter what, folks have a fall back position to a God figure. That power is so alluring, in the sense people can take & talk anything with their God, that faith won’t be shaken. I see so many folks who have got an education certificate with great difficulty comprehending the english & the topics in the books, they don’t want to read one more book in their life. Why should I read is the refrain! And here is where elites play whatever they want with the majority.
Venkat
“What is freedom?”
Freedom is an “idea”; Freedom is not a “concept”; an “ideal’ will not be found.
No ideal means one cannot ‘conceive’ of freedom’; ergo, freedom cannot be ‘conceptualized’ or ‘contextualized’ and placed in the world of form and transformation that we live in. The definition of “Freedom” must therefore be of another Idea, with the word birthing another word to define “it” from within The World of Ideas and not our World of Form and Substance.
Point two: “freedom” – can be observed and freedom can be felt; just as, ‘coercion’, the opposite of freedom, can be viscerally real – viewing a series of images of torture can bring upon convulsions to the viewer; these “feelings” are mental abstractions, they are not bodily inferences of nucleic acids (in my humble opinion the body is outside of us, and what is outside of us cannot contain what is so in us, so the body is not the source of our feelings which are a part of us when we feel them, the mind remains central to the loci and foci of our feelings. The difference being: Origination vs. ‘Perceived Reception’).
Point three: Feelings are real. They occur and then they do not occur. Feelings are not permanent. Feelings are transitory; however, in the now, feelings are our closest allies to discover and learn about who “we are”, since we and feelings are born of the same substance, cosmic idea’s. Ideas as feelings are the realization of our capacity to envision our-self in the now, temporarily, since feelings do not last, a now which does last and transcends all feelings is referred to as The Stage of The Sublime. Which means, it is possible to go beyond feelings in the now to the sublime, the extra-ordinary, and live life as nature intended, in joy and permanence, known as “bliss”.
Point Four: Freedom lies in the sublime of (the domain of) understanding. Freedom is not a torch that you can hold and point to. Freedom is not an object. Freedom is a subject of the Mind in the Mind, and freedom is co-incidentally, an expression of that mind that can be observed, both, as form follows function, and in the denial of that same mentally-free expression.
Point Five: the ‘ideal’ definition of this particular term (“freedom”) will be found in The Realm of Ideas and not in The Realm of Functions.
Now, in The Realm of Ideas are ‘thought-creations’ or ‘thought-ideations’ known as ‘mindfulness’ and when it is understood that when your ‘in’ The Realm of Ideas, your in The Mind of God, and since your seeking God and God is not seeking you you soon learn your also in The Holy of Holies (to some that’s a big deal), and since all idea’s are thoughts-that-can-extend-Being when engrossed in thought and in so doing – thoughts are the newly minted, the newly crafted creative manifestations in this world which provide absolute confirmation of the Presence of the Presence of Understanding (a very holy presence to some) and : is : what is meant by “communion”.
Which means, “Freedom means (Spirit) understanding is present!” The Spirit of Understanding. The Spirit of Our Age and at other times, The Spirit of our Brethren.
And then, “What does freedom become if (The Holy Light of The Spirit of) understanding is present?” Joy!
Thus, the answer in words to “What is Freedom?” are not more words