Freedom

What is freedom?

"your" ability to control your mind, no matter what the circumstance, coz circumstances and events in life are not in your hand. 

Its a long path that kind of true freedom. Any thing less, you are a slave

e to your own desires, will and wishes, taste buds, greed and lust. Think about it.

I learn't this from "The Conquest of the Mind" by Eknath Easwaran. The more I think about it, the idea of freedom becomes clearer. The image though, is something I pulled up from the internet, which has no connection with the book, but is deeply connected with the what Mr. Easwaran was trying to convey.

The monk is a Mahayana Buddhist Monk. From what I read, Mahayana Buddhism is very very similar./close to Advaita school of thought. In fact many vishishta advaita and dvaita school's of thought proponents have accused  AdiSankaracharya of having borrowed concepts from Mahayana Buddhism, which predates advaita by many centuries (may be even millenia), there are subtle differences though, we should read up further on both to understand. But the common emphasis on meditation and certain methods of "dhyana" are very apparent. These forms of meditations will take you beyond being an animal, beyond giving in to the whims and desires of the human mind in order to light up a certain part of your brain into a realm only the greatest of saints and monks have reached a thousands others have longed to reach.

Now here is where I think we can draw a conclusive difference between a self-realized/god realized/nirvana man and a man who has completely gotten control of his mind, but is probably a couple of steps behind the self-realized. The self-realized man wouldn't bother burning himself for a cause, in protest. They become mere observers, because they realize the frailty of life and the "unreality" of what we think is reality. (Don't "believe" me about the non-reality of our world, the fact that it is a mere illusion? Ask modern Physicists, they would be glad to tell you about it, will blog about it soon, or if you can't wait you can read the Fabric of the Cosmos by Dr. Brian Greene)  In that state, as I understand it, the world to them is like watching a movie, just as we don't go call the cops when we watch a scene of murder in the movie because we know its pure action and not reality, the siddhas/the self-realized guru's let the world be and let the power of karma/kala run its course.

In advaita, the goal is to reach that state of "freedom", this according to advaita releases your soul from the cycle of rebirth and karma. your soul stops assuming different physical bodies and confuses its reality to suffer for it karna. All the rituals, all the bhakti yoga, raja yoga, jnana yoga have to eventually lead one to this state, in this life or the next, because, one very knowledgeable friend who learnt from true guru's in the Himalaya's told me, that your spiritual ascendance, does not vanish the moment you die, it carries on with your soul as your "samskara" and in the next human birth you can carry on where you left. And hence the affinity of only a few/handful in a world of Billions to even try to achieve this state. (That friend's name is ChandraSekhar Dhall, he is on my facebook friend's list and he is a brilliant yoga Guru himself.)

But at least can all of us at least start attempting to reach the state of mind of that monk? Or at least to a point where we don't eat unhealthy stuff through out our lives only to get sick in older age and become a burden to others and society (because the cost of healthcare is pretty much a result of unhealthy choices of a population on the whole). Can we all try to be "free" to choose the right, no matter what? To live in peace and harmony in spite of the circumstances?

We should all at least start a path where we can be free to choose to like ANYTHING, through the control of our mind to make the right choices about pretty much EVERY aspect of our life. Freedom from rebirths is a completely different ball game. An analogy between the two would be like playing middle school football vs winning 20 consecutive NFL championships as a quarterback. Lets at least start playing.

Let us all start meditation and make a decision to be free!!