Freedom to be

For the last few days, I had been asking myself : What do I seek in a relationship, and value the most? No, it is not the cozy feeling that I am safe and secure in the loving embrace of a friend, who would stand by me in thick and thin, nor the comfortable feeling that when I am down my friend will cheer me up and boost my morale, nor give himself or herself completely in order to reach the goal I had set for myself. All these things are there in a relationship, but I feel deep down what I seek in a relationship is the freedom to be myself, knowing absolutely sure that I would not be intimidated, I would not be rejected for being what I am, or even pooh-poohed because I do not come up to the expectations of the person I am relating to.

It is not that I have been experiencing a smooth sail in all instances of initiating, establishing and going through relationships with different persons down the years; some relationships caught me unawares, because they grew out naturally and spontaneously; there were no exertions, or unnecessary coaxing from either party to make it work. Such were the relationships I knew were going to last longer than the initial euphoria that many of the relationships pose. Sometimes even deeper relationships became bitter, when the sugar-coating was gone, and when we began to step into raw selves, and it was hard for both to come to terms with each other, and make a sincere effort to accept the other as s/he was.

There is a hidden fear in me to be what I am in the company of people who may not wish me to be what I truly am. Often I am expected to dress myself according to the moral code set by the society, according to the high expectations that many in my company have on me, and so ultimately I end up being something or someone other than what I am, and that is a painful experience. I am aware that there are grey areas in me, which the people living around me, and sometimes the people who love and care for me, do not wish to see. The social and cultural taboos cannot be exhibited in public, and there is the child in me who cries out to see the light of day; it may be quite different from what my friends may wish, but that is me, my true self.

I remember occasions when a close friend of mine was shocked to get a glimpse of my true self; oh no! she exclaimed, and at that moment I know this is not what my friend was looking for from me. Just like a turtle which pulls in its head under its hard shell, I have to keep my head under the shell, so that no one can harm me; or if I keep popping up my head outside, I may not know when one or other person would deliberately or inadvertently stamp on me. There were times I had scandalized my friends, because I was trying to be my true self; sometimes my friends advised me to “behave” myself, because I carried an identity which did not permit me to indulge in certain kinds of behavior.

I am getting used to in shocking and scandalizing people by presenting myself as authentically as I am, and sometimes it is too much for my friends to accept, and they may decide to bid goodbye forever, and I may not deliberately wish to hold them back. I do not say that my true friends should accept all the stupid and idiotic things I do, but they are not shocked when I behave in that manner, and make an effort to slowly make me understand the other layers of my actions, which may pain and agonize them. That is the responsibility I look forward to from my friends, to grant me the freedom to be myself, and slowly open the gates of the hidden self and help me embrace it willingly and joyfully!

Ignatian Insights 1 : Attachments

It was a beautiful realization to think that the most precious things in life are hard-earned; I can think of the most precious things in life, be it things or persons or even notions, and each one of them would tell a fascinating story. The paradox is that these hard-earned things and persons are so dear to us that parting with them becomes an ordeal, and invariably at several moments in life we are called to “sacrifice” them for a greater good, even if that is only in the level of concept and notion, and not a reality altogether. Sometimes our hands and feet are tied, and we are left with no other option than give them up, and it is painful to let them go.

Another sweet-n-sour realization is that there is further joy in letting something I had kept close to my heart for years to go; the initial pain would linger in my heart for quite a while, and it may take away my sleep, but I know at the end I had the generosity to let this thing go, or let this person walk out of my life freely. One of the greatest maladies of this age is excessive attachment to things and persons, and that causes much of the misery, pain and suffering. Those who are able to give up hard-earned things and persons, enjoy greater peace and happiness in life, and I have seen this in the life of some of the people I had lived with.

Ignatius of Loyola was not only a great spiritual master, who taught us the language of learning about the heart, but also taught us some of the most wonderful psychological insights which had taken several centuries to really form and become theories. He was quite clear when he held that we cannot arrive at an impartial decision, unless we begin clearing ourselves from all forms of inordinate attachments. For those who are tied to attachments and yet wish to move forward, Ignatius has given them a way of getting out of this web : agere contra (to act against) is one way, to desire and pray for the contrary to what I am attached to.

We can hardly think of attachment as something which can have negative effect on us; we take it for granted that our “security” is in having people close to us, things which can give us the kind of pleasure that we see. It might take us some guts to realize that the very things and persons we think as giving us security may become obstacles in realizing the “freedom” of God’s children. It is wrong to think that all things and persons we are attached to may prevent us from realizing our inner freedom to move with the Spirit, where she wills, but the word we need to underline is “inordinate” or “disorderly”, which can stifle our freedom and spontaneity.

But is it ever possible to live a life without being attached to things, persons and ideas? Humanly speaking it is impossible; but we need not worry about all kinds of attachments; there are attachments which may free us to greater things. For instance attachment to certain values can take us a long way in being witness to the Kingdom; but when these attachments become obsessions, we may be treading on a tight rope, and the danger of falling from grace is more. The best way to check our attachments is this : If I am able to give it up without feeling bad or sad, then I am safe; the attachments which bind me and delimit my freedom, may cause more harm to me than good.

Freedom to be

For the last few days, I had been asking myself : What do I seek in a relationship, and value the most? No, it is not the cozy feeling that I am safe and secure in the loving embrace of a friend, who would stand by me in thick and thin, nor the comfortable feeling that when I am down my friend will cheer me up and boost my morale, nor give himself or herself completely in order to reach the goal I had set for myself. All these things are there in a relationship, but I feel deep down what I seek in a relationship is the freedom to be myself, knowing absolutely sure that I would not be intimidated, I would not be rejected for being what I am, or even pooh-poohed because I do not come up to the expectations of the person I am relating to.

It is not that I have been experiencing a smooth sail in all instances of initiating, establishing and going through relationships with different persons down the years; some relationships caught me unawares, because they grew out naturally and spontaneously; there were no exertions, or unnecessary coaxing from either party to make it work. Such were the relationships I knew were going to last longer than the initial euphoria that many of the relationships pose. Sometimes even deeper relationships became bitter, when the sugar-coating was gone, and when we began to step into raw selves, and it was hard for both to come to terms with each other, and make a sincere effort to accept the other as s/he was.

There is a hidden fear in me to be what I am in the company of people who may not wish me to be what I truly am. Often I am expected to dress myself according to the moral code set by the society, according to the high expectations that many in my company have on me, and so ultimately I end up being something or someone other than what I am, and that is a painful experience. I am aware that there are grey areas in me, which the people living around me, and sometimes the people who love and care for me, do not wish to see. The social and cultural taboos cannot be exhibited in public, and there is the child in me who cries out to see the light of day; it may be quite different from what my friends may wish, but that is me, my true self.

I remember occasions when a close friend of mine was shocked to get a glimpse of my true self; oh no! she exclaimed, and at that moment I know this is not what my friend was looking for from me. Just like a turtle which pulls in its head under its hard shell, I have to keep my head under the shell, so that no one can harm me; or if I keep popping up my head outside, I may not know when one or other person would deliberately or inadvertently stamp on me. There were times I had scandalized my friends, because I was trying to be my true self; sometimes my friends advised me to “behave” myself, because I carried an identity which did not permit me to indulge in certain kinds of behavior.

I am getting used to in shocking and scandalizing people by presenting myself as authentically as I am, and sometimes it is too much for my friends to accept, and they may decide to bid goodbye forever, and I may not deliberately wish to hold them back. I do not say that my true friends should accept all the stupid and idiotic things I do, but they are not shocked when I behave in that manner, and make an effort to slowly make me understand the other layers of my actions, which may pain and agonize them. That is the responsibility I look forward to from my friends, to grant me the freedom to be myself, and slowly open the gates of the hidden self and help me embrace it willingly and joyfully!

Exterminating Extreme Exclusivists

I am frightened of relating to persons who are overly possessive, persons who wish to possess me exclusively. I see a danger in relating to this kind of people, because they would expect me to sell my personal freedom and liberty to them, and wish me to be tied down to them, and do their bidding. Such persons invariably would wish me to do whatever they want me to do, and as soon as refuse to do, or ignore their pleas, or do what I would very much wish to do, then their entire world crumbles, and they may find it hard to accept that the other party has "ditched" them.

History has shown that all the people who were overly attached to their partners, very soon ended up separate; that is the law of life. The Latin proverb sums it all : corruption optima pessima (any good in excess is bad). Attachment is good, and it is a sign of commitment and endurance, but when it goes beyond all limits, it becomes sour. We can take examples for this from nature. What happens when sugar water is kept for long; it becomes sour, and so are relationships. What may be of great help is to keep safe distance (on the road we are reminded by every other vehicle to keep the distance).

Overly possessive persons are preoccupied with guarding their partners, lest they should seek greener pastures; and if ever the partner were to find a better company and partner, and give signs of terminating the relationship, then the possessive partner would go all extent to exterminate the enemy, and reclaim his partner for him/herself. But that is not going to take place in a peaceful atmosphere; there may be bloodshed, if it is required, and any amount of crime and justification may be called in, to show that they were made for each other, and they cannot be separated for whatever reason!

One of my friends, who was so attached to me, and loved me so much that she could not think of getting married to another person. Whenever I started the topic that she should be settled in life, so that her mother would be able to concentrate on brining up her younger sister and brother; but she would not listen to me. But how can I ever think of another person in my life? This used to be her regular answer! To make the long story short, today she is happily married with two children (and she had managed to be absolutely cut off contacting me for the past 13 years)! When the extreme exclusivist shell breaks, the persons begin to see reality as it is, and not as they imagined it to be. It may occur through a shocking experience, or a sudden jerk in life, or even an accident.

In any growing relationship (and I believe all relationship are bound to either come to a standstill or continue to grow), it is absolutely necessary for the partners to pause at every stage and look at where they are heading. Any vehicle that goes at full speed is heading for trouble; sometimes it is necessary to put the brake and make sure that they are alright, so that when there is a need, you don’t realize that the brakes have worn out. This occasional brakes (either through exercising small doses of ‘self-control’ or through abstinence) may make the relationship enduring, instead of leading it to crash after an excited drive. Ultimately this enduring relationship may benefit both the partners, helping them to find greater joy and peace in being ‘related’!

The Divine Spark

The Greek philosophers had understood the essential nature of human beings in its most profound manner, when they said that every human person has a divine spark in him/her, and we cannot exclude anyone from this category. All of us are born with the divine face, but this face is marred in the world, as we come in touch with the notion of good and evil. Unfortunately it is only the human beings who have this sense of distinction between good and evil; look at the plants and animals, for them everyone is the same; there is no difference between friend and foe, they go beyond this marked distinction, and that is what makes them so happy and contended with life on earth. They have nothing to grumble about, nothing to complain about. All is well with them.

One of the most important role and function of religion is to help humanity recognize the divine spark in them, and attain it through a disciplined way. In very simplistic terms, all religions show us the way to recognize that we have the divine spark in us, and it is possible to regain it. And the Bhagavad Gita, one chapter of the epic poem the Mahabharata, shows us one simple way, which is possible for every person. In chapter 9 of the Gita, Lord Krishna teaches his disciple Arjuna the path to eternal friendship with the Lord. Answering the question who is dear to the Lord, Lord Krishna shows his disciple the path of equanimity, or to use an Ignatian term ‘indifference’.

We are so used to black and white distinction, that we cannot think of grey, the in-between, and strangely the Lord teaches Arjuna he has to be untouched by happiness and sadness, not desiring holy and unholy; the one who is the same to friends and foes, to cold and heat, such is dear to the Lord. Ultimately what matters is that the devotee is able to offer himself/herself to the Lord of the Universe, in whose hands is our destiny. But it is not easy to reach this stage, and it is next to impossible to find persons who have reached this stage. We could call the people who are close to this stage as saints and sages, and it may be possible to find one or two persons during one’s generation.

The spiritual sages of our nation have shown that the path to freedom and sanctity is not easy to reach; one has to renounce everything, including the desire to attain complete freedom and remain in perpetual ananda. When we seek this freedom, we realize that everything on earth is equally good and valid pathway to reach the divine in us. We realize that the divine spark is in all beings, both animate and inanimate, and the moment when we realize the divine even in our foes, those who do evil to us, and relate to them as if we are relating to the divine personality, then we can be sure that we are closer to reaching our destination.

It is true that true saints and sages would talk to the plants and animals, stones and rocks as if they had life, just as human beings. What is more surprising is that often they believed they received a positive response from these so-called inanimate and animate beings too, which is quite unintelligible to us mortals. It is possible that we do not take pains to learn the language of the birds and plants, stones and rocks; it might take just a life-long sadhana to really understand their language, and that is the language of divinity. For when we have mastered this language, everything around us becomes divine, and the whole world is charged with divinity. We become part of God-head, and we are gods!

Taste of Freedom

Freedom, some say, is to do with the mind, and not so much an external reality, and sometimes one cannot help but agree to such a proposition. Whatever be the claims and counterclaims of existentialists and essentialists, regarding the absolute freedom that is accessible to human beings, one thing is for certain: it would be beyond the capacity of human beings to behold absolute freedom, because with a moral body and a limited earthly reality, we cannot think of coming in touch with freedom, which by its very nature is eternal and is a continuation of timelessness.

One of the biggest ironies of human existence is that the more we try to free ourselves from the shackles of time and space and dozens of limitations that life on earth imposes on us, the more we become conscious of the lack of freedom. In fact, it is this tension, on the one hand desiring to be freer, and on the other confined to narrower lanes of freedom, that we can live a healthy life. A leaning towards one side or the other is sure to create imbalance in our lives. Either the excess of freedom or the complete lack of it is contrary to healthy human existence.

The more we are free, the more we become unfree too; freedom from one thing does not include freedom from everything; freedom from a certain attachment or an evil tendency may draw me closer to another binding force, sometimes worse than the former. Therefore it is unreasonable to think that all freedom is positive; unbridled freedom is sure to cause negative effects in persons is a lesson that human history is full of. But how would I know how much freedom I require in order to live a happy and contended life?

Restrictions from social, cultural and religious spheres are there to help me make use of the limited freedom I enjoy, so that my life becomes meaningful. Let me cite an example. Look at a bird inside a cage! Is it free or is it not? We might be tempted to jump too fast and say that it is not free like a bird in the sky; but if a caged bird were to speak, it might tell us how happy it is inside the cage, enjoying the safety and security of a protected life; all its meals assured, the human company, and the outpouring of affection from the younger ones… Who says that it is not free inside a cage? Therefore freedom depends largely on whose perspective we take.

There is a modern verse, entitled Prisoner, which reads : Freeing from freedom, he freed himself! Is that not so meaningful? Actual freedom for this prisoner is to freeing himself from the thirst for freedom. One can find the most free person even in the most limiting situations, and the reverse too is true; one may feel suffocating even in the most free situations. Therefore one thing is certain: it is not the external situations, persons or things which make me really free or limit me; it is I who make myself free or bind myself to external realities. After all, in most of the cases, human beings are masters of the situations!

Ode to a Unknown Soldier

Is it not strange that 62 years after the nation gained Independence, one little citizen has dared to carve this unpolished encomium in honor of the great sacrifices you have made, so that I can sit leisurely at my cozy little room and write these lines. We had not made efforts to know your name, your language, religion or even caste, because for those who matter today in the country, these are really immaterial. Mind you they will dig up your graves even after a century if that will move them an inch forward, and spend millions of rupees from the national trasury, without any qualms of conscience! But that is a different story, you may be well aware of!

True, I did not even venture to verify if you are a male or a female, or even the third gender! I know you have betrayed a wicked smile, and I do understand that whatever be the gender, there were people who placed their lives at the altar of freedom, without realizing that they would never taste of it! There were no press photographers flocking to you, to have that rare 'shot' for their exclusive story. For them you were not even worth a line at the last page, and so is my blog in your honor! I would have been delighted to post your photo on my blog, if only I could find one!

I know you are suspecting why I ventured to shower these beautiful words in your honour! Have I anything to gain out of this? You know only too well that in the midst of over the one hundred and ten crore people, who is this one little creature, trying to dig up the old graves! I can still see the boot-marks of the great men who trampled over your graves with utter insensitivity, not realizing that the freedom that we enjoy today, and they milk today is but the fruit of your labour! The annals of this great nation were written in your blood, and today it is they who have changed history! Forgive them dear, forgive them!

Do you believe that with the Indian Independence, all the maladies which haunted the nation were gone for ever? No, today we are infested with a far severe malady, the men and women who would sell the nation to fill their belly; people who would let hundreds and thousands die in the name of development; leaders who can blindly sell the national pride to other wealthier nations, with no sense of shame! Look around and see, what the freedom you fought for has come to! Look at the millions still starving in the remote corners of the nation, dalits and tribals still struggling to get what is rightfully their own, the indigenous people being decimated day by day! Look brother, sister, look around!

It is time for you to rise up from your grave, to don your costumes and march into the lanes and bylanes of our nation! Let the trumpet sound, and let all the souls of the departed martyres rise up to reclaim the land for her people! You will not be remembered henceforth in this lonesome pillar in the midst of vast expanse; you will live in the hearts of every Indian, living and dead! But rise up Brother, rise up Sister, before it is too late! As you rise up, I bow my head in humble adoration and reverance, for you are truly a son and daughter worth your name, and your Mother will only be honored by your valor! May your clan increase!

In search of a Unique Identity

Some years ago, the Wills cigarette had an advertisement with this caption : Made for each other! The ad had the picture of a handsome young man with a cigarette in one hand, and with his beautiful consort in the other. The idea of this caption is obviously inspired by the biblical story of creation, but in the case of people across the globe, does it happen this way? Even the so-called 'perfect couple' will disclose to us that they are not all that perfect when it comes to human relationships. It is next to impossible to find an ideal couple in the present world!

We all need support systems to lean on; to share our joys and sorrows, to gain moral strength when required, to be reassured that all is well with us. But sometimes these support systems may become such a distraction for our growth, that we may be crippled for life. What are these support systems I am referring to here? They may be persons we love, admire and treasure; institutions we belong to, organizations we have given birth to, convictions we have developed for ourselves over the past years, and the spiritual experiences (some may call them core experiences). When it trouble we tend to return to them to be re-energised.

Each one of us has a unique identity, and this identity may be marred by over dependence on the 'phantoms' (for want of a better word), we may create for ourselves. We have to get over these support systems, these phantoms; if we don't, then they may only mar the unique identity we are born with, and super-impose an identity quite different from ours. I can cherish my identity as a unique person, only so long I dissociate myself from all that attempts to bind myself to it. Until I dissociate myself from the person who wants to possess and keep me under her control, I cannot claim to be free. It is this freedom that gives birth to my unique identity.

It is quite natural that we have for ourselves persons who would care for us, and only for us. When the person I love whole-heartedly (is it a reality or just a possibility?), shares that love with another person, then I feel that my friend is not faithful to me; or that the love my friend has for me is only partial. Such a love is a selfish love, and will only bind myself to the other person, delimiting my freedom. Often I may feel I should not do anything that might displease my friend, and that may cause me dearly, if not immediately at lease in future. The irony is that the friend may not even expect me to do such a foolish thing. It is not that we cannot have very close friends, to whom we might confide all we go through, but to expect the person to behave according to my expectations and trying to fulfill the expectations of the other person, will only lead to the death of my freedom and of my friend.

Freedom is the great gift that we possess, and it is this freedom that can really make us unique, and help us enjoy the blessings of the world, and of human relationships. I can be what I am, without putting on a mask, and others will still accept me – this realization and feeling is vital to our very existence as human persons. To be free like a butterfly, moving from one blossom to another, without getting unduly attached to any one, is the story of freedom we can learn from nature. The joy of sipping nectar from the blossom while imprinting on them a loving kiss is an experience the butterfly can offer us and we can cherish.