True Freedom

Welcome to Independence day 2010. "Freedom" and "Liberty" are two words that you will hear repeatedly during the July 4th weekend. Ours is a land of the free; that is our brand name internationally.

I have visited fourteen countries and lived in three. India, Canada and the United
States. America is a unique nation on earth. There is no other country on this planet that has people from all other countries living together. It is our freedoms and opportunities to grow and flourish that attract people to this great nation.

Is the liberty that was proclaimed in the declaration of Independence two centuries ago, a mirage for many these days, especially after the events of 9/11, the Patriot Act, the war on terror, the immigration debate etc.? That is a question I leave for another time.

As a Christian,I like to reflect on the nature of true freedom, which is 'inner
freedom.' Jesus was not interested in fighting for political freedom because he knew that unless we are free inside, political freedom does not matter. That is why, during his inaugural speech, he proclaimed: "He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind and release to prisoners" (Lk: 4:18) .The freedom that Jesus is talking about is freedom from fear, guilt, shame, hate, jealousy, and freedom from attachments to stuff and absolutes in life.

One can live in a free country and yet be in bondage to the negative emotions and
attitude mentioned above. I have a 98 year old patient who is deathly afraid of death; he lives in a free country, but he is not 'free.' Then there is a 50 year old woman who hates her younger sister over inheritance issues; she lives in a free country, but she is not truly free. How about the 74 year old man who abandoned his family years ago and now, in deathbed, feels terribly guilty; he too lives in a free country, but he is not truly 'free.' Or take the case of this 65 year old man who thinks members of other religions will not be 'saved' and gays are bound for hell. He is constrained by prejudice and narrow thinking. Or how about those who think that abortion is murder, but capital punishment and war killings are not! They are prisoners of their own truncated views.

All these people live in this country, but they are not truly free; they are in bondage. Bondage is being stuck in one position; It is the loss of ability to be flexible. It is the inability to go beyond boundaries, concepts, ideas, and notions - prisons we have constructed around ourselves.

Freedom is knowing that change is the only constant thing in life. Freedom is the
willingness to let go of the known and have the courage to step into the unknown.
Freedom is the ability to look beyond what you see, to read between lines, to imagine the big picture and to think out side the box. Freedom is to be awakened from the hypnosis of social conditioning. Freedom is knowing that nothing has meaning except the meaning we give. Freedom is to have the openness to consciously unlearn what has been unconsciously learned, especially in matters of faith and religion. Freedom is the capacity to approach life as a mystery and a miracle. Freedom is realizing that separation is an illusion and that everything in the universe is connected and interdependent. Freedom is the humility to say 'I don't know' and the curiosity to explore the edges of infinity.

Freedom comes from the understanding that life is a mysterious co-existence of opposite realities. Deepak Chopra explains it thus: "When a person quietly reconciles himself to all the contradictions life offers, and can comfortably ride out the flow between the banks of pain and pleasure, experiencing both, but getting stuck in neither, then he has attained freedom."

In other words, to be free is to have a mind that is open to everything and attached to nothing. Jesus was such a free man. He had no fears; he had no attachments to anything and that is why he was able to say:"Foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has no where to lay his head (Lk. 4:58).

On this national Independence day, let us declare personal independence by getting close to Jesus who invites us to follow him!