Individual Freedom
People in general cannot understand what spirituality is and what individual freedom is. Spirituality does not mean living in solitude, far away from society. On the other hand, true spirituality consists in sowing the seeds of love in the hearts of all people and facilitating the blossoming of peace and divine love among all mankind. If you enquire deeply into the nature of the divine principle, there are not two things like spirituality and individual freedom.
It is only when we have achieved unity that we can claim to have attained freedom. Without achieving unity, if we talk of freedom, it is merely the freedom of words but not the freedom of the individuals. True freedom springs forth from the level of the heart.
What is meant by the heart? Not the physical heart full of flesh and blood. The real Heart is that which has no connection with any particular place, time, individual, or country. It is the Divine principle that is equally present in all persons at all times, in all places and in all countries. This Heart has no form. What we consider as the heart inside the human body comes and goes. But what we call Heart in the spiritual parlance knows no coming or going. It is eternal and changeless. Therefore, true freedom consists in recognizing and realizing this Heart or Divine principle, the knower of everything.
All the differences you find in the world are only reflections of your mind. Whether you love someone, or hate someone, or ridicule somebody, they are all your reflections only. If you give up these reactions, resounds, and reflections of your mind, which appear to you in the phenomenal world, and get the hold of the Heart called reality, then all these differences in thoughts, feelings, actions, etc. would disappear.
If anyone in the phenomenal world says he is having freedom, we call it only verri swaatantryam or crazy freedom. It may also be called ahamkaara swaatantryam or freedom of the ego….
…If you understand the true meaning of the “Heart”, you will recognize that it is beyond all limitations.
Summer Shower 1990, What is Freedom. P.129-139
