[pl_post_props pagelayer-id="5XV9gfp0foZ0Pmpt" post_title="Are we truly free?" post_status="publish" featured_image="/wp-content/plugins/pagelayer/images/default-image.png"] [/pl_post_props] [pl_row pagelayer-id="1m6zbo3dkr5zigi0" 0=""] [pl_col pagelayer-id="9sjj4zxto42hb60k" col="12"] [pl_text pagelayer-id="v8xunox6egazd1n4" 0=""] Are we truly free?

A few years ago, I was asked to speak at a conference about perspectives from Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and Hindu faiths. The topic of the conference was freedom. Each coreligionist presented their religious perspective on freedom.

To be honest, I don’t remember specific anecdotes, but I will share mine.

I explained that there are two states of freedom . 1) emotional freedom, and 2) physical freedom. Starting with number 2, most people who aren’t incarcerated are physically free. That is there are no places (barring illegal entry) that the person cannot enter. Some people aren’t fully physically free, because of personal handicaps or limitations on their mobility. The first state of freedom though is something that entraps more people than they necessarily want to acknowledge, and that is emotional freedom.

Emotional freedom can be bucketed in with psychological freedom, or any other type of subconscious explanation that is not related to a physical constraint (even simply not having access to a vehicle to provide access to travel freedom lets say).

The story from communist Russia is as follows. There was a Hasid named Rabbi Mendel Futerfas, Stalin sentenced him to a work camp in Siberia because he was caught trying to educate Jewish children. While incarcerated he told himself that every day and every event that happens to him is a lesson because it is by God’s will that he is in jail. One of the inmates was a tightrope walker, and entertainer, who was sentenced to Siberia as well for whatever reason. He and Mendel were once speaking and Mendel asked him how he accomplishes the feat of tightrope walking. How is it possible to walk across a narrow wire very high in the sky? The tightrope walker answered the trick of his trade, which was, that from the moment he stepped on the rope, he never looked down. He always looked ahead. Mendel heard this and applied the lesson to his own life. Practicing religion in Communist Russia is like a tightrope, if one looks around, and sees the threat of the environment, it would be easy to concede and “fall off the rope” and succumb and give up practicing. The lesson is to look ahead and not to get swayed by the threat, and look at the goal and follow along the path. One’s spirit can never be locked up, even if the body is, and with the goal of spirituality as the destination, the trick is to keep looking ahead.
There is an expression, “the place where a person’s mind is found, that is where he is”. Even though physically you can be incarcerated or under a threat, if your mind is free then you can keep on believing whatever you want. Dreams, hopes, goals, religious convictions, all belong to every human no matter where they find themselves.

What messes many people up is not being emotionally free even though they take for granted their physical “freedom”. It’s the battle of humanity within each of us to work through our shackles and limitations to truly set ourselves free. And to that end, I ask, are we truly free?
[/pl_text] [pl_text pagelayer-id="FslQUeW6xqGubkya" 0=""] Are we truly free?

A few years ago, I was asked to speak at a conference about perspectives from Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and Hindu faiths. The topic of the conference was freedom. Each coreligionist presented their religious perspective on freedom.

To be honest, I don’t remember specific anecdotes, but I will share mine.

I explained that there are two states of freedom . 1) emotional freedom, and 2) physical freedom. Starting with number 2, most people who aren’t incarcerated are physically free. That is there are no places (barring illegal entry) that the person cannot enter. Some people aren’t fully physically free, because of personal handicaps or limitations on their mobility. The first state of freedom though is something that entraps more people than they necessarily want to acknowledge, and that is emotional freedom.

Emotional freedom can be bucketed in with psychological freedom, or any other type of subconscious explanation that is not related to a physical constraint (even simply not having access to a vehicle to provide access to travel freedom lets say).

The story from communist Russia is as follows. There was a Hasid named Rabbi Mendel Futerfas, Stalin sentenced him to a work camp in Siberia because he was caught trying to educate Jewish children. While incarcerated he told himself that every day and every event that happens to him is a lesson because it is by God’s will that he is in jail. One of the inmates was a tightrope walker, and entertainer, who was sentenced to Siberia as well for whatever reason. He and Mendel were once speaking and Mendel asked him how he accomplishes the feat of tightrope walking. How is it possible to walk across a narrow wire very high in the sky? The tightrope walker answered the trick of his trade, which was, that from the moment he stepped on the rope, he never looked down. He always looked ahead. Mendel heard this and applied the lesson to his own life. Practicing religion in Communist Russia is like a tightrope, if one looks around, and sees the threat of the environment, it would be easy to concede and “fall off the rope” and succumb and give up practicing. The lesson is to look ahead and not to get swayed by the threat, and look at the goal and follow along the path. One’s spirit can never be locked up, even if the body is, and with the goal of spirituality as the destination, the trick is to keep looking ahead.
There is an expression, “the place where a person’s mind is found, that is where he is”. Even though physically you can be incarcerated or under a threat, if your mind is free then you can keep on believing whatever you want. Dreams, hopes, goals, religious convictions, all belong to every human no matter where they find themselves.

What messes many people up is not being emotionally free even though they take for granted their physical “freedom”. It’s the battle of humanity within each of us to work through our shackles and limitations to truly set ourselves free. And to that end, I ask, are we truly free?
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