Freedom What Is Freedom? Freedom

¶ … Freedom

What is freedom? Freedom is the right to choose: the right to create for yourself the alternatives of choice. Without the possibility of choice and the exercise of choice a man is not a man but a member, an instrument, a thing." Archibald MacLeish

There can be as many definitions of freedom as many people we have in this world. Everybody defines freedom according to his own mindset. Intellectuals demand freedom of thought and expression. Young men ask for the freedom of action. Rebels fight for the freedom to think out of the way and challenge the status quo. In short, everyone wants to exercise his own will within his limited sphere. Similarly, East and West have their own definitions of freedom. West defines freedom as one's right to think, say and do according to one's choice and regardless of any discrimination on the basis of gender, age, race, caste or creed. On the other hand, East freedom has some spiritual dimensions. Here freedom means the freedom of spirit - freedom from want, freedom from fear and freedom from guilt and in the end freedom from illusions. (Heehs: 2002)

Western philosophy endorses individual's right of self satisfaction. Here freedom means liberty to attain one's desires and expectations. But there is a paradox attached to this liberty. Freedom does not come alone. One who is free in one's choices is also responsible for one's deeds. Thus each individual is answerable for his deeds and their effects on others. Freedom imposes restrictions and responsibilities. Constitutions, laws and rules are imposed. Authorities are exercised. Penalties are awarded. Crime, guilt and rebellion take the place of joy and satisfaction.

Freedom expects that man makes his own destiny and defines his own meanings of life. But human knowledge and powers are too limited to do so. In an attempt to make his own destiny and be responsible for his life and action, man has to face failures due to his natural limitations. He becomes frustrated and loses his faith. Now the philosophies of absurdist and fatalism haunt his mind.

When we come to the East, we find totally different meanings of freedom. Here freedom brings spiritual satisfaction. Here freedom is not selfish rather it annihilates "self." It removes shackles of multiplicity and gives a sense of unity. This is the freedom that the Buddha attained. This is Moksha - freedom from Maya and Avidya.

There are some important concepts that explain true spiritual and physical freedom in Hinduism. These are also found in Buddhism as it appears that the latter borrowed them from the former. We see many Yogis practicing these ideals of freedom to attain a state of mind that is free of all inhibitions and fears. Avidya and Maya are important concepts that need to be understood before the whole eastern concept of freedom can be grasped. Avidya is defined as:

The state of unconsciousness in which the soul that has not been awakened to religious existence and so is cut off from a realization of Brahman is said to exist." (Spiegelberg: 483)

Maya is another important concept according to which the entire world is nothing but an illusion. According to Hinduism Maya is the superficial world, which according to Plato is nothing but an imitation. When man observes this outer world he actually sees an imitated world. Thus any experience and knowledge that man derives from this world is imitation of the imitation is twice removed from reality. It is a curtain between the man and the reality. Maya is not an easy concept to grasp but it is one that seeks to separate reality from illusion. What actually is real is what is eternal; the rest is all Maya, according to Hindu spiritual system.

The appearance world is nothing but Maya. Ignorance is the lack of a certain inner knowledge, but it is in itself an almost demonic power, a beastly objective reality that spoils our higher existence. Thus the main element of evil in Asvaghosha's philosophical system is memory, for without memory there would be no illusion (or maya). There would not be the error of thinking that each of us is really a particular man living in a particular time at a particular spot. Such a fragmentation of the self would not take place, if memory did not produce it, for all matter is seen to be the production of memory.... Religiously speaking, one might interpret this idea to mean that you can have a real experience only in the present, never in the past or future. God is a god of the living, and not of the dead." (Spiegelberg, 260)

Moksha, the real freedom, demands abandonment of all worldly matters and affiliation with one entity. Man annihilates his self, loses his identity and becomes one with the unity of God. He abandons worldly temptations and this physical world of time and space. This concept is also known as Samadhi. Mokhsha is freedom from everything like Samsara, Avidya and Maya. Samadhi is attained when a person abandons all worldly passions and aligns himself to the Highest Power through exercise of self-denial.

Samadhi is traditionally distinguished into two stages, the Samadhi connected with consciousness, and that no longer connected with consciousness. The Yogi who knows that he has attained realization of the Brahman and atman has not attained it, because it is his "me" that knows this, and therefore, since the "me" is capable of knowing it, then he is not completely free of his "me." Only when his consciousness or awareness of having achieved realization disappears completely, has he done so. Therefore the state of Samadhi is something we can know only before we know it. For after we experience it, we cease to know it, knowledge being limited to objective experience and our objective conclusions about subjective experience." (Spiegelberg, 168)

Samsara on the other hand is a concept connected with an endless circle of life and death. Moksha is also needed to attain freedom from Samsara. In simple words, Samsara refers to incarnation. Hindus believes that man lives more than once and there is an endless cycle of life and death that his soul is trapped into unless he attains Moksha. This is an interesting concept, which has had people debating all over the spiritual world. Does man actually live more than once? No. This is the answer of a mind conditioned in western philosophy of life. Many religions of the world completely disagree with this notion of incarnation and feel that life is given once and man dies only once too. Even many modern Hindus no longer believe in incarnation. Even those who do- consider Samsara something so evil that liberation from it must be sought during your lifetime. It is considered a form of punishment because with each life comes death and to subject one soul to numerous deaths is both brutal and frightening.

To us, the idea of samsara, which is a form of immortality, might seem a ticket to eternal license. It seems so because we have not pondered the matter. To the Aryan, post-Vedic mind, the idea was frightening as soon as it appeared. For an endless chain of life and death means not only an endless chain of lives, but also one of deaths. There is thus no end to the misery of endlessly drifting around the eternal wheel of samsara, for the more you cling to life, the more you die. When we in the western world think of the wheel of life, we are apt to think of a wheel seen sideways. But the Hindu who believes in samsara is bound to the rim. He comes up from unconsciousness, from the mangling roadbed that is death, crushed beneath the relentless weight of being, only to see himself approaching that roadbed once more and inevitably." (Spiegelberg: 125)

Western concept of freedom differs on many levels when compared with Hindu concept of the same. For the western world, freedom is more material in nature. It has more to do with the physical world than anything else. When man seeks freedom in the western world, it is freedom from this or that-mainly material things such as bondage, slavery, obsessions and phobias and restrictions. On the other hand freedom for a Hindu trained in mysticism would be freedom from everything that aims at restricting the soul from realizing and reaching the truth. English dictionaries are a very reliable source of learning about western concept of freedom. Oxford Dictionary defines freedom as " (1) exemption or release from slavery or imprisonment, personal liberty, (2) exemption from arbitrary or autocratic control, independence and civil liberty, (3) the state of being able to act without hindrance or restraint, liberty of action." Similarly Webster's definition of freedom suggests that it is "(1) the quality or state of being free: as (a) the quality or state of not being coerced or constrained by fate, necessity or circumstances in one's choice or actions; (2) exemption or liberation from slavery, imprisonment, or restraint or from the undue, arbitrary, or despotic power and control of another: the ability or capacity to act without undue hindrance or restraint."