Musings on Freedom

This is a significant topic for me because I have been struggling for “freedom” most of my life. I am referring mainly to the freedom of mind, freedom to make certain choices, do certain things, not necessarily physical freedom. Interestingly, my definition of freedom keeps changing with my situation. Mainly, it is related to feeling “trapped” in some way. Trapped in a situation that I don’t like.

For example : In my late teens , my parents started talking about my marriage at the dinner table. It is common in Indian families for parents to find a suitable groom for their daughters, rather than the girls finding their own match. Listening to my parents plans, I felt like an arranged marriage would be a trap. I wanted to avoid it at all costs. So, I managed to convince my parents early on to send me abroad for higher studies. Secretly I planned never to go back to India. I wanted to become financially independent and so automatically “free” of this marriage trap.

Another example. After I completed higher studies abroad and got a job, I began to feel trapped by my job. I was on a work visa which was sponsored by my company, so I could reside in that country only if I held that job. The company allowed only 3 weeks of leave per year and that was too less for me to feel like a proper holiday. Initially the high salary was a strong motivator but after a few years that wore off. I was beginning to experience low levels of job satisfaction and wasn’t enjoying the work so much. Soon, I was feeling cornered by the company, and “trapped” in my situation, as though chained to the company indefinitely. If I look back, in the job situation, I was as free as I had dreamed of being from my parents home, trying to escape the arranged marriage trap. But still, for the things I couldn’t do, I felt trapped.

About arranged marriage, if I think from an unbiased perspective, it is not a trap if done with the right intention and willing consent of all people involved. I know a few couples who have married in this way and have no reservations about it. I think it was my personal unexplained bias that propelled me to avoid this experience. I was just so sure that I wanted a partner of my own choice.

Recently, I started pondering about why I keep feeling trapped in every major situation in my life, and I thought “Is it really the situation or some condition in my mind that’s making me feel trapped?” I realized there is a part of my mind that constantly searches for ways in which I am not free, then it finds a condition to point to and say “Because of this, I’m trapped”.

The “feeling trapped” is a condition in my mind and unrelated to my outer situation. But at the time I didn’t know, I couldn’t see this mechanism. I simply blamed the situation and lived with that miserable feeling, for a long time.

I must add that later I did get married to a partner of my choice, and we both decided to move back to India after some years. My life as a married woman living in a joint family with in-laws, an old aunt and my son made me feel very unfree and trapped. I realize now, that I needed this extreme outplaying of being trapped in my outer situation and relationships so that I could reach that breaking point to say “Enough! There must be a way out of this!” Also, from within this situation, when I looked back at my early life, I wondered why I felt trapped at that time, when in fact it was the most “free” phase of my life. That’s when it clicked, the inner feeling of “trapped” was not related to my outer circumstances. It was more of an internal way of thinking, a particular perspective I had.

I knew I had to change my perspective, and release this programming from my mind. I turned to the masters’ teachings. The teachings on the ego, the primal self and other separate selves helped tremendously.

Step by step I uncovered the trapped self. This was a very old self, going all the way back to the primal self, feeling trapped on Earth, feeling like I cannot be myself, feeling like I have to conform to the conditions here, that I will never be able to get out of here.

Apart from studying on my own, I also had to stand up and speak out in my outer situation. I had to have unpleasant conversations and situations, which made me feel very unsafe. But I had a strong desire to be free, so I was able to summon the will to take those difficult dreaded steps in my outer situation. I had reached that point of “Do I want to continue to be trapped like this forever?” If not, I must go through this.

It was something like, first I would study a teaching, then apply it in my life. I would then get a reaction from the people I interacted with. Based on that reaction, something changed, either in my situation, or in my mind.

The work did pay off. Today, I do have more mental freedom, even though my situation has not changed too much. There have been certain changes, and they are mainly a result of choices I could make by changing my perspective on certain things. If I hadn’t changed my perspective, I wouldn’t have been able to see and make those choices, and thus continued to be in a miserable rut.

I now feel, I’d rather listen to my inner promptings than go through more painful experiences in the school of hard knocks. I’m glad I have the teachings of the masters to guide me through this maze of life.

-Anu Bhimjiani.