Freedom's Struggle

A lot, if not all, that keeps us awake at night has to do with our wanting freedom from something, wanting to be liberated, be free. Many a times we simply choose to run, run away and hide. By doing so we think we are liberating ourselves. But ask any escaped convict if running away really helps. He may have escaped his cell but he is not free. He is still very much a prisoner. To be really free of his prison he needs to be free not of the cell that imprisons him but of the act that put him in the prison. His freedom therefore lies in that prison cell and he has to return there to find it.

Liberation, in that sense, is about running 'in' and not running 'out', running 'towards' and not running 'away'. This is contrary to what our instincts normally tell us to do, its contrary to what our fears, our doubts, our hopes and our desires ask us to do. They are in fact like doorkeepers who do their best to shoo us away and keep us from our freedom and therefore they need to be knocked away before we can hope to open the door to our liberation. We need to look our fears, our doubts, our hopes and our desires in the eye and then brush them aside. This is what makes being free so difficult.

Is it any wonder that so few of us are really free and liberated?

Knowledge's Worth

Adishankar was a well renowned scholar who had total mastery over the scriptures. But he was also full of himself and disdainful of others..
One day he was crossing the mighty Ganga in a small boat. Overwhelmed by the might of the river he began to recite the scriptures. The boatman listened attentively for a while and then gently asked the scholar what was he saying.
Adi, disturbed from his reverie, asked impatiently
'What are you saying, dont tell me you have never heard of the scriptures'
The boatman folded his hands and nodded his head
'Sir I am a poor illiterate boatman, what would i know of the scriptures'
'How pathetic' said the scholar, 'half your life is totally wasted if you haven't made the effort to learn the scriptures'
The boatman felt humiliated but knew his place so he quietly continued to row the boat. A little later the weather turned rough and the boat was buffeted by mighty winds and threatened to capsize. The boatman warned the scholar that they may have to swim ashore. The scholar was horrified and said he didn't know how to swim.
The boatman quietly replied
'Sir, I am afraid your whole life is wasted if you haven't made the effort to learn how to swim'

Looking for God

One night a priest heard strange noises on the roof of his temple. He was terrified.... were they ghosts, or djinns, or other evil spirits come to steal his soul, he wondered. With trembling voice he asked,
'who goes there?'
As soon as he asked the question he saw a face upside down in the window, a strange face with the glow of peace, it said,
'Sorry my dear brother if i scared you, but i am looking for camels'
The priest was astonished and angry, so he shouted back,
'Are you nuts, who told you that you can find camels on a roof???'
The man replied calmly
'The same person who told you that God can be found in a temple.'