Love and Freedom

Today’s world celebrates love as one of the highest human goals. Even the pursuit of material wealth and fame is to gain love and appreciation from others. What use is all the wealth, if we had no chance to show it off. What modern man secretly yearns for, is receiving love from others.

But what is this love, which we wish to receive from others? This love is usually rooted in fear. The fear being the existential fear. ‘I don’t want to be abandoned’. The fear that people will leave me; that I will not have anybody to support me is a primal human fear. This may stem from the fear that the world and the environment are too complex and too scary for us to manage alone.

From this single fear is born the need for love. Notice that this love is rooted in acquisition. That is, there is a need to bring something in – the need for protection and safety.

As long as we think of ourselves as finite, temporary beings, this fear remains. And we will continue to seek love to counter our existential fear. This in turn leads us to seek material wealth, relationships and fame. The three things that we spend the most time acquiring and maintaining.

The antidote to spending time acquiring love is to become free. Freedom was always held as the highest goal in Indian culture. The Hindus aspired for Moksha (liberation) and the Buddhists, Nirvana (extinguishing the flame of desire). The ancient people of India realised that love is born out of fear. And as long as we have fear as the basis of our lives, we will continue to suffer. The wise people of the past wanted absolute freedom and sought a method by which one could achieve it.

Freedom for them was to live without bondage. Fear binds us and prevents us from leading a blissful life. Greed, which is another form of fear, also prevents us from leading that free life. Love, which stems from fear does the same thing. Therefore they shunned also these three movements of the mind. To the modern mind, this appears absurd. But the ancients knew that wasting life in the pursuit of love, greed and avoiding fear leads to absolute misery. We don’t need to look far to come to realize this is true. Just look around at those people who spent their lives in pursuit of these things. Are they radiantly content?

Interestingly, even the people who followed the path of Bhakti (devotion), sought Moksha. A frequent prayer to Krishna is ‘liberate me from the bondages of this world’. Nobody prays to Krishna asking for infinite love.

How then can we attain this freedom?

By self-knowledge. By understanding who we are. What is the nature of that, which I call – ‘I’. What is aware of my experience? What is aware of this world?
Such questions are seen as the pinnacle of the spiritual understanding. When we assiduously begin to ask ourselves these questions, our mind automatically comes to a standstill. Did a good friend stop talking to us? Do we feel uneasy, sad, or restless? Instead of trying to remedy the situation by texting him, going into long explanations over your intentions, go inwards.

Ask yourself, “Am I aware of this uncomfortable sensation?“.

Yes.

“What is aware of it”?

Awareness.

“While the emotions ebbs and flows, does the awareness of it ever change”?

No. It is ever-present.

“While the body has changed from infancy to childhood to teen to adult, do you have the experience of a different awareness jumping into your body to mark the transition”?

No. It is the same “I” awareness.

This tells us that the awareness that we are in essence is the same and isn’t impacted by any external event or experience. It is this and only this understanding that can gently remove the existential fear that we all carry.

When we understand this, and more importantly integrate this understanding into our emotional lives, something beautiful begins to happen. We no longer grab anything from the world – not relationships, not material possessions, not honour, or fame. Neither do we become defensive of people, events, or situations which we try to avoid. We simply are. We act in our true nature – effortlessly. Then, this sense of not wanting anything from anybody is conveyed to people around us. We find that people feel secure in our presence. Not judged. No ulterior motives. That brings deep peace to other people. And such relationships flourish. It is a higher form of love. A love born in freedom, peace and understanding that nothing can ever be taken away from you.