By A.P.
We live in the era of the coronavirus. An era that we neither expected nor imagined. A few years ago, if someone would describe the current reality, we would think they were talking about a science fiction movie.
Yet, here we are in the midst of a second lockdown. Facing all kinds of problems (health, family-related, financial, psychological), but mostly facing our own selves, our limits and our needs. Locked in our homes, besieged from all kinds of prohibitions, limitations and fears (our own or those imposed on us), we hope for a tomorrow where life will revert back to the rhythm we knew. Where we will be able to work, to move around without sending an sms or “certificates of transportation”, to go for a stroll to the sea or to the mountain, to celebrate with friends and relatives, to do again all those things we were doing and paid no attention to, because we considered them a given reality.
We long for our freedom. But let us stop for a moment to think: is it inevitable that this deprivation we experience will lead to the shrinking of the concept of freedom to those simply everyday things that we are missing? Or can we take advantage of it as an opportunity to go deeper within ourselves in order to find the essence of freedom and give to each of our choices a different dimension?
Is it possible that our freedom may benefit us but hurt others?
Is it possible that freedom can be disrespectful, phobic, submissive or short-tempered?
The subjective notion of freedom that we humans usually express may have one or more of the characteristics mentioned above. Yet, let us picture the above. Does this really look like freedom?
For me, freedom needs courage and daring. Courage to accept what you cannot do, and daring to attempt it. Freedom does not retrench itself. It is developed through contact and interaction. That is where it grows roots and bears fruit. It is not experienced instantly. We walk a path with and towards it, experiencing it in evermore expanded stages. For that, we need to act, because freedom is not theory, it is a constant manifestation. It is a revolution against dogmas and our established ideas, a step to the unknown that can lead us closer to our higher self.
A free mind is not limited. It processes, it understand and it unifies. A free heart is not isolated. It accepts, it forgives, and it accommodates. Only a free mind and a free heart can love.
Our planet needs freedom, and the only ones who can provide it is us.
Let us start to act with freedom, starting from our immediate environment, be that family, workplace, friendships. Let us try to see how free we are, thinking of the problems of our country, of the world, as well as the dead-ends of unemployment, of the refugee crisis, of climate change.
It may be that our first thought is that we cannot do much. That all those are too much for our own potential.
Yet, we can… With true freedom as our standard, we can put our own little stone in the global edifice that needs to be erected. By interacting with people and conditions around us, inspired by the spirit of true freedom, trying to express it more and more, without impressive expressions, but slowly and gradually, we reform ourselves and our environment. We demolish the fort of our own divisions. We expand ourselves, seeing us in others and the others in us.
And thus, gradually, humanity becomes our self and the planet our country.
We are already late. Time is passing by and we no longer can be passive observers. By virtue on being on this planet, we are participants, whether we like it or not. It is time to understand this. The extreme conditions we experience, one after the other, are putting pressure on us to assume the responsibility of our own reformation, the responsibility of the world’s reformation.
Let us decide to act. Let us decide to no longer be besieged by the subjective notion of freedom that each one of us advocates. Let us do an exodus from the part towards the whole, and let us pour forth on the plant, each one of us trying within our own arena to approach our daily lives with the essence of freedom. Let us create a freer planet, not only for ourselves, but for everyone.
Let us not forget that in order to be freed, we need to free others. And as I wrote above, only a free mind and a free heart can love.
Respect and love is what we all need to face any issue, large or small, personal or national or global. What we now experience shows to us how necessary it is to find again the essence of things.
Let us do it and let us succeed in what looks impossible: the reformation of our self, of our life, of our world.