How to seek spiritual freedom?

Have you ever pondered about spiritual freedom? Do you believe and appreciate the sanctity of this freedom?  Most of us are clear about the concept of political, economic, military and intellectual freedom. We have the right to express unbiased thoughts on these issues, but regarding spiritual freedom, our thoughts are not that expressive. In a broader sense, the spiritual freedom defines one’s unbiased opinion shifting away from the  dogmas of his own religion. I am a Hindu and believe in Hinduism, which had been taught by my parents, teachers and elderly persons of the society. This is basically to maintain a disciplined life within this particular “ism.” Not only me, everyone is taught accordingly. But one of the major pitfalls of this teaching that it does not provide the complete knowledge how to respect the other religions and take the good things from them. When you cling to one religion and not bother of another religion, you are not following the aspects of harmonious living in the society. It may happen that your ideas developed in this process get prejudiced and you are taking a narrow thought evolving from your understanding of the guidelines stipulated for various other religions. When the common people fail to acknowledge these nuances, there is a great danger of misunderstanding of the creeds of other religion and slowly  they are ensnared in a cluster of negative thoughts.

We must ponder how to be religious and at the same time  enjoy the freedom on spiritual issues. You have to increase your knowledge and exercise the same to know the various postulates of different religions. You may say that my religion is better than the other one. When illiterate people express these feelings, one can understand, but if it is coming from the mouth of literate population, it creates chaotic situation.

Any new learning is to be acknowledged with dedication. This dedication will lead you to choose  an ideal value or a path of clear cut understanding to evaluate the creeds of all the religions. Your acquired knowledge will help you to practice the realities of the correct circumstances. Ultimately, this will free you from the bondage of any particular religion.  Finally, you will be able to release yourself from all the entanglements of wrong notions about other religions. Bertrand Russell said that people used to always be skeptical of another religion. As per him, they were so fanatics of their own religion that seldom they could appreciate the bright side and creed of another religion. In fact knowingly, they used to interpret the bright side of the other religions wrongly. They practically did those things just not to be dominated by other religion's followers and also to become heroes in the eyes of their own people. 

Mostly, we practice religion to express our feelings and show attachment for the followers of the same religion. While performing this act, many a times, we pick up a new sort of burden, particularly animosity with the followers of the other religion and ultimately making our lives to fall in disgrace. We face darkness in the name of religion.  When a wrong idea related to a religion gets oversimplified, it undoubtedly calls for disintegration. It also pollutes the thoughts, so that all of us are forced to think wrongly. The spiritual freedom makes us to recognize the ill effects of our wrong thoughts related to a particular religion and religious activities and gives us a strong signal that our mind is becoming inclined to evil and petty thoughts. 

Apart from thoughts, we also get influenced by superstitions, baseless ideas inconsistent to false beliefs. These prejudiced beliefs ultimately cloud our mind with fragmented thoughts and not allowing it to reach a higher level of understanding.

How to overcome this sensitive issue?  One has to be religious to the extent possible and not to blindly support own religion, if required; one must take the good tenets of another religion. Becoming religious is a good gesture. While accepting the religiosity and accepting your own  religion, you need to learn the  following techniques. First, you must respect other religions and appreciate their good things. If you take the concept that my religion is the best and all others are inferior, you can never attain spiritual freedom. Second, you must visualize oneness of God. We all pray to God  after considering His different manifestations at different point of time, but God is omnipotent and omniscient. He is not particularly for one community. We only differentiate and pray Him in different names.

Remember one thing, the journey of your life is very beautiful.  It begins at the house where you are born and may be ending at another place of the universe. Who knows where the freedom lies?  All of a sudden, of course, you cannot expect your freedom. This process is gradual, painstaking and you have to observe step by step.  Once if you open the doors and the windows, the light will emit all around.  You get the feeling of joy.  No sooner, you understand the same ideology, its effect will embellish, enamor you and you will feel this. In the material world, we always talk about pain and sorrow, loss and gain and desire and failure.

But in joyous state, you will never share these feelings. It is not that easy to reach this blissful state.  When you become detached from all the material comforts, you may reach this indescribable phase, but for that, your mental frame needs to be made religiously bright. Then, you will  not have any specific urge, feeling or sensual desire.  For example, you use a cat ladder to go to the roof of the building, but once you reach there, you don’t need the ladder anymore. Once you reach a stage in life where you don’t believe the theory of give and take, you will consider  everything as neutral; there is no  good or bad.  In that state of your mind, you realize the limitless. 

A spiritual freedom cannot ensnare you and inflame your mental activity when you are not that bothered about all the mundane issues related to worldly life.