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.
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