Heaven of freedom

By K Vijayaraghavan

Apiglet, living in squalor and difficulties, prayed for a better life. As it grew bigger, these prayers waned, as there appeared no chance for betterment.

After its death, God, in appreciation of its earlier prayers, asked it, “What would you like to be born as, in your next life?” The pig replied, “Again as a pig, pulling on the way I did.”

True, most of us shudder at change, resigned to our lot and making virtues of necessities. It was well said, “One can understand a child being afraid of the dark, but what about the adult being afraid of light?”

On the need to break away from conformity, Ayn Rand observes, “Your life, your achievement, your happiness are of paramount importance.” Her exhortation to be assertive and choose daringly is also echoed by Neale Walsch, “Life lived by choice is conscious action, while life lived by chance is unconscious reaction.”

This “life lived by choice”, of course, presupposes right and timely choices. Such choices come through divining “truths”. Thus, “set free” to that “heaven of freedom” (to quote Tagore) and led by the “Kindly Light” and the spirit of the Upanishad prayer, asato ma sat gamaya, you progress to the “Kingdom of God within you” (antasukhaha, antararamaha, antarjyoti) and that “never fading bliss” (santosha), which confers supreme gains (anuthama sukha labaha).

This “freedom”, the “only true law”, leads you naturally also to ecstatic outpourings of devotion, focus and “flow” — Bhakti. Doubtless, this “freedom” and this Bhakti are the two sides of the same coin, one lending meaning to the other!