Vibe freely, fearlessly!

VITHAL C NADKARNI

Many moons ago, your columnist, on a journey to the land of Miss Liberty, met Lady Freedom on Capitol Hill: she stood on the dome of the Capitol building in DC wearing a plumed helmet and looking like Pocahontas, the daughter of native American chief Powhatan.

By a coincidence, India’s own war of independence broke out just a year after the commissioning of this statue. Also, after the resignation of a white foreman over a wage dispute, the casting of the bronze was overseen by an African-American still in bondage. The statue was installed in 1863, at the height of civil war in the US.

During the visit, your columnist was asked about Indian avatars of Lady Freedom when he recited the first bars of Savarkar’s hymn to the Goddess of Freedom: Jayostute Sri Mahanmangale… Swatantrate Bhagavate(Victory to thee, O Most Auspicious One /OGoddess of Freedom).

Equally striking is the evocation of freedom in the Indian spiritual tradition. The term itself, Swatantrya, is derived from the Sanskrit and stands for “self-sovereignty” that Kashmiri Shaivite masters describe as an energy that manifests from the Supreme Principle (Paramashiva).

Swatantrya is also conceived as a vital vibration (Spanda) in divine consciousness that acts as the fundament of the universe.

The Shaivite philosophers also imagine Swatantrya as a state of perfect fullness of creative reality. Freedom is not just the birthright of an individual, as Bal Gangadhar Tilak claimed; freedom vibes as the very stuff of existence. It supposedly sustains the universal order. Hail Freedom!