The Ever Free

Introduction

Beginning and end, birth and death, etc., are pairs of inevitable phases of any existence in this world. This is a law that governs the life of a human being also. As a result, our life on earth has a beginning. But why? Why should it have a beginning at all? To have a beginning, the Scriptures say, there must be either a benevolent will or a compulsion. If it is the outcome of a benevolent will then there is the possibility of a wilful withdrawal of the same; and if it is under a compulsion then there is no other way out except following the laws of the compulsion. This seems logical so far as our wide variety of worldly experiences is concerned.

In other words, a freedom presupposes a bondage and getting rid of the bondage is attaining freedom. What delightful flights a pigeon takes, when released from bondage, attaining heights and boundlessness, breaking the confines of its cage, bringing happiness to those who release it, and life to itself! Could we humans who have not been favoured with wings take to such heights of freedom while living a life very much down-to-earth? What heights has one to climb to be totally free?

The word 'height' is a relative term, conditioned by the laws on earth. Swamiji questioned this logic saying, 'How can that be free which is bound by laws?' What height has the earth, our mother earth itself, attained? There is no answer. The earth's height is related to the neighbouring planets, stars, etc., in the galaxy! There is no proof so far as to what is the ground for a height in the Cosmos. With reference to the Cosmos, we have to speak about physical distances instead of heights. But, height or distance, whatever it be--the idea of going away from something does not mean freedom; rather it means a sweet, dreamy delusion of freedom, which is absurd. Freedom is possible without the common idea of height or distance.

The definition of freedom includes: (i) It is a feeling, and not an intellectual understanding or a physical separateness. (ii) A universal dissatisfaction. It is not dissatisfaction about the bondage of a part, but about the bondage of the whole. Swamiji says, 'I do not want my freedom so long as even one person remains in bondage.' This is a universal dissatisfaction, not an ordinary one. When one is a part of anything, he/she cannot be fully satisfied or fully dissatisfied about the thing. He/She has to stand apart and place the whole thing before him/her to be completely satisfied or dissatisfied about it. (iii) Freedom should be the inherent nature of our soul, otherwise freedom has no significance. It is the apparent man who is in bondage; the real man has no bondage and so he is free, ever free. (iv) The test of real freedom is that it won't hurt others, it won't allow one to be held by others. Not only that, it also means that one should not have the childish right to lean on others. A compulsion, therefore, has two aspects: one is subjective and the other, objective. Isn't the compulsion dependent on one's own choice, preferring one aspect to the other? The question is: do we really want to be free?

To be in real freedom even while one is living in the world, one should have such a birth that is beyond these limited laws of a benevolent will, or of a compulsion. This birth is called avirbhava, appearance or advent. There are cases of such births of embodied beings, which do not come under these two normal kinds of birth. Such beings are called 'born free', they are 'ever free'--they are cases of people who are very much in the world but not of the world! In the following pages we shall try to depict such an example.

The Born Free

It was on the 12^th January in the year 1863, that a 'robust' infant was born to his human parents, Smt. Bhuvaneshwari Devi and Sri Viswanath Dutta of Simla, Kolkata. He was named Vireshwar and later Narendranath, afterwards sweetly shortened by Sri Ramakrishna into Naren. The world knows him as Swami Vivekananda.

He was born free. Before Naren's birth, Sri Ramakrishna saw in a vision a streak of light flash across the sky from Varanasi to Kolkata. Was it the consequence of Naren's mother Bhuvaneshwari Devi having prayed to Lord Vireshwara in Varanasi for a son? However, Sri Ramakrishna did not indicate at what spot the light had descended, but exclaimed in great joy, 'My prayer has been granted and my companion must come to me one day.' Years later, sometime in the month of December 1881, when young Naren visited Sri Ramakrishna at Dakshineswar, the Master at once recognised him to be that companion of his.

Yet, to be sure about this assumption, Sri Ramakrishna touched Naren who went into a trance losing outer consciousness. Sri Ramakrishna then asked him several questions and came to know that his own identification was right. This Naren did not come to the world under the compulsion of his past karma of whatsoever nature. He does not even belong to the class of free souls 'who have a mission [of their own benevolent will] to fulfil and continue in the corporeal state as long as the mission demands it'.¹ He came down to this earth at the entreaty of a Divine Child to help the Child in his earthly mission. The Divine Child, of course, was Sri Ramakrishna. In the Bhagavatam, we come across a similar incident: before he was born as the baby of Devaki and Vasudeva in the prison of Kamsa, Lord Vishnu requested Mahamaya to be born as the daughter of Yashoda and Nanda to help him (Krishna) in his mission on the earth. Who can ignore a Divine call?

The Song of the Free

For such persons, what could their philosophy of life be, we wonder! They have no life to be scrupulously worked out for their own salvation. They are ever free. It is therefore incumbent on them to find out a meaning in their life. That Swamiji fulfilled wonderfully. The meaning of his life was to guide others and help them discover the meaning of their lives. From his childhood he was a leader, destined to guide all. Once Swamiji said, 'My ideal indeed can be put into a few words and that is: to preach unto mankind their divinity, and how to make it manifest in every movement of life.'² That is why he could easily record the voice of the whole of the human race in a condensed philosophy of a single life. He said, 'If I am grateful to my white-skinned Aryan ancestors, I am far more so to my yellow-skinned Mongolian ancestors and most of us all to the black-skinned Negroid.'³

As a result, he imbibed in his majestic frame the consummation of all human energy while himself remaining a free witness to the march of humanity towards the elixir of life. In his book The Life of Vivekananda and the Universal Gospel Romain Rolland writes, 'In the two words, equilibrium and synthesis, Vivekananda's constructive genius may be summed up&. He was the personification of the harmony of all humane energy.'⁴

Even in his times, way back at the beginning of the last century, Swami Vivekananda addressed problems with a global insight. The Vedantic truth of one atom dragging the whole universe behind it formed the basis of his vision. His freedom kindled in him the idea of sarva-mukti, freedom for the whole. In his early days, asked by Sri Ramakrishna how he (Naren) would like to spend his life, he replied that he would spend his time in deep meditation. Sri Ramakrishna reprimanded him saying, 'Good Heavens! You wish your own liberation! I thought you would be like a huge banyan tree under whose shade many people will assuage their pains! Instead, you want your own liberation!' Naren was quick to grasp the implication of Sri Ramakrishna's point. That is why in the international forum, where he got the first chance to address the whole of the world, he inspired all with these words, '& if there is ever to be a universal religion, it must be one which will have no location in place or time; which will be infinite like the God it preach, which sun will shine upon the followers of Krishna and of Christ, on saints and sinners alike&.' This is a formula which addresses all problems globally, for the problems belong to the one globe. Doesn't a cancer in one finger pose a threat to the whole body? Realizing the whole creation to be one, an Upanishadic sage cried out: O All Ye, the Children of Immortality, do hear: I have realized that transcendental Truth, knowing which one becomes deathless.

The Self of the Free

The self of the free never remains in bondage. Hence, it does not undergo any improvement; neither does it require progress. It finds no barrier in its manifestation; because such a life has universal application and it transcends all limitations to attain universality. The ever free does not work under compulsion. Another Upanishadic sage discovered with eloquent wonder: I am the Unifier; I am the Unifier (aham shlokakrit, aham shlokakrit). So there is a call for empathy for all. The Vedic dictums like: 'Do not injure the created beings (ma himsat sarva bhutani)', have trans-cultural application; they are not the property of any particular group or individual. Swamiji always encouraged every onel to move towards the infinite whole, which is beyond all trifles. He says,'The more a man advances towards oneness, the more ideas of 'I' and 'you' subside.'The fateful luxury of the constant use (or misuse?) of 'I' should be replaced with a 'we' if we want to preserve the dignity of this 'I'. Then one becomes free at once. It infuses a universal idea of duty itself. When life itself is taken and studied in a global perspective, all the ideas about duty become spiritualised and they betoken a universality. It becomes the goal of life.

'What is the goal of life?' somebody asked. 'Well, in today's context, the goal of life is "to achieve a goal"!' Doesn't it seem crazy? Maybe. Let us examine our acts of fixing goals. It is true that we fix goals in life; but it is also true that we do not have a single goal, but many goals! Our today's goal is replaced by tomorrow's as a consequence of our lukewarm approach to the goals. Thus in a frenzy of conducting sample-surveys we go on changing goals without ever attaining any of them. Goals are not worthy of the name if they are never reached. On the other hand, if we take time, cogitate over our possibilities and abilities, and then fix a goal, an ultimate goal, to which all other subsidiary goals lead, and then channel all our energies to achieving it, it would be an act of wisdom. The ultimate goal should be free from all parochial expectations, even if that breaks many a cherished dream that holds us in thrall. What we do not make free, will not grow. A growth is always towards universality. Since an ever-free person remains free from all selfishness, his heart broadens and becomes sensitive to the sufferings of the bound. One night at about 2 a.m., the time when a devastating earthquake killed thousands of people in the far away Fiji Islands, Swami Vivekananda at Belur Math felt a 'terrible shock in his heart'. During his itinerant days he once met Swami Turiyananda (Hari) at the Abu Road station in India. With great feeling he said to Turiyanandaji: 'Haribhai, I am still unable to understand anything of your so-called religion. But my heart has expanded very much, and I have begun to feel. Believe me, I feel intensely indeed.' It is for this reason only, Vivekananda could legitimately take a divine pledge saying: 'It may be that I shall find it good to get outside of my body-- to cast it off like a disused garment. But I shall not cease to work! I shall inspire men everywhere, until the world shall know that it is one with God.'

Reference

1. Yavadadhikaram avasthiti adhikarikanam, The Brahma Sutras, 3.3.32
2. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 7:517, hereafter CW
3. Sister Nivedita, The Master As I Saw Him, p. 187
4. Romain Rolland, The Life of Vivekananda and the Universal Gospel, p. 280