Dharma & True Freedom

Filed under: Dharma,Nirvana

Freedom, all of us want it, it’s protected once we think we have it, and it’s marketed to others who don’t have it, but are we truly free? What is true freedom? What would it take to achieve true freedom? What are the consequences of true freedom for us? What is the relationship between Dharma and true freedom? These are some of the questions we are going address in this two part series.

Why is freedom—the condition of being free of restraints—that difficult for us to achieve, especially since we are the self-proclaimed most intelligent being on the planet? All other lesser beings appear to rollick in true freedom; ignoring the ones we have confined. The birds in flight have it; marching ants know it; playful dolphins have fun because of it; a stealthy lioness, stalking a deer, prides in it; and the deer, with death lurking nearby, is calm and alert because of it. Yet, we tend to lack that kind of freedom, the true freedom, which is our birth right.

Maybe it’s our awareness of it that makes it difficult to have; maybe it’s our indefinite struggle to protect it, which confines us, rather than set us free; maybe it’s our intelligence and imagination that prevents us from restricting ourselves; and maybe our dharma is not to be truly free.

Don’t you ever wonder: what it would be like to fly like a bird, sprint like a cheetah, dive to the deepest depths like a whale, having no rules to worry about, other than the ones we are born with, our dharma. Don’t you ever wonder what it would be like to be truly free?