Spontaneity
Do we always have to act under pressure – outer or inner? Is there not a way of living where we do things while enjoying an inner silence? Would it not be true integration of the personality when there is no conflict between ‘what we want to do’ and ‘what we actually do’? We are afraid of freedom, it seems. We are afraid we may go astray unless we subject ourselves to some rules, laws or vows. In the name of discipline, we often create and sustain a gap between our heart’s cry and our actual daily activity.
The society is our own reflection. No wonder the social morality also causes a lot of artificiality in all of us. While on one hand we feel suffocated, we rationalize it on the other by saying there is no alternative.
True enough, a behavior lacking moral restraint is no freedom. Swami Chinmayanandaji observed therefore, “Not to do what you want to do is freedom.” His reference obviously was to a perverted mind that is a slave to many compulsions and urges.
The case is different when true sensitivity is awakened in us. When our perception of events and persons is no more clouded by the past, we handle the mind in a totally different way. The control that traditional religion everywhere prescribes is very satisfactory to the mediocre mind. A mind that explores the issue more deeply sees through the contradiction in the proposal. Who controls whom? The entity that controls and the one that is controlled are both centered in the same ego – interested fundamentally in its own gratification or glorification. Sri Ramana pointed out, “It is a case of the thief-turned-policeman looking for the thief!” If we go to the root of the issue and notice directly the forces at work in our thought processes, a breakthrough takes place. That is true meditation when personal insights pull down the walls in our psyche.
We then arrive at an innocence (not dullness, please) and they mystery of living is resolved moment by moment. We walk through life with open arms.
Swami Chidananda
Monday, June 30, 2003