Whenever people are enslaved, they sooner or later try to break free. They get motivation for their freedom struggle by seeing the privileges enjoyed by the free and contrasting them with the indignities they themselves undergo.
But suppose an entire society was enslaved and had no contact with free people. They would mistake their condition to be the normal condition and might even consider it to be a state of freedom, due to having no knowledge of real freedom. Thus the freedom offered by ignorance of freedom is the tightest bondage.
Such is our condition in material existence. We are all enslaved by the passions of the mind, which make us dance to their tune. Yet because everyone is dancing to those tunes, we don’t think of this puppet-like existence as unnatural. The Bhagavad-gita (07.13) indicates that material nature through the agency of the three modes deludes all living beings.
This delusion is so thorough that not only do we not think of breaking free, but we also think of increased bondage as freedom. We mistake pandering to the passions of the mind as pleasure and the facility for such pandering as freedom. Thus, we bind ourselves tighter in the name of freedom.
Only if we are fortunate enough to meet advanced spiritualists who have purified their minds and are relishing constant happiness in their loving relationship with Krishna do we get an inkling of what actual freedom means. By educating ourselves with Gita wisdom, we get a clearer comprehension of freedom. And by embracing the path of devotion, we get first-hand experience of the freedom offered by a pure mind that undistractedly relishes the sweet remembrance of Krishna. That experience becomes our inspiration to shed the shackles of ignorance and to march towards eternal freedom.
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Hari Bol!
Wonderful article Prabhuji. Irony is that right now I’m surrounded by extremely loud, ignorant music. Articles like these help one stand as firm as a wall in situations like these.
Thank You