“The goal is freedom. Everything that we perceive around is struggling towards freedom, from the atom to the man, from the insentient lifeless particle of matter to the highest existence on earth, the human soul.”
— Swami Vivekananda
The professional slogging away to make more money. The parents spoiling their child. The devotee constantly chanting God’s name. They all hope their actions will bring them what they want in life: freedom… from work, from the guilt of being bad parents, and from rebirth.
“A little hope is effective,” Robert Ludlum wrote, “a lot of hope is dangerous.” Hope means postponing our joy to a later date and basing our actions on external rewards. And anything done with expectation only forges more chains. “A golden chain is as much a chain as an iron one,” Swamiji reminds us.
What do you want in life? Mukti, freedom from bondage of all kinds. And it comes from rooting yourself in the present moment, from acting not out of the hope for a positive outcome later, but for the love of the task. When external events leave nothing more than ripples on your mind, you can retain autonomy over yourself.
That is what freedom truly means.