Freedom is an innate right which humans have since their birth.

Freedom is not something that

can be touched, seen, felt or reached. All this gives a vague idea about freedom. What exactly
does freedom mean?
Different people have different opinions, definition and thoughts about the idea of freedom.
Some talk about freedom in political sense, some talk about social freedom, some about personal
independence and some define it as religious freedom. But the fact that everyone wants to be
free, holds true in all cases. Enjoying our freedom does not mean that we disregard the rights of
others and live the way we feel right. We have to consider the rights and the feelings of people
around us when living our freedom. Similarly a free person does not have to fear when
expressing his opinion ensuring that others respect and feelings are not hurt. Societies which
encourage freedom of opinion, thoughts, beliefs, expression, choice etc. are the ones where
creative minds flourish. Freedom does not come with independence. Freedom is also about
appreciating the enchanting beauty of nature and environment around us. A person who is
worried and anxious cannot be free at mind and hence cannot enjoy the scenic beauty of a lovely
moonlit sky or the pleasant music of the singing birds at the sunset. Hence, freedom is all a state
of your mind. It implies that your mind is under no fear or compulsion of safety in life. The
feeling of having social recognition, of being praised and of being safe does not mean freedom.
Our Aspirations and ambitions of being somebody are absurd and do not suggest freedom.
Education or preaching does not make us free. Following an ideal person or an example of a
master is not a sign of freedom of a person. Freedom is the absence of any pressure from the
social, political and religious environment that we live in.

But from social perspective, freedom is definitely something that a person is free to do while
abiding by social customs and law of the country. No societies can guarantee absolute freedom
to all social creatures. This is because it will be a complete chaos if we try understanding what
everyone in the society wants to do. Thus, freedom is not an absolute right, and it too has some
constraints. A freedom that poses threat to the society and the nation we dwell in is not freedom
in real sense. One cannot kill people, violate laws, smuggle drugs or doing anything detrimental
to the society and call it freedom. Thus freedom is about belief more than a concept.
Deprivation of freedom is like a punishment to a human being.

For a human being, the mind is a great facilitator. However, if you examine closely, you also realize
that the mind presents a huge problem to all of us. All battles are fought in the mind, and all
happiness and suffering are experienced in the mind. Depending upon how we make use of them
and control them, we shape our lives and destinies upon earth.

Mental slavery is new form of warfare. It is strategic. It deceives us to be a part of

something great but is actually nothing more than a war where the other party
wants to conquer our minds and rot us in a tricky way that we would never realize
what really happened. It is to destroy a nation or a group of people in the most
strategic manner that it would appear to them as glamorous but in real would be
tragic.

Formal slavery is dead in most of the world but since we are accustomed to slavery
because of our region’s history of slavery, we choose to be mentally slaves to
societal traditions, fashions, status and trends. We are so accustomed to these ideas
and since they are deeply rooted in our society that we refuse not be attached with
such a thing. These societal trends make us slaves to their changes, their thoughts
and we like being a part of them, more over we alter ourselves, we change our
identities to be a part of this enslavement program. We do all this to impress our
own people and we do not realize for a second that we lose our uniqueness, our
identity of being our self by choosing to be slaves to societal mindset; good or bad.
This makes us lose our power of thought, we don’t think, don’t question, don’t
analyze, we just believe that what’s happening is right, we go for face value, the
superficiality of the situation rather than the depth and reason in it.

I believe that we are not mentally enslaved, we choose to be mentally enslaved

because we get easily influenced by surroundings and as Gandhi puts it,

“Freedom and slavery are mental states”

I second this thought because it’s all about the way we think and how strong
enough we are to keep intact our originality, our uniqueness in this world. When
we are born, our body adapts to the environment in order to survive but what we
are doing is we change our identity to be a part of society or to survive in this
world. It is not someone who pushes us in the well of mental enslavement but its
WE who decide to be the slaves ourselves, not physically but mentally. It is the
modern type of slavery and we can’t blame anyone for it except for us, who
chooses to be a part of it.

I never in real understood the value of questioning; when our science teacher
would show us a certain phenomenon and would coerce us to question it. For me,
it was plain stupidity to question a phenomenon which was natural but now, I do
understand. It is important to question, it keeps our inquisitive nature alive and our
brain keeps processing and analyzing. Slavery is brain death. It’s like you just have
to follow what you’ve been told to. You are programmed rather than having your
own thoughts on the matter. Once we go into mental slavery we become robots,
we are no different from others in the mental slavery program and thus no brain
activity which is how our brain dies eventually. We have no power of decision, no
creativity in our tasks and we are no different than others. It doesn’t make us stand
distinctly it merges us in the crowd of mentally conquered people, people who are
mentally dead.

In the end I would just like to say what James Allen, statesman of New Zealand
said,

“Before complaining that you are a slave to another, be sure that you are not a slave to self. Look
within;…You will find there, perchance, slavish thoughts, slavish desires, and in your daily life
and conduct slavish habits. Conquer these; cease to be a slave to self, and no man will have the
power to enslave you.”

Mental liberation means freedom from the conditioning to which we are subject. It is liberation
from the learning, beliefs, values, opinions, prejudices, judgments, world views, attitudes,
standards, which we harbour in our minds because of our interaction with the external world. Each
of these holds us down to a particular belief and value system to which we remain bound for the
rest of our lives. Mental liberation means freedom from all these.
True freedom is a state of mind. While outwardly you may be bound to the rules and norms of
society, inwardly you can be free. If you are afraid, defensive, aggressive or expectant, it means
you are not free. Mental liberation is liberation from authority, knowledge, past and future,
relationships, conditions, compulsions, values, beliefs, and whatever the world worships blindly
and superstitiously with motive and fear. It is a condition in which one is free from the mind
itself.