Agree With Freedom for Freedom Is Your Nature
Questioner: What is the role of persuasion in teaching? Is it alright if teaching involves a certain degree of persuasion? If yes, why must one be persuaded?
Acharya Prashant: Freedom is available only to a free mind. A mind that has been conditioned, deeply enslaved, moves from no other factor except persuasion. He does not recognize any other factor. Even to wake him up you have to persuade him initially, for a little period. If you leave him to himself, he will only do what he has been conditioned to do. A free man can be left to himself, he must be left to himself, but a conditioned man cannot be left to himself.
Freedom is for those who deserve it. You surely deserve it, but right now you have convinced yourself that you are not free. You have deeply convinced yourself that you require the force of habit and other things.
Questioner: Why is there always a sense of disagreement when it comes to these matters?
Acharya Prashant: Why do you tend to disagree with whatever comes—is that what you are asking?
Questioner: Yes.
Acharya Prashant: It’s not that you really disagree. Had disagreement been your nature, you would have disagreed with disagreement also, you would have resisted resistance also. But you don’t do that; you agree with your disagreement. And you agree with a lot of other things as well. The world overpowers us in a thousand ways, and don’t we agree to that?
You go to the markets and the markets attract you; that’s kind of an attack, an invasion. And don’t you agree to that? Or do you just say that “This is an invasion upon my being and I cannot allow it to happen; I cannot enter this shopping mall”? And the shopping mall is attacking you in a thousand ways. All that glitter and all those sounds and all those smells, they are an attack. And every shopkeeper knows how to attack. His business depends upon attacking you and dominating you. And the more he can make a slave out of you, the more he will sell.
Even your roadside street food vendor, he too knows how to attack you. When you pass by, what does he do? He creates some sound to attract you—he is attacking. He will put some oil on his pan so that the smell reaches your nose, and you will say, “I want to eat.” You won’t even realize that you have been attacked. And you agree to that. It’s not that you disagree.
You agree to everything that makes you a slave. There is hardly any resistance and hardly any rebellion. You are listening attentively and your neighbor just strokes you, and you look at your neighbor and he says something. He has disturbed you, and you have agreed to be disturbed. Do you just turn around and say, “How dare you disturb my peace?” That doesn’t happen. We agree. We agree to be disturbed, we agree to be enslaved, we agree to be conditioned.
This agreement too is actually not ours. This agreement is just a property of being asleep. Whosoever is asleep will agree to whatever is happening with him. When you are asleep, somebody can come and paint your face with mud. What can you do? You will have to agree to it. You are allowing it to happen in the sense that you cannot resist it. When you don’t know what is happening, then anything can happen and you will be alright with it.
We agree with all the rubbish. Then what is it that we disagree with? The man who agrees to enslavement will disagree with freedom. It’s obvious. “When I am agreeing to remain a slave, how can I parallelly agree to freedom?”
Have you heard the story of the bird that wanted freedom? So, there was this bird in a cage, and it was continuously chirping, “Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!” like a chant, like a mantra. And a young man passes by, really young and rebellious, and he says, “The bird wants to fly, the bird wants freedom, and I must help the bird.” So, he presses the door of the cage to let the bird just fly out. To his surprise, the bird doesn’t fly out. He waits, but the bird still does not come out. But the bird is incessantly saying, “Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!”
Now, the young man is a young man. He puts his hand inside and says, “I will give you freedom, I want to pull you outside.” Now he is in for a shock: the bird bites his fingers, the bird hurts his hand; his hand starts bleeding. But the young man is determined; after all, he is a young man. He says, “Whatever may be, you will have to come out!”
So, with the bleeding hand he brings the bird out and releases the bird, and the bird somehow flaps its wings and flies away. The young man is happy. He says, “Yes, freedom is our nature!” and goes away. He returns after a while, and what does he find? The door of the cage is open and the bird is comfortably sitting inside. The bird is eating all the fruits and vegetables that the master had given it and chants, “Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!”
We deeply disagree with freedom. We may keep saying that we want it, but we agree only with the cage. Why do we agree to the cage? Because the cage gives us fruits and vegetables. Freedom means, no more fruits and vegetables. Freedom means, now you are on your own: go, fend for yourself! And eagles and vultures can attack upon you—the open sky! “So, the cage is alright. It’s a cage, but at least my master is giving me some food to eat.”
You disagree with freedom. You agree with the cage. You have to ask yourself, “Am I alright with this?” And only you can ask this. I can only prompt you. You have to ask yourself. You will have to agree with freedom, because freedom really is your nature. You will never feel at ease without freedom, without flight, without realization and intelligence. You will never feel at ease. Never.
Questioner: Sir, why do you say that slavery is a waste of time? Why can’t we accept it as an alternate way of life?
Acharya Prashant: Because you are free. Howsoever much you may want to, you cannot become a slave, ironically. All slavery that we have been talking of is actually in your thoughts. Freedom is your nature. You are free. So, that’s why it is a wastage. For a free man to think and behave as if he is a slave is a wastage.
You are free. At this moment, if you can listen and understand, you are free. There is no holding you, stopping you.
Your freedom is your intelligence. If you can understand, that is freedom.
