Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 4

MAN is born free, – in his spirit, not in his body. The body is bound and all that is there in its frame of reference – the life and even the mind with their multiple movements. The spirit alone is free with all else that is there in its frame of reference. The mind and the life bound normally, because tied to the body-scheme attain the freedom of the spirit when linked to the spirit. The body is bound because it is bound to the ignorant material nature. The body too can attain freedom, the freedom of the spirit, when submitted to the spirit.

Freedom is a divine quality; it belongs to the Divine Consciousness. Nothing below that status is free or can be free – all are bound to the Cosmic Law, the inexorable law of Karma, the chain of global Causation. You are free when you are out of it and dwell with and in the Master of the causal ring.

God alone is free. You are free only when you are united with God and your will merges in His Will and His Will manifests in yours.

Freedom does not consist in doing as one likes but in doing what the Divine likes. In following your will you follow nature's will – nature's determinism; being part of nature in following nature's will you have an illusion that you are following your will and that you are freely choosing, whereas in following God's Will you follow truly your own will, for in God you are one with God – His Will your will, your will His.

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Man becomes the bodily creature when he cuts himself off from his spiritual nature which is his true nature. In isolating himself from the Master of nature, man becomes a slave of nature, this ignorant external nature. To attain freedom is to rise out of this lower status into the domain of the higher status which is man's own true nature, the Divine nature.

The body can be remoulded and reconstituted by the soul and self; the inferior nature can be rebuilt into the mode' of the higher nature; when this is done there is the reign of Supreme Liberty. The body's domain then in its formation becomes a free expression of the soul, the Divine Himself.

It is the freedom of the inner being that brings about the freedom in the outer life. The deeper the inner freedom, the truer and the more real is the outer freedom.

The outer freedom does not mean the power to do whatever one chooses to do. True outer freedom means to be able to choose the right thing to do. It means finding the Truth and following the rhythm of the Truth. When one is the Truth in one's being and infallibly expresses the Truth in becoming, when one is identified with Satyam and Ritam, there is founded the true freedom and its supreme status.

Freedom therefore is utter self-discipline; for it means following the rhythm of the Truth. To follow the rhythm of the Truth is to follow the Divine. In being obedient to the Divine Will one acts absolutely freely, for obedience here means complete identification with the Master.

The being one with the Divine Being, the consciousness one with the Divine Consciousness, the will one with the Divine Will – such is the condition and status of the perfect, absolute Freedom.

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