July in America starts out with a bang. Actually, many bangs and many lights and many sounds, like firecrackers and sparklers to cherry bombs and Roman candles. They are just a small part of all manner of fireworks that brighten the sky and dazzle our ears on this fourth day of the month. It’s all part of the celebration of independence and freedom that so many tens and even hundreds of millions of Americans participate in either actively or as adoring spectators. All of this takes place, of course, to commemorate the independence that our forefathers fought for and risked their lives for to insure freedom from their colonial overlords in England for them and their descendants like you and me.
To this very day, 247 July Fourths later, freedom is still very much what America stands for. And that’s why tens of thousands of people come to our southern border to enter legally or even illegally to live a better life for themselves and their families and to live in freedom. They come from Mexico, they come from Honduras, they come from Guatemala. And they come from many other nations in Central and South America.
But what is this freedom that they come for anyway? It’s much more than “just another word for nothing else to lose,” as Kris Kristofferson and Janis Joplin sang in “Me and Bobby McGee.” We had little freedom of movement for the three years of the COVID-19 pandemic, and now we have our freedom of movement restored.
There are so many levels to this word we call freedom. There’s the political freedom that the first 10 Amendments to the U.S. Constitution provide. Freedoms that inspired revolutions that toppled royal reigns in different nations. Freedoms that are still missing in so many countries of the world a quarter of a millennium later. When people think of freedom, they typically think only of political freedoms. But there is so much more to this word called freedom.
The great 18 th century French philosopher Jean- Jacques Rousseau said, “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” He was referring, of course, to the social mores and customs that keep so many people in France, in America, and around the world bound to doing things the way so many people around them do them. Behavior is socially conditioned in a myriad of ways, and it takes a person of great confidence and inner strength to resist the way others act so they might act in the way that’s true to their nature. The great 19 th century American Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson said it slightly differently: “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
No less a great teacher of wisdom than India’s Krishna, who influenced Emerson greatly, said it ever so powerfully when he told his student Arjuna about dharma (one’s way that’s in tune with one’s individual nature):
“It is better to strive in one’s own dharma than to succeed in the dharma of another. Nothing is ever lost in following one’s own dharma, but competition in another’s dharma breeds fear and insecurity.”
My own spiritual teacher, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, said it slightly differently, in his commentary to this same 35 th verse of the third chapter of the Bhagavad-Gita: “Because one can perform it, one’s own dharma, (though) lesser in merit, is better than the dharma of another.” He went on to comment that doing the dharma of another, by betraying one’s own truth to imitate the behavior of others, leads to destruction.
Great philosophers the world over have addressed the matter of psychological freedom, the freedom to think in their own way, regardless of how others think. It’s the ability to become who you uniquely are without worrying about how your neighbor views you. This is not so easy to do in this highly conforming society such as ours. The brilliant Humanist Psychologist Abraham Maslow described a hierarchy of needs that culminates in Selfactualization.
And then there’s the matter of spiritual freedom. Great prophets, sages, and yogis have spoken on this, and their great wisdom is preserved in spiritual texts and holy books throughout the world. Each of these teachers – from Lao-Tzu and Socrates to Buddha and Jesus – have described this spiritual freedom differently. You can read about it in the Tao Te Ching, in the dialogues of Socrates such as “The Apology,” in the Dhammapada, and in the Gospels. My favorite definition is being who you truly are in your deepest spiritual nature, loving your neighbor, and living in tune with the will of the Universe.
successaerobics@aol.com
Cary Bayer is a Life Coach and the founder of Higher Self Healing Meditation. He conducts private practice and teaches meditation classes by the ocean in South Florida ((845) 664-1883) and in the mountains in Woodstock, New York (845-679-5526). You can find him at www.carybayer.com and reach him at successaerobics@aol.com.
