YOU ARE NOT FREE

 

          YOU ARE NOT FREE

You are not free, nor should you be. Freedom can be waywardness, with no pre-determined direction.

A determined goal has a pre-planned route. You know its safe and unsafe spots, so you move cautiously and vigilantly. You don’t want to fall into a pit and repent.

Nature has its own laws all of which are not yet known to man. They are being constantly found out by researchers , seers, scientists and philosophers.

No power on earth has the freedom to violate the known laws of nature and go unpunished.

It is not freedom which you need to live a safe and successful life. You require rules, laws and guidelines to move forward without endangering your total self.

Look at your body. It works according to biological rules. If you make it violate them, you fall sick or become disabled.

To live a healthy life, you must follow the rules of work and rest, wakefulness and sleep. Neglect these rules, and face all sorts of troubles – indigestion, pain, aches, fever, ailments, and some sort of disability.

True, there are medicines for recovering your normal health but they are not all successful. They do not  make you your original self again. A medically treated organ does not re-become the original one again. Hence, the proverb : Prevention is better than cure.

It will not be wrong to say that our life is the gift of God and it has to perform the duties prescribed by God to keep it fit. Duty does not allow freedom. It demands adherence to perpetual bindings.

In the end, here is an “ODE TO DUTY” by the English poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850).

 

 

“Stern Daughter of the Voice of God!

 

 

O Duty! if that name thou love

Who art a Light to guide, a Rod

To check the erring, and reprove;

Thou who art victory and law

When empty terrors overawe;

From vain temptations dost set free;

From strife and from despair; a glorious ministry.

 

There are who ask not if thine eye

Be on them; who, in love and truth,

Where no misgiving is, rely

Upon the genial sense of youth:

Glad Hearts! without reproach or blot;

Who do thy work, and know it not:

May joy be theirs while life shall last!

And Thou, if they should totter, teach them to stand fast!”

                                                *********

G.R.Kanwal

25 March 2025