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THE MYTH OF FREEDOM
An intelligent and highly emotional young man, disliking
the hustle and bustle of the city and the impositions of friends and
relatives, decided to leave. He set out on foot and soon found himself
crossing pleasant valleys and woods. He found a solitary and peaceful
spot and decided to settle there. He enjoyed the sight of wild animals
roaming freely, and flocks of birds.
As the moonlight of peace and solitude spreads,
Wild animals roam free and harmless.
The wild flowers and trees are glamorous,
The scent of herbs is pervasive.
Who wouldn't take delight in this solitude,
worthy to be praised
by Brahma?
At times the young man dwelling in solitude is full of joy,
at times he is afraid. Sometimes he has thoughts of the city and the
years spent with his relatives and friends. Sometimes he feels
uncomfortable at being in the mountain emptiness and becomes afraid that
wild animals will attack him. He has ample supplies of food, but still he
has the constant fear of running out. He has looked at the delightful
landscape too long, and now it appears irritatingly monotonous. The
tuneful song of the birds becomes mocking. He can't get to sleep at
night, so he feels very tired during the day, and the boundary between
waking experience and dream becomes fuzzy. Altogether, he suffers
continually from paranoia and daydreams, and doesn't know what to do. He
is imprisoned in his own projections.
The external projection is empty of good and
bad,
The internal fixation of hope and fear
imprisons.
Truth and falsehood are at war.
The simple-minded child is wounded by the arrow
of confusion.
Sometimes he thinks of returning to the city and sometimes
he thinks of hiding in the nearest village. He just wants to leave the
desolate countryside. Finally, he ties his things into a bundle and goes
back to the city. He meets his friends and relatives, but the fear he
felt in his desolate retreat continues to haunt him. Sometimes he sees
his friends and relatives as illusory maidens dancing, and sometimes as a
threatening army. In the midst of such uncertainty, he wishes he could
find a friend with whom to discuss the whole thing. But he doesn't know
how to find a friend who is not an illusion. So the young man tries to
find the boundary between illusion and reality.
When the endless illusory plot is
all-pervading,
The folly of mind's limitless duplicity is
uncovered.
By running away from friends you discover
illusory friends.
Friends manifesting as enemies is the nature of
illusion;
By projecting your duplicity on others you lose
your own
ground.
The friend who is not an illusory projection is
found in
yourself.
5 November 1972
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