Bondages

 

Photo Credit Curt Landry Ministries

Bondages

In Asia, where family bonds are very strong, it becomes very difficult to free oneself from such bonds. This line of thinking is something which has been ingrained in us since childhood. The family is important and one has a tremendous responsibility as well as duty towards it. The question is whether we can free our minds from these chains while at the same time fulfilling our duties and responsibilities towards the family?

Maybe we cannot release our body from the chains but we can release our mind from the chains. That is in our hands, isn’t it? Right now, maybe we cannot become ascetics and live in an ashram – our family members – husband / wife /children will not allow us, but becoming mentally free, can anybody stop us? No. The bondages have come only because of ourself and nobody else. Freedom does not mean we have to change all our situations. We do not have to turn our life or situations upside down to become free because one situation is not better than some other situation; do not ever believe that. It is just a choice. Somebody chooses to live in this situation and somebody else chooses to live in another situation; everything has its pluses and minuses. The important thing is how we are within ourself! So, we may not be able to change our external situation immediately, maybe there is nothing wrong with it and there is no need to change it. But we should change our inner situation because it is bothering us.

Our likes and dislikes, our desires, also chain us down with expectations. These expectations are a heavy load to carry – many times we pay a very heavy price to fulfil these expectations. All these expectations arise in the mind based on our own perception of our place in society and where we think we should be.

Always remember, we are where we should be all the time, that is the divine will. If we learn to accept the divine will, we will always be happy with what we have and what we get in life. Our acceptance and gratitude help us in freeing us from such bondages arising from expectations!

This mind can become a ladder to divinity, it can make us ecstatic. Many times, this mind has made us happy, isn’t it? And many times, it has made us very unhappy, fearful, tense, and frustrated. 

So, the same mind is doing both. It is doing whatever it wants because this little instrument of a mind is not in our hands, it has gone out of control. We can take our car and reach the next city or we can ram it straight into a tree. It is left to us. So, it is just about what we do with it. We can reach very far if we keep the controls in our hands.