Freedom can be confusing to talk about. Does freedom mean being able to do whatever we want, or being able to do what we really want? Like what we, deep down, really want? Maybe you really want to be healthy and able get around on your own, and travel freely. If so, this might conflict with the "freedom" to eat and drink whatever you want, in whatever quantities you want, and the freedom to not ever have to exert yourself
with exercise or physical work.
You've probably heard the observation that freedom isn't free. True "freedom" is a state where we are able to do the things we really want to do. For this to happen, there will always be some constraints put on us, or that we put on ourselves. If I want to be "free" to play guitar solos, free to play the melodies that are in my head, I have to practice. That practice leads to freedom. The "freedom" to slam dunk a basketball comes at the expense of training.
This principle has been an important part of Christian teaching from the beginning. We all exchange a certain amount of "freedom" in one sphere to experience freedom in a more ultimate and satisfying sense. People who are followers of Christ are "free": free from guilt and fear, from the need to be praised or admired by other people. But this freedom arises from the constraint of following Christ's teachings, which also involves choosing to refrain from doing things that
our lower nature might want to do.
Confused? I know this sounds paradoxical, and while it's complicated to talk about, in experience, it's really not. Let me put it this way:
Once a person goes all in spiritually, turning one's life and will over to the care of God, committing to follow the path of Christ's teachings ... life gets simple, and you find freedom.
As the apostle Paul puts it, our "old self" -- the small self, or ego -- dies; and the new self -- the divine infused true self -- takes center stage.
When this happens, we are truly free. Really free.
Recently I came across a quote by Jean Grau, an 18th century French author and theologian. In his "Manual for Interior Souls" he talks about how turning away from the old self (with God's help) leads to what he considers the ultimate experience of freedom. He describes this process as learning to "dominate one's passions," that is, to exert self-control over our selfish and immoral urges, in order to live more ethical and loving lives. Then he goes on to talk about that
freedom, comparing it to how other people -- who seem to living free to do whatever they want -- wind up really enslaved by all sorts of things. I'll let him explain:
The happy moment will come when we have for some time made generous efforts against our old selves, and when, by the assistance of grace, we have acquired some command over our senses, over our imagination, and over those first ill-regulated impulses which often carry us away in spite of ourselves.
Then we begin to feel independent of all that is not of God; then we being to taste, in all its sweetness, the true liberty of the children of God. Then we begin to pity the miserable slaves of the world and to congratulate ourselves on having escaped their chains. Tranquil upon the shore, we see them tossed about on the waves of their own immoral living, troubled by a thousand contrary winds, always on the point of being engulfed by the tempest.
[In contrast] we enjoy a profound calm; we are masters of our own actions, because what we wish to do, we do. No object of ambition, of greed, or of unholy pleasure can tempt us; no human opinions keep us back; the judgments of men, their criticism, their teasing, their contempt, have no longer any effect upon us, and can no more have power to turns us from the right path. Adversities, sufferings, humiliations, crosses of every kind, can no longer frighten us, nor have we any dread of
them.
In one word, we have been lifted above the world and its errors, its attractions and its terrors. If this is not freedom, what is?
More than this: we are free with regard to ourselves; we rely no longer on our own imagination and changeable will; we are firm and unshaken in our resolutions, fixed in our ideas, and decided in our principles, consistent in all our actions. ...
Those persons who have really and truly given themselves entirely to God, even those who are only beginners, are astonished at the difference they find in themselves, between what they are and what they were formerly. This difference is exactly like the difference there is between a calm and peaceful sea ... and a raging sea, tossed in fury by every wind.
What liberty can be greater than this entire possession of ourselves, this power over every movement of our soul, from which scarcely ever escapes, even for one short moment, any impulse that is not deliberate!
Is there anything beyond? Does the liberty of the children of God extend any farther? Yes. They are free, with regard to God Himself. I mean to say, that whatever is the conduct of God towards them; whether He tries them, or whether He consoles them; whether He draws near to them, or whether He appears to abandon them, the real fixed state of their souls is always the same. They are raised above all the circumstances of the spiritual life: the surface of the their soul may be troubled,
but the inner depths enjoy the greatest peace.
Their liberty with regard to God consists in this: that, willing everything that God wills, without inclining to one side or the other, without any thought of their own interest, they have given their consent beforehand to all that can happen to them; they have lost their choice in that of God; they have freely accepted everything that comes to them from Him; in such a manner, and so completely, that they can always say, that in whatever state they may be, they are not there against
their will, but that they are perfectly content, and have all that they wish for.
