The Imprisoned Self
“To be what we are and to become what we are capable of
being,” wrote Robert
Louis Stevenson, “is the only end of life.” But when we
stultify our divine
birthright in manacles of mental and spiritual limitations,
then we have no
alternative but stagnation and pain. As long as we are
responsive solely to the
stimuli that impinge upon our senses from the outer world,
we have no choice but
to be victims of every circumstance. Locked to the senses,
we reel under each
stimulus, now aggressive, now afraid, now joyful, now sad,
now seeking death,
now life, but always our inner serenity and equilibrium are
in the hands of
something we neither understand nor control; and so we are
puppets, pulled by
invisible and unknown strings, swirling in the maelstrom of
life like scraps of
paper in the wind; and if perchance we garner knowledge
enough to perceive our
helplessness, then we often are overcome with such depths of
sadness as to
make effort against our bonds an almost unimaginable thing.
But the moment that we pause long enough in the headlong
rush of life to see
that we are not moving in accord with or in response to our
own decisions but
rather in reaction to the world around us, then we have
taken the first step
toward freedom. Only one who knows his slavery can aspire to
be free, just as
true freedom is possible only to one who has experienced
chains. Our hates,
loves, fears, envies, aspirations, deceits are for the most
part products of
circumstance, of false and limiting codes and mores—more
often innate terrors of
mountains that are molehills; and the solution to all of
them is to stand fore-
square before them, daring them to do their utmost, exposing
them for what they
are, thus foreswearing allegiance to the cupidity of the
deluding and blinding ego
which forever keeps us thinking we are greater than others
and less than we truly
are.
The Magic in your Mind
U.S. Andersen
