Freedom
Our Whole Souul Living Theme for September is Freedom, a profoundly important idea in liberal religion.
Osho wrote; “True freedom is always spiritual. It has something to do with your innermost being, which cannot be chained, handcuffed, or put into a jail.” Victor Frankl wrote, "Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.” The idea is that it is not only our social/political situation, not only our big life choices that determine who we are, i.e. who we partner with, what we do for a living, our religion, etc., but rather the sum of all the minute and myriad choices we make every day; how we choose to treat ourselves and others, how honest we will be, how we spend our energy and time, what we are willing to risk (or not!)… these are the choices that define us, and in those myriad spaces where we grow.
Some questions for our communal reflection:
- Frankl links freedom with growth. Is this true to your deepest experience? Write about or reflect on a personal experience of how freedom and growth work together. Better, share the story with someone close to you.
- Can there be an inner (spiritual) freedom independent of outer (political) freedom?
- Echoing Jesus, Martin Luther King said, “The Truth shall set you free,” in this case linking the ideas of Truth and Freedom. What Truth is he speaking of? What personal experience have you had with this kind of Truth?
- What are the limits on the inner freedom Osho is referring to? Are there any?