On Freedom

And an orator said, Speak to us of

Freedom.

And he answered:

At the city gate and by your fireside

I have seen you prostrate yourself and

worship your own freedom,

Even as slaves humble themselves before

a tyrant and praise him though he slays

them.

Ay, in the grove of the temple and in

the shadow of the citadel I have seen

the freest among you wear their freedom

as a yoke and a handcuff.

And my heart bled within me; for you

can only be free when even the desire

of seeking freedom becomes a harness

to you, and when you cease to speak of

freedom as a goal and a fulfilment.

You shall be free indeed when your

days are not without a care nor your

nights without a want and a grief,

But rather when these things girdle your

life and yet you rise above them naked

and unbound.

And how shall you rise beyond your days

and nights unless you break the

chains which you at the dawn of your

understanding have fastened around your

noon hour?

In truth that which you call freedom is

the strongest of these chains, though

its links glitter in the sun and dazzle

your eyes.

And what is it but fragments of your

own self you would discard that you may

become free?

If it is an unjust law you would

abolish, that law was written with your

own hand upon your own forehead.

You cannot erase it by burning your law

books nor by washing the foreheads of

your judges, though you pour the sea

upon them.

And if it is a despot you would

dethrone, see first that his throne

erected within you is destroyed.

For how can a tyrant rule the free and

the proud, but for a tyranny in their

own freedom and a shame in their own

pride?

And if it is a care you would cast off,

that cart has been chosen by you rather

than imposed upon you.

And if it is a fear you would dispel,

the seat of that fear is in your heart

and not in the hand of the feared.

Verily all things move within your being

in constant half embrace, the desired

and the dreaded, the repugnant and the

cherished, the pursued and that which

you would escape.

These things move within you as lights

and shadows in pairs that cling.

And when the shadow fades and is no

more, the light that lingers becomes a

shadow to another light.

And thus your freedom when it loses its

fetters becomes itself the fetter of a

greater freedom.