Perhaps April is the month of freedom. It certainly is for at least some major swaths of the population: Jews celebrated Passover during April, commemorating their deliverance from slavery in Egypt at the hand of God. Republicans like me hoped for the freedom to pay fewer taxes on April 15. Even stoners thought about freedom on 420, at least until their buzz hit.

Freedom is generally defined as the right to do something without anybody interfering in it. The Jews wanted the freedom to work, live, move, and worship as they pleased. Tea Party protesters wanted the freedom to spend their money as they pleased. Stoners want the freedom to get stoned as they please. The U.S. Constitution generally defines freedom this way: you have the right to say whatever you want, carry guns without anybody stopping you, and keep your personal belongings out of the sight of others.

For a religious person, though, is freedom really all about doing whatever you want? In a world with meaning, governed by a moral order, can freedom be a simple indifference about things?

This definition seems problematic. While freedom of speech, for instance, seems appealing to us, our religious sensibilities generally tell us that spreading hurtful rumors, being sexually explicit, and lying are all wrong, detrimental to ourselves and to the community. The same goes for the free choices we make as consumers: without wanting anyone to sign-off on our book purchases, we still rightly feel disappointment and even anger when people squander money on the new KFC Double Down (two thick and juicy boneless white meat chicken fillets Original Recipe or Grilled, two pieces of bacon, two melted slices of Monterey Jack and pepper jack cheese and Colonel’s Sauce) in a world where people are starving. Freedom is fine, but we still believe very much that it can be abused.

Is it a useless concept, then? Gandhi was once asked to contribute to a campaign to establish a world charter of human rights, in the days before the UN created one. According to Eknath Easwaran, his response was, “In my experience, it is far more important to have a charter for human duties.” Gandhi’s quote is useful for considering what the real basis for freedom is.

Freedom must be understood in the context of responsibility, and our duties as human beings. As religious people, we believe that we have a duty to love one another, and to live in a manner befitting human dignity. We believe that we have to support one another’s spiritual flourishing, and ensure that everyone, especially the poor, has the ability to live the life that God wants us to live. Those responsibilities begin at home, among our families and neighbors, and extend out to the world.

Freedom has to be the freedom to do our duties, not simply a blind relativism towards our actions and those of others. Freedom of speech is most alive when it is used to defend the vulnerable, as seen in the lives of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Archbishop Oscar Romero. They gave their lives and their voices for the sake of the downtrodden, so that the latter might live in a world where they could flourish and love as they are meant to. Freedom of assembly is most alive when it is used to bring together people for the common good, as seen by the amazing charitable work done by free groups of people, like the Grameen Bank and Lions Club International, groups that take an active concern in the welfare of humanity. Freedom of business is most alive when it is used to find innovative ways to help people get the things they need in the highest quality at the lowest prices, thereby meeting people’s material needs and freeing them up for higher pursuits.

Every freedom has to be oriented towards the good, and towards the well-being of the vulnerable. So many of our debates about rights could be conducted quite differently if we paid attention to what is really human and good. Of course people have the right to criticize the government, because criticism keeps government accountable and communicates the needs that people have. Of course no one has the right to advocate violence; the right to speak is dependent on not causing harm to the good of others, and it is founded in the duty of doing good.

Duties play an important role in figuring out what freedom is ultimately ordered towards, and it is religion and moral philosophy that teach us our natural duties. Learning how to bring our religious understanding of human responsibility into dialogue with politics is one of the great tasks that lies ahead for religious people in the next several years; the world is very thoroughly confused about freedom, and very ready to listen once more to the insights religion can offer.

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Two men went fishing. One was an experienced fisherman, the other wasn’t. Every time the experienced fisherman caught a big fish, he put it in his ice chest to keep it fresh. Whenever the inexperienced fisherman caught a big fish, he threw it back. The experienced fisherman watched this go on all day and finally got tired of seeing the man waste good fish. “Why do you keep throwing back all the big fish you catch?” he asked.

The inexperienced fisherman replied, “I only have a small frying pan.”

Sometimes, like that fisherman, we throw back the big plans, big dreams, big jobs, big opportunities that… [come to] us. Our faith is too small. We laugh at that fisherman who didn’t figure out that all he needed was a bigger frying pan, yet how ready are we to increase the size of our faith?

Whether it’s a problem or a possibility, God will never give you anything bigger than you can handle. That means we can confidently walk into anything God brings our way.

I realized how true it is that sometimes, we miss certain rare opportunities due to a lack of faith in ourselves. But maybe it’s not only the lack of faith in ourselves — maybe the lack of faith in others? Is it the fear of risking too much and losing support from friends or even worse, family, because we feel we are being selfish while on our way to reaching new heights? Perhaps the inexperienced fisherman felt that his family would not like the idea of having a bigger frying pan, and so he figured he shouldn’t risk it.

This is a very valid fear and I’m sure has unfortunately gotten the better of many in history, keeping them from bettering the world through their work. I can’t necessarily give you an example from history that shows how fear of losing support kept someone from achieving new goals. There are, however, many examples where certain individuals overcame their fear and came out on top, with their family and friends supporting them to some extent, if not for the entire journey to success. Such examples are Sri Ramakrishna and Sharada Devi, who were the support for each other in their quest to spiritually uplift and to serve others; Kasturba Gandhi (wife of Mohandas Gandhi), who not only helped in the political protests but also took the role of her husband when he was imprisoned.

These great men and women had achieved such greatness through faith — in god, in each other and in themselves. Though I agree that it is good to question faith and to ensure sincerity in the faith others have in us, it may not be helpful to doubt the faith of others in us. This, along with lack of faith in ourselves, will keep us grounded, preventing us from realizing our aspirations and achieving our goals.

So go out and get that massive frying pan as soon as you can because as we all make our way through life, there will be much bigger fish to fry!

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As I was reading through some of the lectures of Swami Vivekananda, I came across the following quote:

“Great sages come with special messages for the world, and not for name; but their followers throw their teaching overboard and fight over their names — this is verily the history of the world.” 

Swamiji points out that saints seeks to spread their messages throughout the world, not their names; however, it is human tendency for us to worship the doer, not the deed.  This happened in the case of Buddha, who created Buddhism expressly for the purpose of avoiding the senseless idol worship in Hinduism.  He did not want to be worshipped, and did not mention “God” in his philosophy for that reason.  However, within a few centuries, his purpose was overlooked, and some Buddhists began to worship Buddha, rather than just his philosophy.  It is very hard to separate the doer from what they did; to be able to do so is the mark of a great personality. 

Many saints view themselves simply as instruments of God’s will — they do not believe that the great actions they produce are their own; rather, they attribute their good deeds and discoveries to God.  Mohammed’s philosophy of Islam was related to him by the Angel Gabriel, a messenger of God;  Buddha received enlightenment after severe penance to God; Sri Ramakrishna knew he was an incarnation of God. These saints never claimed that their good deeds were done by them, in the physical sense; rather, they emphasized that they did good deeds because of the God who revealed himself to them.  Only saints are able to make this distinction, and this is what distinguishes a truly holy person from the crowd. 

Because we do not necessarily understand how to discriminate between the doer and the deed, we strictly follow the doer, leaving the essence of the meaning in the dust.  This may be why followers of different religions fight amongt themselves, even though the essential teachings of all religions are similar, and this is what Swamiji says is “the history of the world.” 

This inability to distinguish between the personality and the world seems to be the root of fanaticism, and it also seems to be a problem especially prevalent in Hinduism — as I wrote in one of my previous posts, we seem to have the tendency to put great souls on a pedestal, and we end up worshipping just the idol, instead of the ideals. We all worship Gandhi — how many of us really put the ideas of ahimsa and truthfulness into practice? By being conscious of this tendency, we can make sure that we do not let this history repeat.

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