Happy Independence Day!

15^th August reminds us of India’s freedom and the sacrifices made by the freedom fighters. India has been independent 71 years, but how far have we, as individuals, been successful in retaining our freedom? Our independence? Though we no longer experience physical bondage or tyranny, we often feel entrapped in our own vicious cycle of thoughts. These thoughts lead to pain and suffering and they keep coming back to us even if we do not want them to. What is the reason behind all this? And how can we break through the shackles of mental bondage?

The human mind has always been an area of interest for most scientists and philosophers around the world. Many of them have made an attempt to uncover the mysteries related to it. Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan, the enlightened One, has unravelled the science of the mind. He has been able to explain it in the most logical and scientific manner. He says, “The mind is made of knots or tubers. When the external and inner circumstances arise, the tuber in the mind will erupt and sprout. The ‘sprouting’ of this tuber is the beginning of a thought. Thoughts come and go. The Self is the knower-seer of thoughts.”

As per Param Pujya Dadashri, our positive and negative thoughts determine our happiness or unhappiness respectively because we believe that, ‘I’ am the one having the thought. However, in reality, it is not so. We are completely separate from our thoughts. Only if we free ourselves from the wrong belief of ‘Who am I’ can we also free our minds from the unpleasant thoughts of greed, lust, pride, negativity, obsessions etc. The right understanding that, neither the thoughts are mine nor is the ‘one’ who is having the thoughts, sets in after Self Realization. Once we begin to stay separate from the thoughts that arise in the mind, then the mind cannot bother us anymore. That is when we begin to experience freedom in the true sense!