London Spirituality Network Blog

Many of us today are blessed with great freedoms - we are free of the bonds of slavery, oppression, and poverty within which so much of the world still struggles. But if we - the privileged - are in fact free, what is that keeps us from being whole, happy, and at peace?

The story of Shawn Hornbeck made news throughout much of the world earlier this year. At the age of 10, Shawn went off on his bicycle and disappeared without a trace. There was no word of him for five long years. In January, Shawn was found. As his story emerged, we learned that Shawn had been abducted at gunpoint on that fateful day five years ago. Since then, he had lived with his captor – praying daily to be reunited with his family.

Perhaps the most troubling and perplexing aspect of this story is that Shawn was not kept confined or chained – at least not physically. He seemed to the world to be a normal child and then teen. He was free to come and go as he pleased. He had a mobile phone and a bicycle. He had access to the internet. But he never once took advantage of his many opportunities to contact authorities or his parents – who he knew to be looking for him. He had run-ins with the police and did not tell them. He made friends who noticed his resemblance to the face on the missing child posters, but dismissed their concerns.

Although there were no shackles or bars, Shawn was a prisoner. He was held captive by fear. He was a prisoner of his belief that his situation was hopeless and that to take action would bring disaster for him and perhaps for his family.

It is possible to be a prisoner although no external force constrains us. We may build our own cells and bars, as effective as those made of the strongest steel. Often, as for Shawn Hornbeck, we have unwelcome help in the fashioning of our constraints. We may reasonably put the blame for the presence of those constraints on the abuser or tormentor who laid the cornerstone, but the responsibility for maintenance of our jail cell may be ours alone.

Slavery of the Free

In a world where slavery is a bleak reality for too many, it may seem self-indulgent to consider our own lack of internal freedom. I am convinced that it is not. The prisons of the mind and spirit bring great suffering. They harm us, but they also have far reaching effects on our society and indeed, on our entire world. Self-imposed slavery prevents us from appreciating and nurturing freedom in others. It works against greater justice in the world.

From what materials and in what form are fashioned the chains that restrain you? How have they been forged? What keeps them strong and firmly in place?

Fear, in all of its many forms, may be found throughout many of the links of our chains. Fear feeds our mistrust, prejudice, suspicion, and jealousy – all of them restraints upon our ability to enter into meaningful and nurturing human relationships.

We may also find self-absorption among our shackles. Through materialism, greed, and busyness, we are prevented from appreciating the true riches and wonder of the world.

We may be imprisoned too by unresolved grief. We all suffer losses – the loss of a loved one, the loss of health, the loss of our fondest dreams… Mourning takes its own time and we must pass through all of its difficult stages. If we do not complete this process though, our pain can prevent us from moving on to make the best of the life we have.

The ingredient that most powerfully reinforces the strength of our restraints is self-hatred. Too many of us carry around a burden of shame and guilt. We may suffer from a deep sense of inadequacy. Self-love and acceptance are essential to our freedom to grow toward wholeness.

Fear, self-absorption, grief, and self-hatred. These are so often the primary means of our imprisonment. They also lead us to other ways of being that further constrain us. Our fear may lead us to anger. Our self absorption may lead us to dishonesty. Our grief may lead to depression. Our self hatred may lead us into addiction. All of these – although they may feel like ways to escape – only further increase our isolated confinement.

Jean-Paul Sartre tells us “Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.”

Sartre suggests that freedom is a choice – we can be confined by our histories and by our pain or we can choose to break free. It seems like an audacious claim. It may feel offensive – almost as though the victim is blamed for her own suffering. And yet, we must recognize that we are far from powerless. We can fight for our freedom if we are ready for the struggle.

Gaining our Freedom

The first step is recognition – we must see and understand our self-imposed slavery for what it is. Recognizing that it is at least partially of our own making is important, because – while it can be a painful realization – it gives us power.

Once our prisons are recognized for what they are, spirituality offers a potential escape route. The liberating power of spirituality is something that we can all have access to – whatever theology we may (or may not) subscribe to. This route to freedom is what we may call spiritual practice or spiritual development. There are many paths available to us, and it is up to us to find the ways that work best for us – recognizing that the answers may change over time as we are at different places in our lives and our spiritual journeys.

When we look deeply, we find much in common among the world’s religions, although they may appear very different on their face because each religion is anchored in a unique myth or set of myths. Today, many of us have found it impossible to believe in supernatural stories such as the exodus, the resurrection of Jesus, or the cycle of rebirth that is so important to the Buddhist story. Upon discarding the stories, however, we have too often tended to discard the profound value in each of these traditions.

A broad-minded approach to religion rescues us from this error. It allows us to seek the treasures that lie beneath the ancient stories. One of these is mindfulness – the practice of being present to each moment of our lives. We may follow a traditional Jewish path in which we offer specific blessings for almost everything in life. We may follow Buddhism’s path of meditation and its very direct approach to cultivating mindfulness. Islam offers another way, in which we stop whatever we are doing to pray five times a day. Christian prayer can serve a similar purpose. Whatever practice we use – whether traditional or novel – and whatever stories it may be associated with, mindfulness is fundamental to our attainment of inner freedom.

In truly non-dogmatic religious communities, we are free to seek the great truths and benefits that religions have traditionally brought and to realize these benefits in ways that we can reconcile with our rational minds. Mindfulness does not require a belief in a personal God or in reincarnation. It is something that we can and should cultivate because it allows us to live our lives more fully and joyfully.

A non-dogmatic path to inner freedom will include mindfulness and other practices that are found so often among religious traditions, but instead of requirements and rigidity, it will offer options and flexibility. The steps in this path will probably be familiar to you. Among them are: simplicity, honesty, commitment to something larger than ourselves, being in community, mindfulness, generosity, atonement, forgiveness, self-acceptance, gratitude, and trust. These are not just good things – they can be cultivated and practised as a route to freedom.