None but ourselves can free our mind
August 2, 2007 by Marguerite Orane
Filed under Release
“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our mind”
Marcus Garve
August 1 is celebrated in Jamaica as Emancipation Day. I found myself musing this morning on the words of Bob Marley’s Emancipation Song. I have always loved this song, and in particular, these two lines, which quotes the great Marcus Mosiah Garvey. The song resonated with me from the very first time I heard it, and I am constantly speaking and reminding myself and others of the fundamental truth of these words. What Bob so forcefully states is that the challenge of freeing ourselves from the slavery of the mind is one that each individual must face by themselves. It is only I who can free myself from my mental slavery.
Most of us will argue that we are already free – to be what we want, to do what we want, to think what we want. That’s true – but the real bondage that we are in, is the bondage of our “wants”. For our wants are typically not OUR wants, but the wants that have been programmed into us by our parents, communities and society. The real task that human beings face is to free our minds from the bondage of our prior experiences, our societal conditioning and our family upbringing.
Most of us do not even question our wants outside of the traditional and what we have come to believe for ourselves as normal. For example, I am free to live wherever I want to live. However, where I want to live is defined by what I have grown up to believe is acceptable and desirable. So, it’s a nice neighbourhood in the city for me – when what my soul cries out for is a little cottage beside a stream in the mountains! Or a tree house. Or no house at all – perhaps just living where the next moment takes me, free of encumbrances of ownership and possessions!
Allowing our wants to be defined by others takes us to a place of discomfort, dissatisfaction and unease. It is the feeling of emptiness when we finally get what we said we wanted. It is the feeling of always searching but not finding. It is the feeling that life is against us rather than for us. It is the feeling of being hemmed in by others, cordoned off from our real selves. It is the feeling of being in bondage! We do not like it at all. Yet, our tendency is to stay there, and to solve the problem by either settling for what we have, or pursuing more, more, more …. of the same! For some of us, the bondage becomes too great, and we start to realise that we, and only we, can define our wants. That is the beginning of our true emancipation. It is only I who can free myself, for it is I who has mentally enslaved myself.
When this happens, then the real task of emancipating ourselves becomes one of questioning fearlessly, boundlessly and endlessly – who we are, what we have, what we want, who says we should want it, what else is out there to want, and so on. How will we know when we have the right answers? Our souls will tell us – from the feeling of peace, joy, calm that pervades our lives. For once we truly emancipate ourselves, then there is no wanting – just being.
