On Freedom

And an orator said, Speak to us of Free-

dom.

    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 with-

out 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 under-

standing 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

care 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.