Freedom, fear and hiding things

Is transparency the same as freedom? Does being free of any fear mean being absolutely transparent? Benchmarking can tell me the answer. Mahatma Gandhi was absolutely free. He was also absolutely transparent. Everything he did was for all to see.

And so transparent was he that he wrote about all his shortcomings –even about his going to a prostitute and returning embarrassed – in a book for the world to read. He had friends. He had relatives. He had children. But he had nothing to hide. When life is so open, so free, how blissful everything becomes.

Students call teachers names behind their backs. These same students stand tongue tied when the teacher scolds them. I am not talking about children, this is true of even adults. Lovers hide their love from parents and relatives. Everywhere there is hiding. At IIT, (I am taking IIT as an example because it is compulsorily a residential college) students use un – utterable rebukes they dare not utter at home. Hiding, hiding, hiding, too much is hidden these days. While Gandhiji laid bare his meanest thoughts, we fear to say this or that, fearing it will destroy the false images we have created. Nehru wrote in his letters to Indira that hiding comes from fear. Where there is fear, people will always hide something. Fear of what? Fear of being detected in doing something? We have given ourself up for grabs. Falling in someone’s eyes, it seems has the same meaning in our eyes as falling absolutely.

So the final solution is this: No hiding is the key to no fear. After all when you don’t hide anything – absolutely anything from anyone – you have laid bare your resplendent soul for God to appreciate.

And therefore am I launching, operation transparency, meaning I will keep every act of mine transparent during this operation and after its completion. This transparency of course applies mostly to actions which I generally hide. It may also mean that I’ll use the same vocabulary irrespective of whether I’m talking to my friends or my family. This does not mean that if I get angry, I will go about announcing my anger to all and sundry. That will be nothing but lack of elementary self control.

I intend to launch this experiment from the 25th of July, 2007.

When no curtain hides thee from God’s glance, why draw curtains and hide from the world!

Courage

Courage is the act of proceeding despite fear. Fear is like a line of nettles we must cross before reaching the soothing and cooling waters of freedom. Facing your fears is one of the best decisions you can make in your life.

Sometimes, even when we have decided to face our fears, courage fails us. Fears come disguised as discomfort, unwillingness, carelessness etc. We think, I am like that – I don’t like doing this – these are all excuses. Having once decided to face one’s fears, we must look forward to facing all clumsy, uncomfortable, undesirable situations. I want to fail, I want to be uncomfortable, I want to face my fears, again and again and again – should be your war cry!

Sometimes we are so afraid that we choose the security of cowardice over the adventure of fear. But every moment we have a choice and courage is making the right choice despite our conditioning and false feelings of security. Beyond fear lies strength indomitable, so why not proceed. Don’t we miss 100 percent of the chances we don’t take? So why not treat every problem – mind you- each and every problem as a challenge and solve it? Why give in to our own thoughts? We are not our thoughts, are we?