FREEDOM OF THINKING IS DIFFERENT FROM POWER OF EXPRESSING-ESSAY

We are blessed with a brain that gives the power of thinking. This possibly is the best gift, the creator has given us. Not that other organs of our body are not so important but brain outsmarts them all. All our senses are controlled and commanded by our brain. But are we really free to think? I don’t think so. Having power is one thing and using that power per choice is entirely different thing. In our day to day life we do what is expected of us and not what we really want. Right from our childhood we have been conditioned to act and react under some circumstances in a predetermined way. For centuries we have been repeating these expectations without a break. As a family man we get married, have children, provide for them and retire to obscurity. Nothing really changes the pattern. Even the circumstances are not of our making. In our conduct as a member of the civil society we think and act in a familiar pattern and walk the beaten track. What is therefore freedom of thinking? Freedom of thinking comes from freedom of attachment. Independent thinking is a precondition for free thinking and for independent thinking detachment is essential. Our thinking process is biased because of our attachments. Since we do not want to harm our interests caused by attachments, we think and act in a familiar pattern. Another precondition for free thinking is the courage to take personal risk. Our free thinking may cause us social boycott, personal injury or even threat to life. Only when we are prepared to take these personal risks, we are in a position to think freely. Many a times we abjure free thinking because of our so called reputation, social status or our very existence may be at risk. People who have made huge contributions for the good of mankind were free thinkers. They thought differently or were in today’s lingo ‘out of box thinkers’. They did not walk the beaten tracks. Gandhiji could think freely because he thought truth must prevail. This is what he said in his autobiography ‘My experiment with truth’:- “The instruments for the quest of truth are as simple as they are difficult. They may appear quite impossible to an arrogant person and quite possible to an innocent child”. All throughout his life his followed the path of truth and non violence. He thought that the only way to fight the might of the British Empire was non- violence. He was ridiculed for his thinking which was not on familiar pattern of violence for violence. Finally his FREE THINKING got freedom to India. This idea was successfully adopted by Nelson Mandela in South Africa and before that Martin Luther King in America Galileo thought differently and finally proved that the earth resolves round the sun and not the other way round. All inventions are result of free thinking. Newton watched the falling apple and propounded the theory of Gravitation. Mansoor braved the wrath of religious heads when he said ‘I am God’ on the lines of “Brahamam aham”. All changes in the religious and social are the result of free thinking. Gautama Buddha detached himself from family obligations and proceeded in search of Truth. Swami Vivekananda was an embodiment of detachment and free thinking. It is not enough to have power. It is important to use that power differently for the benefit of all.