Freedom does not mean the right to live as we please. It means the power to live spiritually, to rise to a higher level of existence. Freedom is not, as is often maintained, a principle of uncertainty, the ability to act without motive. Such a view confounds freedom with chaos, free will with a freak of unmotivated volition, with subrational action. Nor is freedom the same as the ability to choose between motives. Freedom includes an act of choice, but its root is in the realization that the self is no sovereign, in the discontent with the tyranny of the ego. Freedom comes about in the moment of transcending the self, thus rising above the habit of regarding the self as its own end. Freedom is an act of self-engagement of the spirit, a spiritual event.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
No comments:
Post a Comment