And an orator said, Speak to us of Freedom.
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 fulfillment.
You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without 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 understanding 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.

The true freedom has nothing to do with the outside world.

The true freedom is not political, is not economic; it is spiritual. Political freedom can be taken away at any moment; economic freedom can disappear just like a dewdrop in the early morning sun. They are not in your hands. And that which is not in your hands cannot be called true freedom.

True freedom is always spiritual. It has something to do with your innermost being, which cannot be chained, which cannot be handcuffed, which cannot be put into a jail. Yes, your body can suffer all these things, but your soul is intrinsically free. You don’t have to ask for it, and you don’t have to struggle for it. It is already there, this very moment. If you turn inward, all chains, all prisons, all kinds of slaveries disappear – and there are many. Freedom is only one; slaveries are many – just as truth is one, lies can be thousands.

And an orator said, Speak to us of Freedom.

The orator is only articulate with words. He talks about freedom, about love, about beauty, about good, but he only talks; his oratory is nothing but a training of the mind. The orator has no concern with realities. His world consists only of words – which are impotent, without any content – and his art is to manage those impotent and contentless words in such a way that you are caught in the words.

It is very relevant that an orator asked Almustafa, Speak to us of freedom.

What exactly is the innermost substance of freedom? – that you are free from the past, that you are free from the future. You do not have memories binding you to the past, dragging you always backward – that is against existence: nothing goes backward. And your freedom is also from imagination, desire, longing – they drag you toward the future.

Neither the past exists nor the future exists. All that you have in your hands is the present.