Have you ever wondered what freedom feels like? It has become a mundane concept in this day and age — rarely thought about unless there is something you want to break free from. A financial burden, a restrictive job, even clothes that are not a good fit. You act, the restriction lifts, and that is freedom — as we know it. But consider something far simpler: the decision to eat a chocolate. You reach for it, you eat it, no one stopped you. Free, by any ordinary measure. Yet not even a passing question occurs to us whether that decision — that simple, unremarkable reach — came from the freest self we imagine ourselves to be. That is how we are built, generally. But are we really so? I have asked myself what it truly means to be free — to embody the notion of freedom, not merely practice its surface form.
Consider, first, the construct you already move within. In the construct of society, freedom is never absolute — we are permitted to act only within the boundaries that laws and rules define, not beyond them. This is not an exception. This is the pattern. Because even when you step outside society entirely, even in the most private acts of thinking, ideating, and creating, you are still inside a construct — the construct of your own mind, intellect, knowledge, and reasoning. You cannot think beyond what your mind is capable of holding. If I ask you to picture infinity — not the symbol, but infinity in its truest form — how far does your mind get?
Now think of any simple action in your daily life. Take wearing clothes — you are free to wear anything you like, in principle. But you would not wear torn jeans to a temple, nor walk into an office in a tank top and boxers. You already know why, without having to think about it. The freedom exists, but within boundaries you have long since internalised. Take ice cream. You walk in without a fixed flavour in mind, sample what looks interesting — maybe something new, maybe the old favourite, Chocolate chip. When you make the choice, there are already factors at work: your mood, the weather, a craving from earlier in the day. You walk out without a second thought. But whose decision was it, in actuality? This is the pattern. Whatever you do — whether it is a reflex reaction to a snake, or the months-long consideration of a bridal dress — something is always influencing the action. An instinct from past experience, a preference you did not consciously choose, a desire that arrived before the decision did. It is always there. It simply operates quietly enough that we do not stop to question it.
Going back to our chocolate example, to eat it means there is an underlying desire or impulse that has already prompted the decision — always. Which raises the question: if an action is driven by desire, can it be considered truly free?
To counter this, I raise another question — what does it truly mean to be free? In an absolute sense, to be free means to be unbound by any inhibitions, desires, or influences, internal or external. But how does one make a decision without any of these? Consider: I want to eat Andhra meals. How does that want even arise — without a craving, without a memory, without the faint pull of preference? It does not. It cannot. To arrive at Andhra meals with no desire or influence is not a decision — it is nothing. Like sleeping yet fully awake: how can one exist parallel to the other?
Which brings us to the edge of the question. If every action is born of desire, and desire is born of influence — mood, memory, the weather, the body — then what would an action look like that carries none of this residue? And if such an action were possible, would it even be an action at all? Or would it simply be inaction?
The inaction we speak of does not mean the inability to act, nor inactivity, nor lethargy — but rather action that is not driven by the senses, action that does not bind. For every action, a register exists. Some entries are significant, some are not. This register is what we call karma — not the popular rendering of "revenge is served" or "good always wins," but a vast and precise spectrum. Every action, dharmic or adharmic, adds to it. And it is this register that carries tendencies from one life to the next.
Which raises the question further: are we truly free if the tendencies are already present at birth? This means the freedom we speak about is already gone, to some extent, before we have even begun. If you do not subscribe to the concept of past lives or karma, consider this — our genes affect the thinking faculty and its capabilities, the very process of thought and expression. Whether through karma or through genetics, we are already shaped before we act. We are truly unsure if freedom can be even dreamt of, let alone embodied. Karma does the job of carrying tendencies forward — the experiences matter, because a life need not re-experience something fully to already be inclined toward it.
Then how can an action occur without the register at all? A human cannot simply remove the residue from an action — like discarding the peel of a banana. To act without leaving a register, to arrive at inaction, is to be truly in consciousness — not the subconscious, but that conscience which is the witness of actions, not the partaker. When the partaker, who is always in action, becomes the witness of his own actions, those actions carry no residue. In this state, the actions do not trigger the register. Action becomes inaction — because the inhibitions, desires, mood, and body no longer hold the reins. Those who exist as witness, whose actions no longer register in this world nor on themselves, are purely aware. These are called Yogi — not simply ascetics, and not simply saints.
I have had such experiences — not that I am a Yogi by any means. But there are moments when a thought arrives without wanting, an action completes without residue. I suspect, if you sit with it, you will find something in your own past or present that resembles this — a moment you were, without quite knowing it, in inaction. This is not a thesis, nor a principle. It is an expression, as I thought about it. And the question remains: whether this state — of not registering, of inaction, of existing as witness — is what it means to be free, in an absolute sense.
~ Nādam