Milestones on the road to freedom – Economic Times

A character in the television series, The Handmaids Tale, based on Margaret Atwoods novel about a dystopian society in which women are treated as child-bearing chattel, makes a distinction between two kinds of freedom: Freedom from, and freedom to.

Freedom from implies freedom from physical privations such as hunger, poverty, and lack of shelter. In that sense, freedom from is a negation, a negation of a basic lack, rather than an affirmation of a positive.

Freedom to is an individuals, or a societys, right to choice of thought and action. You are not only free from physical deprivation but are free to do, and think, and say, what you want to, so long as this is not harmful to any other individual, or to the community at large.

Totalitarian regimes focus on freedom from while denying, or restricting, freedom to. Democratic societies are constituted on the fundamental right of freedom to follow the dictates of ones choice.

The American psychologist Abraham Maslow, cited as being among the ten most influential thinkers in his field, constructed a pyramid-shaped Hierarchy of needs which graphically illustrates the ascent from freedom from to higher and higher stages, or states, of freedom to.

In a paper titled A Theory of Human Motivation, published in 1943, Maslow traced the evolution of individual freedom from physiological survival though successive levels of liberation.

Once the basic needs of food, shelter, and habitation have been attained, Maslow argued that humankind has an in-built dynamic which impels it to ever-higher degrees of freedom in its search for fulfilment.

After individuals have secured their physiological requirements, the next step along the road to freedom is the seeking of comfort and financial security. After that comes the attainment of emotional well-being, finding love, friendship, and family bonding.

Higher on the motivational pyramid is the gaining of social and professional esteem and recognition. And, finally, at the apex of the pyramid is what Maslow called self-actualisation. This means the realisation of ones full potential as a human being.

As Maslow put it, What a man can be, he must be. We are drawn, as though by a magnetic pole, towards the horizon of possibility that is nascent within us, and beckons us onwards, voyagers seeking an ever-expansive realm of liberty.

Centuries before Maslow, Indic philosophy had developed the dharmic concept of the four progressions in an individuals life which lead to the ultimate goal of spiritual liberation.

The four stages defined by the Ashrama system are Brahmacharya (student, gleaner of knowledge), Grihastha (householder who attains prosperity and establishes family life), Vanaprastha (forest dweller or hermit) and Sanyasa (one who renounces all worldly attachments).

The dharmic idea of individual mental and spiritual evolution goes beyond the framework of Maslows pyramid, which reaches its highest point with the attachment of self-actualisation.

While each step of the individuals journey along the path of realisation is a preparation for the succeeding stage, in the dharmic tradition the quest does not end with Maslows self-actualisation but goes beyond into the transcendence of moksha, a state of being which is totally free of all earthly constraints and compulsions.

This includes the concept of a self which needs to be actualised, and the desire to seek and find liberation itself.

Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Milestones on the road to freedom - Economic Times