There is no denying that intoxication of its many varieties leads people to feel some degree of freedom – from stress, from social norms and from theirinhibitions.
The question here is not whether such indulgences are right or wrong, but it is this: Could you happily go without?
Someone can freely choose to, say, drink, but if that person could not freely choose the other option (not to drink), then how much freedom is there?
Often only when these things are taken away is it obvious that we are trapped by them, not liberated.
Free will is an inherent and indisputable quality of the soul. But individuals may choose to act in ways that rob them of that innate freedom, surrendering their power of choice to external influences.
Even if our habits are under control, and we manage to avoid responsibility for a while, we are still trapped internally by our desires and our ways of thinking.
Real freedom comes when we can choose what to say and do whatever the situation, and when we can always choose love then our freedom is perfect.
We hear about freedom of speech, but if we don't have the choice to think about what we say before we say it, then where is the true freedom?
We hear about freedom of expression, but if we don't have the choice of whether to act on those emotions, then where is the true freedom?
We hear about freedom of thought, but if we just rely on our conditioning and limited mortal capacity to perceive information, then where is the true freedom?
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Hear hear! Totally in agreement. You guys are great writers as well as cooks :) Freedom NOT to do certain things is such an important consideration and as you say, if someone tries to give up eg. smoking and misses it so much it's only then that they may realise it's controlling them and they are actually not free at all. The soul has inherently only a minute amount of free will (as the jiva posseses those qualities of the Supreme in infinitessimal rather than infinite proportions) so it's vital we should learn to use that bit of free will responsibly. We can trust in Hari, Guru and Vaisnavas and choose the way of real and permanent love, or we can get bewildered by the glitzy but temporary reality of the material world. (Maybe that also includes, for me, spending too much time online- thanks for the reminder; I'd better go and do something a little more constructive and get my beads out!)
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