Are we our own prisoners?
We think we are an island, a solitary being. Yet, when we look closely at the nature of our minds and emotions, it becomes clear that our thoughts and emotions dictate a great deal about who we are and what kind of world we live in.
For example: Have you ever felt stuck in one place? Has it ever been hard for you to get out of bed? Do you find yourself thinking about things that worry or upset you? Do you find yourself looking at the future with fear? These are all signs that your mind is operating from a prison. In reality, no one can preemptively oppress us without our cooperation. We are the ones who imprison our own minds.
Isaiah 1:18 says: "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." What is this "reasoning" that is so important? The Bible says God opens our minds to help us see that we are prisoners and that we need to break free of our prisons before we turn into demons. When we understand this truth, it makes it easier to begin working on our own prisons.
An Example of a Prison
The following story illustrates how our minds control our behavior.
It is the second week of a student's first year in college. The student has been struggling with the class; attending lectures and reading his textbooks have gotten him nowhere. He is despondent, trying to talk himself out of taking the final exam, but his hands are already pressed against his eyes as he says, "I can't do it." He has completed only one homework assignment for each course for which he is registered and has hardly managed to attend lectures or take notes in class.
His father calls to tell him that if he does poorly in his courses, he will have to work immediately after graduation. His mother reminds him that she has already invested a lot of money in his education. Both parents are quite stressed out and no longer enthusiastic about the college experience.
When the student hangs up the phone, he finds that next to his head is a book on how to study. An idea pops into his head: "I can't be stupid like this for the rest of my life."
Sitting straight up on his bed with a little bit more energy, he thinks about all of the ways that he has failed so far. He says to himself, "I'm not studying and I'm not going to study." He then puts his hands back on his eyes and repeats the line again.
"I can't do it," he says.
This is how we imprison our minds, by saying things over and over again until we make them true. We take these ideas—these words—and use them to blind ourselves so that we cannot see reality. We make ourselves prisoners by deciding our own destinies in a matter of seconds. This is the power of our thoughts—they can control us or they can help us see truth.
In the example above, it's clear that the student's anger, fear, and general confusion are affecting his decisions. He says he can't do something, but at the same time he knows that he hasn't even tried. Yet instead of facing his own limitations and working hard to overcome them, the student decides that it would be better to just give up. This is how we imprison ourselves—by throwing in the towel before we've even had a chance to try.
We make ourselves prisoners when we decide what kind of life we will have. We take our own decisions and make them into concrete things that are beyond our control. It is as though we are building a wall around ourselves—and this wall makes us feel trapped, limited and imprisoned.
How do we break out of our prisons? How do we end our confusion and despair? How do we stop saying that we can't or that everything is hopeless? We must first realize who has imprisoned us. We must understand the nature of the prison:
Prisoners are not completely helpless. Prisoners are thinking beings—and therefore, they have a choice about how to act and how to think. They can choose whether to cooperate with injustice or whether to resist it. If they refuse cooperation, then they have an opportunity to change their situation.
Prigion: A Prison
The first type of prison is religion. This is a prison that stifles your ability to think for yourself, to think with purpose, and to respond to the world in any meaningful way. If you are religious, you ought not be ashamed of this fact, and you ought not pretend that you don't know why you are so offended.
The church has become a cathedral of hypocrisy; it is an enormous prison built by people who have forgotten what it means to love without condition. To love without condition is the essence of all true community—and yet we have forgotten how to do this. The church began with this lost idea, which has been transformed into a massive structure which holds together great divisions, superstitions and hatreds. This is a prison for the mind and for the heart, but it is not our only prison.
One who has been liberated from the church must then address all of the other ways in which his mind has become imprisoned. This person will have to face his own fears, angers and addictions. He will need to overcome desires that control him and false ideas that determine his destiny. In order to break free from ourselves, we must learn how to live by external standards: reason, morality and true friendship. These are external things—they are not a part of us—and therefore, they can save us.
The most important part of freedom is freedom from our prisons, but this is not the only necessary condition of it. We must strive to be free as we are, in all of our confusion and despair. The great artists and thinkers throughout history have said that people must be able to recognize their own demons in order to break them. Only if we can fully recognize our own demons can we begin to fight them—and only if we can learn how to fight them will we ever become free.
However, the process of breaking out of our prisons takes time. When we wake up and realize that we are capable of changing the way that we live, it is too late for us to bargain with our prison. Getting out means throwing yourself into action and making a choice to be free. We must embrace the present moment and dedicate ourselves to becoming what we can become—because it is only in the present moment that freedom exists.
The second type of prison is called "prigionism". This is a prison which stifles your ability to act in any meaningful way because your thoughts have been controlled by irrational ideas about who you are.
Conclusion:
The first step to freedom is the realization that you are imprisoned. The purpose of this realization is not to make you feel despair, but instead to motivate you to find a way out of your prison. Freedom exists for those who fight for it and those who defend it—and these are the people who are capable of creating new possibilities.
If you wish to escape from your prison, then ask yourself what you can do differently tomorrow that will lead you closer to freedom, truth and happiness.