@salima,
Thanks salima, yes, the mind should be free, but when you suggest we should be free from our minds....... that would be a topic for another day.
Just to recollect and put some more relevent points, off the cuff: -
Freedom is a broad term. The notion of which was widely celebrated in Europe after the Reformation. There the idea of unshackling oneself from the links and chains of beliefs and adherence to Church, and being subject to sovereigns, have made western philosophers think enthusiastically about freedom as a necessary compass to measure social change and value entertainmaint of progressive ideas.
In contrast, the East was free from any such links and chains of institutions who claimed authority of one kind or the other over the common people or serfs. The notions of political freedom was not contemplated in the east. The common masses of the East was under no political compulsions of any sort, excpet for paying some royalties perhaps, but enjoyed freedom to do whatever a community or social groups devised plans for their own development or sustenance. The kings and warriors fought their own battles of desire and ambitions.
The only compulsion they had were the social structures within which one followed ones profession or livelihood, and marriage rules and norms. But these are universal and found in the west too, one might hastily add.
In the East, living styles like the Vedic religion, taoism, buddhism jainism all flourished because of this freedom of thought and expression. The freedom to imagine - which means to analyse, study, formulate, postulate, and propogate was and is the quint-essential part of human endeavour.
The mind was free in ancient times. The seers, sadhus and sages of ancient India was the first and foremost free agents of thought. Their minds were free as the wind, it is we in modern era who are struggling to find a proper definition of freedom.
Ultimately, the Freedom to imagine is real, rest kind of freedoms are notional.
