Mental Freedom Leads to Physical Freedom
Many people often mistakenly think that freedom is the right to choose anything they want, including negative, harmful things that lead to poverty, illness, or even death. They think that, with free will, they can choose the path of laziness and ignorance. However, this is not a true choice, but laziness of the mind, a self-indulgence that leads to ignorance.
Ignorance Is Not a Choice
The Bible warns: “My people perish for lack of knowledge.” (Hosea 4:6). This affirms that ignorance does not come from a conscious choice, but is the result of not making the effort to think, search, and learn in order to choose wisdom, life, and light. If ignorance were a free choice, who would freely choose suffering, illness, poverty, and death? Certainly not.
Ignorance is not a manifestation of freedom, but of laziness, indolence, and cowardice. It allows oneself to be swept away toward negative consequences: disaster, illness, poverty, prison, even hell.
The Path to Mental Freedom
A person with mental freedom is one who diligently plows his mind in search of truth, truth, life, and light. As the Word of God says: “I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12) and “Whoever comes to Me will never thirst, but the water of life will flow from within him.” (John 4:14, general idea).
Diligence of the mind, a thirst for truth, is the way to life, freedom from the penalty of death, prison, hell, disaster, disease, weakness, poverty, and slavery. This is true freedom.
“The Broad Way” and “The Narrow Way”
In contrast, a wandering mind, a failure to think and seek the truth, is often called the “broad way.” The Bible warns: “Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many enter by it; but the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and few find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).
This mental laziness often leads people to follow the rules and order set by the “ruling herd” instead of cultivating the mind to connect the spirit with God’s truth. The rules of the world may give the lazy a little bit of unrighteous wealth for a while, but those things will collapse quickly.
The Consequences of Mental Laziness
The Word of God affirms justice: “The good man will be rewarded in the earth, but the wicked will be punished with his eyes” (Proverbs 11:31). The wicked, who choose the path of mental laziness, will eventually face sudden disaster. “You will look for him again, but he will not be there” (Proverbs 24:34, general idea).
Thus, true freedom is not the right to be self-indulgent, but the privilege of choosing wisdom, life, and light through diligence of the mind. Only when the mind is freed from the chains of indolence and ignorance can man truly attain physical freedom from its painful consequences. Freedom begins from within, from a mind that seeks truth.