Interview with Swami Shankarananda Giri | Part 2
How would you describe freedom?
We are here, in this physical, material body, but we
are not the body, we are just confined in it. But he
body has its urges and we are forced to satisfy them.
We need freedom. We have always wanted it,
from our youngest age, it is in our instinct. We all
In our previous numerous lives we may have had
want to be free.
the body of a monkey, donkey, crocodile, insect,
bird, plant and of course we had no freedom, but
Going back to the first days of our lives we can ima-
we had no knowledge either. Therefore, we came
gine our mother breast’s feeding us, holding us
into a human body, having been given the chance
tight into her arms, playing with us, kissing and
to understand, to get the knowledge which is so
cuddling us. But even the baby doesn’t like it all the
important for our evolution. This understanding
time. He wants to be free from his mother even
that I am talking about, the animals and plants do
from the first days of his life. When it is too much
not have it. Animal beings have a very limited un-
of something, the baby just rejects his mother by
derstanding that goes only to a minor extent. Espe-
crying and pushes her away. And it is like that
cially when we speak of freedom, they do not have
simply because we don’t want so much bondage.
any thought of it but the need of it can be clearly
In fact we don’t want bondage at all.
expressed in their actions. Tigers and cats, as an
example, do not foll