Meditation is the tool to eradicate the negative influence of the past. 

Spiritual freedom is very different from worldly freedom. There is no universal definition of worldly freedom. Everyone has their own definition of what freedom in life looks like.

When it comes to spiritual freedom, there is a universal definition. Spiritual freedom means freedom from the legacy of our bondage. All our problems and issues, and not least our mental issues, have their roots in the past. It may be from the childhood, but also from earlier lives. The seeds for what we are experiencing now have been sown in the past. The issues we have reflect the accumulation of traces over time. They can also come in the form of worry or stress, or burdens of feeling sorrow or depression. It is rare for someone to have a stable mind and stay in the same mood or state all the time. The mind is subjected to all kinds of fluctuations. We have no clue as to why a feeling or mood arises, because it is buried deeply in our past. But one important teaching of spirituality is that none of this is random or without reason. It happens for a reason – there is a root cause for anything that goes on in our mind. We cannot understand it always – we cannot remember what may have influenced us in our childhood, but we carry the influences with us throughout our lives.

Imagine the self without any past or history – just arriving brand new here in the world. If we had absolutely no imprints from the past, what would we be? We would be in the internal, innate light of the soul, which is peace, happiness, bliss, and contentment, and the feeling of freedom would be innate. In such a state we would not even be aware of this freedom, it would be natural for us. Freedom becomes ‘a thing’ when we do not experience it - when we feel we are held in bondage. Some bondage is very tangible and others are very subtle. It is not just mental states that are impacted but also our reaction patterns and habits; our ways of interacting with others. We have certain tendencies and habits that we would really like to change, but it is very difficult to do so, because they are being used to compensate for some deficiency within us. Being deficient in peace, security, and contentment gives birth to worry and stress. Unless and until we are able to replenish ourselves and become peaceful and secure and have a good amount of love and respect for ourselves, we will not be able to be free of these deficiency symptoms which express themselves in our mental state and in our actions, interactions, and our personality.

We will need to somehow reduce or eradicate the impact of our legacy to be able to exercise our free will. The tug of war that takes place in a spiritual life is between the intellect, that holds our values, willpower and determination, and the legacy of our past. The conditioning from the past constitutes a kind of force that is opposing our intellect. The intellect wants us to rise above the conditioning from the past, and the conditioning is pulling us down repeatedly.

I do not think we can accomplish this task of transformation without meditation. Meditation is really the tool to weaken or eradicate the influence of the past. However, it cannot do the whole job. The power to change comes from the cognitive level. We have to have self-realisation to see what has to be changed, and this takes great honesty and humility. Those who are stubborn and resist change cannot be changed even with the help of meditation. To fully transform, we need to make a conscious decision to live by our values.

Meditation is like a complete medicine; one remedy for lots of issues – worries, waste thoughts, heaviness, resentment, and an endless list of sufferings. This does not happen overnight, but the influences will be weakened and eventually disappear. It is when they are gone that we can really say we are free. That is when we experience no more sadness, fear, or loneliness - we experience a constant stage of pleasure, contentment, and bliss. It becomes our new nature – our original nature – made up of the innate qualities of the soul, of love, peace, and security. That is the inner light that shines through when we have removed all the legacies of the past.

B.K Viggo Simonsen is an IT consultant and manages the Brahma Kumaris centre in Denmark.