Reflection #127 (5th July 2026 at Essex Church / Kensington Unitarians)
‘Freedom, Reason, and Tolerance’ – this is a phrase that has historically been an important statement of our core Unitarian values – perhaps we don’t use it quite so much these days. Since I first stumbled into the church 27 years ago I’ve noticed that we’ve softened our view on reason a bit, acknowledging that there are other sources of wisdom and insight that transcend the rational, and which may be found through emotion, intuition, and direct experience. We’re not just a religion of the head. And that traditional emphasis on ‘tolerance’ has been questioned a bit too – it can feel a bit grudging – it sounds like ‘putting up with’. We’ve moved towards the language of ‘celebrating’ and ‘affirming’ when it comes to our relationship with difference, be that religious and theological diversity, or other dimensions of culture and identity.
But freedom – it’s hardly surprising that freedom comes first in that slogan – it seems to me that freedom is so central to the Unitarian outlook – so no wonder it’s a theme that we return to time and time again in our services. There are many dimensions to explore. And today I want us to focus on what I’m going to call ‘interior freedom’.
Much of the time, I would say, we Unitarians tend to focus on exterior freedom. We’re rightly very concerned with the material conditions of oppression that millions (if not billions) of people are facing every day the world over – violence, discrimination, poverty – and the unjust and unfair systems that keep people trapped in suffering. When we talk about building a better world, as we so often do – or the Kingdom of God or the Beloved Community or whichever form of words most animates you – when we talk about this I am often thinking primarily about us engaging in a project of liberation. We are dreaming of a future when these oppressive systems are overthrown. A time when everybody is free to live their life as they see fit, express themselves, and flourish. A day when the only constraint on freedom is the principle that we don’t cause harm to others (that principle is of course not trivial to live out; but we’ll return to that another day). Our focus on exterior freedom is a noble one; it calls us to be attentive to the sufferings of our neighbours, and do what we can to help to dismantle the structures, systems, and attitudes – including within ourselves – that keep so many people un-free.
But what about ‘interior freedom’? I find it a slightly slippery concept to get a handle on. Yet it seems to come up again and again, in different guises, in all the major religious traditions, and also in various psychological and psychotherapeutic schools of thought. There’s this persistent idea that spiritual practice, or inner work, might ‘set us free’.
I’ll share a long-ish quote from Yogesh Sharda, of the Brahma Kumaris, his perspective on ‘interior freedom’. He writes: ‘In many parts of the world, people have freedom of movement, of speech, the freedom to preach and practise any religion. However, these freedoms can be taken away from you. The freedom that no one—except yourself —can deprive you of is the freedom to think and feel as you want, when you want. Generally, we believe that the behaviour of people, events, and [outer] circumstances are responsible for the way we feel. But one important principle in a life of spirituality is that my thoughts and emotional state are entirely my choice, and my responsibility. There are some spiritual principles involved in taking charge of my inner world—owning my peace and happiness, and thinking and feeling what I want, whenever I want. The two foundations for growing internally are inner strength, and our perspective, or the way we see life.… We usually try to control events and other people, believing that will make us secure and happy. But if we do that, we will necessarily become stressed. Between me and the world outside is my mind. All I need to do is to shift my desire for control from outside to inside, and have control over my mind.’
Words from Yogesh Sharda. Easier said than done, of course! I must admit, that when I first encountered teachings of this sort about ‘interior freedom’, I baulked at them somewhat. I felt suspicious-verging-on-hostile as I tried to translate this principle and apply it to challenging situations in my own life, and the life of the world. My first reaction to it was a kind of outrage! The implication seemed to be that anyone could do whatever dreadful things they liked, with negative consequences for me, or for the world, and they were in some sense ‘off the hook’, as any inner suffering that I felt in response to their actions was apparently entirely my own responsibility. That feels unjust, doesn’t it? It sounds very much like ‘your suffering is your own fault’. But is it as simple as that?
Despite my initially quite negative reaction I think I also realised quite early on that there was something worth grappling with in such spiritual teachings. We probably shouldn’t be fatalistic, but many external factors are often largely out of our control, and when we’re facing difficulties that we can’t directly do anything about it is wise to turn our attention to the one thing we do have some control over – our inner response. There are some echoes with the old Serenity Prayer – ‘grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference’. I think interior freedom speaks to ‘the things we cannot change’. How might we respond to life’s trials in a way that doesn’t compound our suffering?
It also reminds me of the old Buddhist teaching of the first dart and the second dart – when we’re pierced by the first dart of external circumstances it may indeed be painful – but we don’t have to add the second dart of suffering by excessively ruminating or making up an unhelpful inner narrative about it. If we cultivate this ‘interior freedom’ we might be more able to save ourselves a lot of unnecessary secondary suffering. This is something Rick Hanson, one of my favourite teachers, has spoken about a lot; he gives some examples of the ‘second darts’ we humans habitually throw at ourselves: ‘overreacting to little things, holding grudges, justifying yourself, drowning in guilt after you’ve learned the lesson, dwelling on things long past, losing perspective, worrying about stuff you can’t control, and mentally rehashing conversations.’ Hanson also gives a positive framing of what we could be aiming for, instead of this: ‘A sense of inner freedom is a hallmark of emotional healing, mental health, self-actualization, and the upper reaches of human potential… a common term for enlightenment is “liberation.”’
So my perspective on such teaching has shifted, but still, I do want to add a note of caution before we go any further. We need to tread carefully as I think there is a risk that some of these teachings on ‘interior freedom’ can be (mis)used for spiritual bypassing – that is, they can be used to avoid facing and tackling difficult external realities – even to suggest that bad things that are happening in the world aren’t real or imply that we should be able to transcend them – rather than engaging in the struggle for change.
Like I said, it’s a high priority in our Unitarian tradition to face up to uncomfortable realities as best we can, in order to change them – to protest and organise – and build a land where justice rolls down like waters and peace is an ever-flowing stream, just like we sang earlier. Liberation is very much material as well as psychological and spiritual.
That said… the two wisdom stories we heard earlier, of the raccoon and the elephant, present striking images of the ways in which we might collude with our own captivity. The raccoon is operating out of habit, and he knows full well what he needs to do to be free, but he can’t bring himself to do it. Onlookers will say ‘just drop the fish!’ but it’s not as easy as it might seem from outside. He is in the grip of habit. This sort of dynamic will be all too familiar to anyone who’s struggled with addiction or compulsive behaviours. Likewise, the poor elephant, who is only weakly tied with string, and could get up and walk away anytime, and yet is so identified with its own captivity, so demoralised, that it no longer even tries to break free. We too can lose heart, become resigned to our fate.
In the piece by Kübra Yücel, that Roy read, she quotes the famous words of Viktor Frankl, which are also on your order of service today. One of the insights he brought back with him as a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps was this – even when imprisoned, people can maintain inner freedom – and ‘the last of the human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.’ And as Frankl wrote elsewhere, ‘Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.’
This is a kind of existential freedom, as Dan Cumberland, of ‘The Meaning Movement’, has written: ‘Regardless of our external circumstances, we are continually confronted with choices that define our essence and shape our identity. True freedom lives in our internal responses and the values we uphold amid life’s challenges. This connects to existentialism as a path to freedom, emphasizing that our choices define our essence, regardless of external limitations. By embracing our ability to respond… we can transform suffering into meaning and despair into hope. Ultimately, recognizing that we are architects of our own fate empowers us, allowing us to navigate even the [bleakest] of circumstances with dignity and purpose.’ Words from Dan Cumberland.
This feels like a topic we can’t possibly exhaust in a single service. So perhaps I’ll just close with an echo of the invitation that Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer offered for our meditation today. Perhaps it is one we can return to, often, to remind us to cultivate or reconnect with our interior freedom. She wrote: ‘Sit with the freedom in your heart. Feel it expanding… When did you become this vast? Was this spaciousness always here? Could you have felt this way yesterday if only you had got out of your own way?’ Amen.
Reflection by Jane Blackall