Man has been given a body, but he has also been given a mind and a soul. It is only the body which can be put in a prison or behind iron bars. But none can stop the mind to travel and the soul to soar high. Jawaharlal Nehru was imprisoned by the British for his struggle for country’s freedom but it was from behind the prison walls that he wrote down ‘letters to his daughter’ which became history. Who could stop him to do this writing? The mind is a free bird. Lokmanya Tilak was imprisoned in the Mandalay Jail in Burma and while there, he wrote down his treatise on the Bhagwat Gita which is a monumental work. There have been many more such examples of great writers, great thinkers who penned down their thoughts from behind the ‘stone walls’. Mahatma Gandhi did that from the Yarwada jail. So it is that none can bind the mind and thoughts. The soul of a man is ever free—stone walls or an iron-cage does not hamper its flight and force. But there can be persons who may be physically free but mentally they are slaves. They cannot think for themselves; always depend upon other’s opinions or are always slaves to other people’s commands. It is actually the mind which is the seat of freedom and not the body. To a man whose mind is chainless, a prison is just a hermitage.
Vocabulary
Penned down—wrote
Commands—orders
Shopping Cart