How free are you?

I dream a lot. In most of my dreams I am flying. Sometimes I see a huge mountain and I have to climb it, well I don’t climb, I just fly. Most of my dreams are like that. At times big rivers and I am standing on its bank wondering how I am going cross it and suddenly I realize I can fly and that’s it. Me and my flying dreams and I have to admit it’s actually an awesome experience. Many times I would just wonder what does it mean or has it any meaning at all? But in all dreams, one experience is always same, this feeling of freedom. Experiencing freedom in your waking life metaphors as flying in your dreams, they say. I read it in some dream interpretation. Sometimes I wonder how would it be like if we had wings? Instead of walking we would be flying, That would be cool, isn't it? And I would be on that mountain top :) Anyways we could fly at least in our thoughts, in our imaginations and also in our writings too.

Recently I was walking. And when I was walking I started to become aware of my feet touching the ground. How often are you aware of that? Are you aware of your feet touching the ground now, I guess you are after you read it. Well I was walking looking my feet moving forward step by step. Then I stopped and looked around. It’s a very busy street. Many people are walking. I started noticing their feet too, like mine. They were touching the same ground. We were all walking the same earth. It’s our common ground where we live and become happy with our loved ones. It was such a magical feeling for me to realize that I was sharing this time and space with so many people. Once I read that when we would be of 65 years, we would have walked two times the circumference of this earth. I was blown away by this fact. Two times the earth, that’s some walking, isn't it? The earth suddenly became smaller. By now I have already walked this earth once. I feel big. I feel free. Nothing can stop me from walking this ball two times or more probably. This is my freedom, the freedom to walk when I am awake. And when I am dreaming, I am just flying. Once I remember a situation where I couldn't move. I was stuck with my paralyzed body. Legs, hands, fingers, head. Nothing I could move. I cried and realized I couldn't even wipe my tears. Have you ever experience such a feeling? Its crazy isn't it, to know that your mobility has suddenly been compromised. You can do nothing, lie down helplessly alone with your heavy heart, cold and frozen. Suddenly I woke up. It was a dream. Oh! How happy I was, I could move. I thanked my legs, my hands, and my body for they have been helping me to move thoughout my entire life. I was free again and so are you. Lets enjoy it till the last of our days.

Few years back, I remember my posting in a medical ward back home. It was winter. The air is very cold. This freezing air could really squeeze the tubes in your lungs and you can’t breathe. Have you heard of condition called Asthma? If you ask these people what does it means to breathe freely, they will for sure tell you they are willing to give you anything to breathe freely. So I was on duty. An ambulance arrived, in there was a big man in his mid 60’s. His name was Chandra(means moon in Nepali). His face was blue, I could hear his lungs honking with each breathe he was taking. Such a big man and his whole body was squeezing tight to grasp every small amount of air it could take. I looked down to find that breathing was so hard for him that he had peed on his pants. He was gasping for every breath. very helpless. Has it ever occured to you that you had to experience this? It really is an extremely suffocating experience where you fight for every breathe. Your whole energy is just used to breathe. Anyways, I made the diagnosis, prescribed emergency medications and kept him for observation. In no time his condition was restored to normal. Thanks to the achievements we have made in modern medicine.

I went back in my room. He is still there with his bluish discoloured face in my mental screen, shortness in his breath and these loud noises coming from his lungs were clearly ringing my ears.. I looked into myself. I feel the soft flow of air going in and out of my nostrils. Can you feel it too? I hope you are aware of the rise and fall in your chest as you are breathing. Do you hear the sound of air rushing inside and outside of you? It’s amazing, isn't it? We are breathing and with every breathe, we inhale something so important for us, “life”. This guy with Asthma was actually struggling so hard to breathe life. We don’t inhale air, we inhale life, literally we can say that. And as I would feel my breath and the air around me, my loved ones crossed my mind, my mom, my dad, friends, families and relatives. Everybody was breathing the same air from the same space as me. We were breathing the same life. I felt strongly connected to everybody in this space where this air was contained. I looked out of the window, so many people and all of them are breathing alike. Who knows how often am I breathing this very air that was once within them or even you. I am sitting on my bed, feeling the softness of the bed underneath me, I spread out my hands in the space around me. It’s not empty. I feel the touch of the air everywhere, the presence of life everywhere. With my closed eyes and listening the soft whispers of floating life, I let myself out through the air I just exhaled. I dissolved into the space around me. Out through my lungs and to the windows, I was floating with the air and soon I was spreading everywhere, being breathed by everyone, even the plants and the animals included. I was in an enormous expansion. In this expansion I was much more than what I imagine “I” to be. The biggest of all was my presence everywhere in everybody. And my friends that is some experience of freedom I had experienced. The freedom to breathe and to spread with it everywhere in everybody freely, without any resistance whatsoever.

Suddenly my telephone rang. I picked up the phone to hear the nurse on other side “Doctor could you please come to the ER and have a look. Chandra wants a discharge. He is already feeling much better?” “Of course”, I said... Smiling and breathing, enjoying my freedom in the space of life, I grabbed my white coat, my stethoscope and rushed to the ER.