GETTING FREE

Vivekananda used the example of a saint and a thief.  The saint is burdened with the knowledge of his condition of bondage, feeling he is a prisoner in this world of form, and he wants to get free of it; so he worships God.

The thief is burdened with the idea that he does not possess certain things, and he tries to get rid of that want, to obtain freedom from that want, and so he steals.

The impulse in both instances is the same.  Indeed, freedom from burdens is the one goal of all of nature, sentient and insentient, Vivekananda said. Consciously or unconsciously, everything is striving for it.

The quality of the freedom that the saint seeks, however, is different from that which the thief seeks.  The freedom sought by the saint leads him to God, while that on which the robber has his heart set leads him only to more burdens.