By Gonny 
Let’s travel for a moment to a bustling city in Tehran and step onto a public bus.
Here we meet Sara. She is wearing a hijab, seated in the women-only section at the back of the bus, living within the strict framework of specific religious and cultural norms.
To the modern Western eye, looking at Sara through the lens of our evening news, the verdict is instant and absolute: she is not free.
But what exactly do we think freedom is?
In the West, our definition of liberty often looks entirely different.
We define freedom by what the body is allowed to do.
Freedom means I can stroll down the street half-naked on a hot summer day.
Freedom means that if I want to protest a global crisis…like climate change, which prompted activists to glue their hands to the frame of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring in the Mauritshuis in the Netherlands….I can use my body to make a statement.
We view freedom as the ultimate personal buffet.
We can pick a religion, discard the rules we don’t like, and customize a spiritual path like a personalized Spotify playlist.
And on a much darker, grander scale, the ego’s version of freedom tells nations that they have the right to bomb a neighboring land because they want that soil, that power, or that security.
We look at these actions…from the trivial to the terrifying….and call it “freedom.” But are we actually free, or have we just built a different kind of cage?
This is where A Course in Miracles gently steps in, turning our entire concept of reality upside down. One of its most profound lessons states simply:
“I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.”
If freedom is defined purely by what the body can do, then true freedom is impossible.
Bodies are fragile. They get sick, they age, they get stuck in traffic, and yes, sometimes they get superglued to museum walls.
If your freedom is tied to a physical circumstance, a political climate, or the clothes you are allowed (or not allowed) to wear, then you are a hostage to the world.
People might protest for a noble cause, but in that moment their mind may be entirely bound by fear, anger, and a desperate sense of powerlessness about the future of the planet.
Meanwhile, a nation dropping bombs to “free” a piece of land is entirely enslaved by the ego’s belief in lack, the terrifying illusion that there is not enough to go around, and that taking from a brother is the only way to survive.
Now, let’s go back to Sara on the bus.
Outwardly, her body’s movements are restricted. But what if Sara, sitting quietly in the back row, is practicing forgiveness?
What if she has realized that the peace of God cannot be dictated by a government mandate, a piece of cloth, or the opinions of the men at the front of the bus?
If Sara is resting in the quiet sanctuary of her own mind, remembering her true, limitless nature, she is experiencing a liberation that no physical law can touch.
In that moment, the woman in the hijab may be infinitely freer than the Westerner who can wear whatever they want but is mentally burdened by anxiety, grievances, and the endless demands of the ego.
The world tells us that freedom is the ability to change our external circumstances to match our personal preferences.
The Course tells us that freedom is the ability to choose peace regardless of external circumstances.
True freedom isn’t about what we do with our hands, what we put on our heads, or where we draw our borders.
It is an inside job.
It is the quiet, joyful realization that you are not the character you are playing in this worldly dream.
You are not a body at all. And in that holy recognition, you are and always have been, completely free.
With love and light,
G.