Bondage (Skt. बन्धन, Bandhan) is the state of being bound the condition of a mind that has identified with experience and lost sight of its true nature as the experiencer. On the path of knowledge, bondage is understood as ignorance made manifest.

What is bondage

Bondage is not physical imprisonment it is the mental condition of being confined by beliefs, identifications, desires, and fears. It is caused by the fundamental ignorance: the assumption that I am this body, I am a separate individual, I am limited, I was born and I will die.

This assumption traps the person into a cycle of endless desire and survival I must do everything by all means possible in this short period. The person becomes a slave to the desires that pop up in the mind. The fundamental ignorance leads to a state of the mind which is called suffering.

Sources of bondage

Identification

The primary source of bondage is identification with name and form the body, the personality, the roles, the memories. Whenever there is identification present, one is bound. As long as one thinks I am this this body, this mind, this person one is in bondage.

Desire and fear

Desire and fear bind the mind to the cycle of becoming. The desire for pleasure and the fear of pain these two keep the person running endlessly. attachment to objects, people, and outcomes all forms of bondage.

Belief systems

Even knowledge can become bondage if held as a rigid belief systems. An agnostic person says: my essential nature is freedom. I cannot be bound to knowledge also. Committing to any philosophy, any -ism, any tradition is bondage.

Indoctrination

Whatever was imposed on us through indoctrination from childhood, from culture, from society acts as invisible chains. The person does not even know they are bound, because the bonds were placed before the person had the ability to question.

Freedom from bondage

Freedom from bondage is called liberation (Skt. मोक्ष, Moksha). On the path of knowledge, liberation is not an achievement or a destination it is the removal of ignorance. When the false beliefs are dropped, freedom is revealed as one's natural state.

The practice of neti neti (not this, not this) is the method of negation systematically dropping every identification until what remains is pure awareness, the unconditioned experiencer. The seeker does not gain freedom; freedom is what remains when bondage is removed.

See also: liberation, ignorance, identification, desire, suffering, neti neti, freedom, fundamental ignorance.