There is no absolute freedom, as the individual is part of something bigger - whether it is nature or the spirit.
- Belzebuub

Belzebuub: Ok then; let's begin... Freedom - well, we've all got choices that we make in life. You know we choose for example, to be here in this talk, and this is something that we should really try to understand, because it's in our own interest to make the right choice at any given time. And freedom allows us to make these choices.

Freedom gives opportunity, and its restriction cuts down our opportunities. So it's little wonder we hold freedom in quite, well quite high in our list of values. But freedom also brings the need for responsibility. And it brings about the question: what is free to do what? So the trouble is that much of the psyche is unknown to the average person. There are different drives and different desires, and they crave to be fulfilled. A lot of these influence each person beyond their understanding or knowledge. So, these which are referred to are animal drives, which put us in that dog-eat-dog world of nature's survival of the fittest. So freedom can come to mean an unrestricted behaviour, which arises from the animal drives. So that's probably a bit different to what we had thought.

But you see nature has its laws and sometimes these can be quite brutal, so that each animal struggles for survival - some win, some lose - but ultimately, every single individual creature loses in this brutal battle of nature. A bigger animal for example comes to eat it, or it gets injured, old age comes, natural disasters just take its life away or leave it crippled. So animals, they do have their freedoms, which vary from one animal to another - some for example are in zoos, others are in the wild, others are pets - but each is restricted according to its type. So an animal will always be an animal, no matter how its life is. It can't stop being that animal; it can't rise to be spiritual. And that's the fundamental difference between us and them - between us and animals - because we potentially have the freedom not to live an animalistic life. For many of us, that's a choice that we can make.

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Freedom