Dependency is a form of lack of freedom that some people
impose on pets and
circus animals in exchange for affection and
for doing tricks.
These animals depend on man for their food.
If an animal were free and able to find its
own food, hardly a single animal would spontaneously
show affection to people. Showing affection
in exchange for food has been forced on animals.
Animals (like people) have the right to be
safeguarded from this. When people (children
and adults) are looking for affection, it
is better and more honest to find it in other
people. Finding affection from animals is
particularly wrong in the case of pets that
have to be locked up. This of course doesn't
include dogs and cats, which have had centuries
to get used to people. It is mainly the animals
that belong in the open that we should leave
in peace. Not a single animal should be forced to display
unnatural behavior or denied the possibility
of displaying their natural behavior for economic
or immaterial gain.
A similar dilemma applies to human mental
aid. There are social workers whose council
doesn't really help clients, but makes them
dependent of this help in a new way. These
social workers help people out of the frying
pan and into the fire.
Something alike applies when people capture
an animal, and make it dependent by caring for it and deterring it from the possibility
of caring for itself. People should carefully
consider why they get involved with animals,
is there a wish behind it to exact attention
from the animal? Couldn't this need for attention
be satisfied some other way?
People claiming they get more from animals than from
people, probably demand more from animals
than they can give to people and animals themselves.
Such people are not balanced and are selling
others short. It is harder to let a person be free than it
is to let an animal be free; all that is needed
to let an animal be free is to leave it alone
in its natural habitat. For a human being,
rather the opposite applies. The most that
love can give anyone is freedom.
Here follows a section about human love from
"Love is like a bird in the sky".
(Osho publications).
It illustrates why we shouldn't lock up
animals either. Love gives freedom. Love that doesn't
give freedom, is not love. Love is not thirst for power. How can you
dominate someone you love? How can you make
him dependent and still be loving? But what
happens in the world in the name of love
is something else: the lust for power, wanting
to control others. Of course independence
is inadmissible then. You do everything
to make the other identical to yourself.
You are afraid of the other person's freedom,
because freedom escapes control and freedom
is unpredictable. So all so-called love
tries to kill freedom in any way it can
- and as soon as freedom is destroyed, love dies.
Love is very fragile, like a rose. You have
to allow her to dance in the rain, in the
wind, in the sun. Love is like a bird in the sky, and its freedom
occupies all of the sky. You can catch the
bird, you can put it in a magnificent gilded
cage, and it only appears to be the same bird
that flew free and had the sky to itself.
It just appears to be, but it's not: you have
killed it. You have clipped its wings. You
have taken its sky from it. And birds do not
care for your gold - no matter how precious
your cage is, it is still a prison.
And this is what we do with our love: we create
gilded cages. We are afraid, for the sky is
immeasurable. There is a fear the bird won't
return. In order to control it, it must be
imprisoned. And love is changed into marriage.
Love is a bird in the sky: marriage is a bird
in a gilded cage. And of course the bird can
never forgive you. You've destroyed all its
beauty, joy, and freedom. You've broken its
spirit - it's nothing but a dead imitation
now. But you've assured yourself of one thing:
it cannot escape, it will always be yours,
tomorrow and the day after.
Lovers are always afraid. There is the fear that
love comes as a cool breeze. You cannot produce
it, it isn't something that can be produced
- it comes. But everything that comes of itself
can also leave of itself. This is a natural
phenomenon. When love comes, flowers blossom
inside you, a song erupts in your heart, a
desire to dance but with a secret fear. What
will happen if this breeze that has reached
you - cool and scented - leaves you tomorrow?
…Because you are not the edge of existence.
And the breeze is only a guest - it stays
with you for as long as it wants and can leave
at any time.
This causes people to be afraid and to become
possessive. They close their doors and windows
to keep the breeze in, but the breeze will
not stay the same with your doors and windows
closed. Its coolness is lost, its scent is
lost - very soon it turns into something disgusting.
It needs freedom and you've taken that freedom
- all that is left is something dead.
Other related subjecs are "self control",
"respect",
"involvement" and "self-realization".
More about the relation between love and
freedom on: "inner
freedom" and "the
sane society" (Erich Fromm).
See also our articles
on keeping pets.
Love is like a bird in the sky, and its freedom
occupies all of the sky. You can catch the
bird, you can put it in a magnificent gilded
cage, and it only appears to be the same bird
that flew free and had the sky to itself.