We are conditioned by our culture, parents, teachers, and peers, and then we proceed to live out our entire lives from that orientation. It defines who we think we are. Authoritative people have told us who we are, so we go on to manifest their predictions in the way we live our lives.

One day those of us who are inmates realize that the cell we are in is not what confines us. It only isolates us. We understand that we are all confined in a cell of flesh and blood, whether in prison or out, and that the concrete and steel no longer matter. We feel compassion for those in the “free world” who carry their cells with them and fail to realize it. They are trapped more thoroughly than we are.

As we create our prisons, may we remember that the path of awakening is about becoming free enough that everything fits within them. Being free means that all can be exactly as it is, and does not control us. It is about going beyond all that conditioning and finding out for ourselves who we are and then living our lives in accordance with what we have realized.

This is the path to freedom, even in chains and behind razor-wire fences and concrete walls. It is a freedom that transcends the world. It comes only from seeing and finding God. Indeed, no situation exists that cannot be used to effect an awakening from our conditioned slumber. It is an awakening that shows us there is something indescribably, profoundly wonderful behind it all.

Although a prison may look like a spiritual wasteland, no outer gate, wall, or fence can ever keep us from a connection with the divine Spirit within us. It is always as close as the breath, as near as the heart.

It Doesn’t Matter

THE GIGGLE WAS UNMISTAKABLE. Lying on my bed in the prison dormitory, I heard the familiar sound of my friend who has been nicknamed “Smurf”. I knew he was following his usual pattern of telling a joke, teasing someone, or, in some way, finding humor in everyday situations.

However, as I find out more about him, I discover that he is an unlikely candidate for being someone who laughs a lot. He has been imprisoned since 1984 and won’t be released until 2008, his body shows signs of many past fights (scars, broken bones, etc.), and yet he has found a place of inner contentment within.

I asked him how he found this ability to see the lighter side and he said, “I finally realized that ultimately, it doesn’t matter. I see myself as being like a tree, firmly rooted in the ground, and able to bend with the changing winds.”

As Norman Cousins demonstrated in his battle with illness, laughter can activate our total being, recharging the whole system. It stirs up the blood, clears away the cobwebs from the brain, and gives the whole system a cleansing. Laughing at our human faults takes away their sting, reducing them to minor annoyances, the kind that are easily forgotten when we’ve developed a healthier perspective.

Many of us take life so seriously, certain that the situation confronting us will doom us. Yet, we’re only a decision away from a life that’s built with laughter rather than perpetual gloom. Nothing has the power of us except by our consent. No problem, no difficult person assumes command unless we have given up our position of power.

One temptation that besets many of us is that we take ourselves so seriously that we begin to attach great weight to unimportant matters. Laughter is a marvelous tool for shaping us back down to size. It’s a gift of the human spirit, and sometimes, it is the only weapon we have against official absurdity.

Instead of always taking the rational approach, with humor we can tap into an inner well of spontaneous delight. We can choose to see that we live in a world of many illusions and that much of human belief and behavior is conditioned nonsense. Laughter flips the world upside down and backward until everything becomes perfectly clear.