Paramahansa Yogananda’s “Freedom,” from Songs of the Soul, consists of three stanzas, each featuring the refrain, “I am free, ever free.” The refrain becomes a chant, which transforms into an affirmation.
First Stanza: “Brave cords, bind me hand and foot”
The speaker commands his would-be freedom usurpers, “bind me hand and foot.” He even calls them “Brave cords.” The mind-set immediately reveals the soul of one who has transcended the emotions of the physical world.
The ordinary human individual would not be able to call his captors “brave,” but this speaker regards his own power as such that anyone or anything that has the temerity to try his strength must be brave.
The speaker immediately begins the important refrain, “Yet lo, I am free, ever free.” Even if his hands and feet are tied securely, his knows his soul cannot be tied; thus, because his soul is eternally free, he retains his liberty also.
He then addresses “Disease,” commanding it, “ply your tortures.” Despite the ravages of illness, the speaker can again repeat, “Still I am free, ever free.” When the opposite of “Disease,” that is, “Health” has been one’s fortune, the human may become overconfident; thus, the speaker commands, “Health, try your lures.”
But again the speaker will not be lured to a false satisfaction, because he is “free, ever free.” Whether he is in the body, or the body is “caged or uncaged,” the speaker affirms, “I am free, ever free.”
Second Stanza: “Forged in the furnace of incarnations”
The speaker then offers a brief overview of the journey that has led him to this great freedom. His soul has been “Forged in the furnace of incarnations.” Like metal, his soul has been hammered, heated, and formed into his present shape.
His soul has withstood and broken the “long chains of earthly desires” that have attempted to fasten that soul to those desires. He has “escaped from life to life.”
He then colorfully likens his journey to traveling “Through the portal of the rainbow” and by fastening his soul to light, he was able to “enter[ ] heaven’s free skies.” And now can affirm and chant repeatedly, “Now I am free, ever free.”
Third Stanza: “Naught can bind me”
The speaker then declares that nothing can take his freedom if he insists on retaining it, and nothing can free him if he insists on remaining bound. He is the great agent that awards himself with freedom; thus, “Knowing that naught exists to bind me, / I know I am free, ever free.”
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