We have all experienced moments when we felt joyously and exuberantly free. Perhaps this feeling accompanied a particular success or achievement. Often it comes unexpectedly, for no apparent reason, the gratuitous bestowing of God’s grace. In this moment of freedom our earthly worries and fears seem to suddenly fade into insignificance and a confidence arises, a sense that everything is possible. The mean-spirited or aggrandizing ego is irrelevant here. Life is no longer finite. Instead, a great wave of magnanimity floods our being, a wave that rolls in on an ocean of generosity and compassion.
I remember as a young man, just out of college, standing on a beautiful seashore on the island of Sri Lanka watching the tropical sun set into the Indian Ocean. I felt a deep gratitude for being alive and I knew that I was inherently free and everything was possible. The person with me was obviously feeling something similar. She broke the silence with the words, “Will we ever be this free again?”
Looking back after 30 years I can attest that the bonds of fear and resentment, obsession and worry have indeed tightened many times upon my soul. But having felt freedom’s joy and its overwhelming validity I now have certainty that it is my birthright to be free.
The barriers to our freedom and to the blessings of the magnanimous heart are not, as might first appear, in the circumstances and conditions of our lives. To be honest we will have to admit that we cannot control the outer events and circumstances of our life experience. Therefore if we are waiting for conditions to change, for people to see it our way, and for our ship to finally come in we will be sorely disappointed.
The barriers to freedom are within our own consciousness, in how we receive and interpret experiences, and this is good news, because that which frees us must be within our own consciousness too.
Jesus stated it dramatically when he taught that what we loose on earth is loosed in heaven and what we bind on earth is bound in heaven. In other words, what I choose to see as true in the earthly realm of my human experience conditions what I believe is possible in the consciousness of Spirit or heaven. If I see myself bound, limited, hurt this is what I become. However if I see myself free, unlimited and healed I expand what is possible for me.
The Buddha understood this important principle of creative mind action also. In chapter 1:3, 4 of the Dhammapada he states,
“He was angry with me, he attacked me, he defeated me, he robbed me – those who dwell on such thoughts will never be free from hatred.”
This elegantly simple way of being is our unfailing resource; the key to happiness, productivity and freedom.
Can it be this simple?
Our sifting, sorting and separating human sense of self obviously doesn’t think so. We may accept the truth of spiritual freedom intellectually, as a concept, but then it’s back to the business of protecting ourselves, hunkering down and holding out against a cruel and unfair world.
Life can be unfair, cruelties and hurts happen and justice does not always prevail. Certainly not on the earthly level of experience. It is so easy to internalize those hurts until they become deep seated resentments that hamper and limit us. Being good spiritual practitioners we have heard that it is important to forgive and we may force ourselves to forgive another for their transgression. Yet, as Kim Hubbard writes, “Nobody ever forgets where he buries the hatchet.” That being true, the temptation is for the resentful ego to go digging it up again, perpetuating the war and the ancient hurt.
As we have stated, there is a better way. It is in loosening the bonds of old and unproductive ways of thinking and setting ourselves free. Remember, the other person does not have to change for us to be free. We have to change. As the well known adage puts it, “Resentment is like taking poison hoping that the other person will die”. Yes, we bind and poison ourselves, yet we have the ability to set ourselves free through the activity of the mind.
Traditional Christianity calls this transformation of consciousness, this renewal of mind, repentance. The word comes with the baggage of moral obligation and the necessity to be free from sin. Fundamentally, though, it simply means to reconsider or to rethink. To repent is to entertain the possibility that there may be another way to approach a particular problem.
Charles Fillmore, co founder of Unity, wrote in Mysteries of Genesis that “True repentance is always followed by forgiveness, which is a complete wiping out of the error thought from consciousness and a full deliverance from the inharmony that the error thought has produced”. When we have merely a glimpse of that moment of freedom beyond judging and deciding the wave of large heartedness and generosity rolls in. It is this magnanimous spirit that makes forgiveness possible, and harmony is naturally restored.
Recall the situation in Genesis 50 when Joseph’s brothers, hearing of their father’s death feared that, without his protection, Joseph’s vengeance may come down hard upon them. Having sold Joseph into slavery and claiming to their father that he was dead, they had grounds for that fear. Joseph, a man of wisdom and generosity, had given up any resentment long ago. He lived in radical freedom and was blessed by great success as a result. In the midst of their trepidation and confusion he declared the immortal words “Even though you meant it for evil, God meant it for good…so have no fear, I myself will provide for you and your little ones”.
Joseph did not deny the fact of cruel intentions and the hurt they engendered. But for him it was not the Truth of the situation. Even in the hurt God’s good was, and is, available. This certainty in the heart of Joseph allowed him to be a channel for provision and love for his brothers and their dependents.
So it is for us. We always have a choice. We never have to stay stuck in hurt and unforgiveness unless we insist upon it. Remember, it is no longer about the situation or the past experience; it is about you and me.
Beloved child of God forgive yourself for holding on so tightly, for keeping yourself in bondage to fear, hurt and resentment. The time has come to arise, to expand into a higher recognition of who you are and what is possible for you. Let God help you. Spirit’s healing presence is available in the form of divine qualities alive in our consciousness. As Lord Krishna says to the human aspirant Arjuna in chapter 16 verses 2 & 3 of the Hindu masterpiece, The Bhagavad Gita:
“Do not get angry or harm any living creature, but be compassionate and gentle, show goodwill to all. Cultivate vigor, patience, will, purity; avoid malice and pride. Then, Arjuna, you will achieve your divine destiny.”
Jesus, our master teacher and wayshower, continually taught and embodied the magnanimous way of the forgiving and expansive heart. His simple commandment was that we ‘love one another.’ Let your love grow, he says, so that it includes your enemies. When questioned by Peter “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus resoundingly and definitively answers “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy times seven.” There is no limit to the restorative power of spirit working in you.
The blissful moment of freedom and possibility that came to me on that beach in Sri Lanka so long ago is one that I choose never to forget. I am certain that you have had those life changing moments too. They happen for me in hospitals, on street corners, in ordinary places as well as exotic locales. Wherever that moment of breakthrough occurs the message is always the same: “You are inherently free, and the power to demonstrate this lies within your own being. Loose the bonds of any lingering belief in the reality of separation. Come home to the One and in that wave of joy be all that you are created to be.”
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