What Is Spiritual Freedom?
The ultimate state of spiritual freedom brings wisdom, love, and spiritual power. But there are stages in between. We expand or unfold from no freedom into a greater state of spiritual freedom.
One morning I went into the bathroom, and there was a huge spider, a daddy longlegs, on my bath towel. I'd seen him under a shelf a week before, and as long as he stayed there, i didn't care. But it might be hard on him to be on my towel;he might get crunched, or we both might have a fright when I tried to dry myself.
So I went downstairs and got a glass and an index card. It wasn't even a struggle to get him into the glass. I carried him to the garage and balanced the glass in one hand as I reached to push the button for the garage-door opener.
As I pressed the button, there was an enormous blue flash. It startled me so much I almost dropped the glass. The spider fell to the floor and scurried away.
Seeing Past Illusion
Whenever something very startling like this happens, i know there's a spiritual lesson in it. It looked like the light had burned out in the garage door-opener.
"As long as I'm here, I'll replace that burned out light bulb," I said to my wife. So I went back inside to get a new bulb.
I came back out,stood on a stepladder,and screwed in the bulb. It stayed lit for about five seconds, then went out.
"Oh no," I said, " we've got big problems." It looked like there was a short in the garage door-opener. "Now the door's going to be frozen in the opened position, and anyone can come in and steal my lawn mower or snow thrower," I told my wife. Maybe this isn't so bad, I thought.
After thinking about this problem and how I was going to fix it, it occurred to me to try the garage door-opener again. A little skeptical, I walked over to the button and pressed it.
To my surprise, the light came on immediately and the door closed.
I realized our garage door-opener has a ten-minute timer. The light comes on when the door opens, then it shuts off after ten minutes. Apparently by the time i went inside and found a new bulb, nine minutes and fifty-five seconds had passed.
It was interesting timing. I would have drawn the wrong conclusion; I did for a few seconds. But when it happened so suddenly, I asked," What else could be wrong?"
Sometimes the forces of illusion try to make us see things through a cloud.
We draw the wrong conclusions, like I did when I thought the garage door-opener was broken. But because I listened to the inner nudge to try once more, the illusion was broken instead.
A frozen garage door on a Sunday morning right before you leave the house could be a problem, unless you don't care too much about mowing the lawn or clearing snow from the driveway in winter. My wife wouldn't have minded actually. She doesn't want me to mow the lawn or do these things.
We hear about how we should have an easy life, not have too much tension. But under certain conditions, challenge is good. Maybe we live longer. There are studies done that show that people who live alone live a shorter time than people who have someone else in the home. I think the constant presence of someone else's opinion about how you should live your life has staying power.
It's good to live longer if we are still working on achieving the steps toward spiritual freedom. That way we can learn the lessons that we would otherwise not get in this lifetime.
What is spiritual freedom?
Spiritual freedom is when a responsibility is removed and gives us more time to do the things we really want to do or like to do that are of a spiritual direction. In everyday terms, it's similar to what parents feel when the last teenager leaves home. Or what the teenager feels when he or she gets a driver's license. It's a degree of spiritual freedom.
Leaving the Nest
When my daughter graduated from high school, I said,"Thank God."
If you're a parent, you can understand what I mean. If the child doesn't graduate, it's like a baby robin who doesn't leave the nest. By the end of summer, the parent robins get pretty thin from chasing around getting food for their young. Parents can run themselves ragged for their fledglings.
In a healthy family when the children are finally ready to leave home, the parents say," Sure, we'll lend you some money to leave. Don't forget to write. And remember that eighteen is the cutoff age for unlimited financial aid."
The thought of going back to life the way it was before you had children takes awhile to soak in sometimes. Just the thought of it can give you this feeling of lightness and happiness. Yet some parents are heartbroken, seeing the home suddenly empty. What are they going to fill their lives with now? Other parents, however, are happy to go out to dinner and not have to worry about being home before dark.
Right of Passage
When this rite of passage occurs for the child, it's a state of freedom reached by the parents too.
This is as it should be; it's basically what nature does. The only species that violates this is the human being, when grown children become professional beggars by hanging on at home. Any parent with any sense of humanity cannot throw them out, even though it may be the best thing to do for both parent and child.
What does life require of us? To be able to survive, to go out there and have the experiences of life, and to learn from them. To become better spiritual beings.
And by becoming better spiritual beings we become more self sufficient. We become better able to handle ourselves in one crisis after another, as well as in the good times. This moves us towards spiritual freedom in this lifetime.
When you have more spiritual freedom, you have more happiness and independence. This is what we are looking for.
One summer, my daughter went to Alaska to work in a fish cannery. I strongly encouraged her, short of buying the plane ticket, which i let her earn herself. She was also earning spending money; she wanted to have two or three hundred dollars by the time she left. She said her friends were going to be taking ninety to one hundred dollars each. "You're going to do fine," I told her.
But I think she decided to take it easy for a few weeks before she left. She was going with six friends, and they spent a week packing things into duffel bags.
Just before she left, I talked with her again on the phone. "How much money do you have?" I asked. "About a hundred dollars," she said.
"What happened?" I asked, "You were going to have a lot more."
"Well, dad," she said," I had to pack."
I realized it doesn't take two weeks to pack a duffel bag, but I also realized i wasn't going anywhere in this argument.
"Call me if you need any money," I told her.
I had told her to take this adventure because if she stayed home she'd regret it for the rest of her life. She and her friends got their courage from each other. It was enough to get them to Alaska. They're out on the first of the Aleutian Islands—no trees, no brush, just sand and three or four dormitories for the students who come to process the fish. She got homesick quickly. There's no radio, no TV.
Giving Others Freedom
After my daughter had left, her mother called me. "Moonies are running that cannery," she said. She was concerned. "What if they try to changer her religion?"
"I don't care," I said. "If she wants to leave Eckankar and become a Moonie or a Lutheran or a Catholic or a Hindu or anything, it's OK. I don't own her." I had spent the better part of eighteen years imagining the worst thing this child could ever do to me. Because if you can figure that out, the child can't control you.
A dear friend of mine, who grew up a Southern Baptist raised two sons; one became a Mormon (and married one), and one became an atheist. My friend always let people enjoy their religious freedom, even at home.
When Love Replaces Fear
What is spiritual freedom?
Spiritual freedom is growing into a state of more godliness. Becoming more aware of the presence of God.
How do you do this? By becoming aware of the lessons behind your everyday experiences. This is how you grow into a loving awareness of the presence of God.
Most people live under the hand of fear. You buy life insurance; you wear seat belts. Why? Because you're afraid of what might happen if you get into an accident.
When you get a little more spiritual freedom, love comes into your heart and replaces fear with wisdom. This is the golden heart. You start making decisions based on a greater degree of wisdom instead of fear. You say, "Maybe I'm not wearing this seat belt out of fear; I just find it a wise thing to do."
But how do you get your heart open?
