Our Freedom to Be by Rev. Christine 7/11/2021 (text)
“Our Freedom to Be” By Rev. Christine 7/11/2021
Last Sunday, July 4th, we celebrated the birth of our country. Declaring our independence from under the rule of England. Our founding Father’s wrote The Bill of Rights to guarantee our freedom in speech, freedom in worship, freedom in our pursuit of happiness. These men had a great vision, and an understanding of spiritual law. The foundation of this country is based upon spiritual Truth principle. Its no wonder that the New Thought movement began in America.
Thomas Jefferson, in 1779, said “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty Gods, or no God.”
John Adams our 2nd president said, “Our constitution was designed only for moral and religious people.”
These quotes by Jefferson and Adams give an idea of what they thought about our Constitution, and its ideals. I have to remind myself that the government is an institution for operating the business of the country, but is not the soul of our country — we the people are! Through our visions and adherence to truth principle we can and do make change in our worldly affairs.
Many people of today are wanting freedom from something rather than in something. True freedom isn’t running from something, but rather being free right where we are in whatever we are doing. Many of today’s youth want freedom from work, from education, from responsibility and moral ethics. Instead they are looking for a system that will take care of them — complete dependency rather than independence.
Freedom in something gives independence in thought, action, and feeling. Self responsibility, self-authority, self-realized are qualities of the free person. Many people of today have forgotten that with freedom comes responsibility.
We can exercise our freedom of choice to the point where we lose our freedom. When we believe in lack, or illness; are we free? When we run up large debts; credit cards and loans; are we free? When we believe in predictions of disasters and end of the world; are we truly free?
Einstein said, “The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe.” Another way of looking at this, is do we see life as a cup ½ empty or ½ full, or do we see the world through the eyes of a victim? These attitudes toward life are taken on at a very young age. These limiting fearful attitudes determines a whole lot about how we will experience life, or until we change our belief system.
Back in the late 1960s-early 1970's, I belonged to a group who had been following Edgar Cayce’s predictions regarding California falling into the ocean. The core group, in which I was part of, decided we should move to other parts of the country to be safe and to spread our spiritual knowledge. I first moved to the outskirts of Reno, Nevada and then to North Lake Tahoe. It was 1977 when I decided to move back to the Bay Area. I came to the conclusion that I needed to release my underlying fear of death, and walk my talk of eternal life - life and more life. Shortly thereafter, a whole new life opened up for me. I’m not saying it was easy, I had my work to do.
The limitations we set are based upon our own beliefs. We create our set of rules to live by consciously and unconsciously as in our early years of childhood. When we make choices out of fear and limitation we are no longer free. Instead our emotions are ruling and we give our power over to appearances. I have heard the saying, that one must learn how to die before they can truly live life. I take this to mean that we must get over our fears before we can truly expand our horizons to become all that we have the potential to be.
The first book in our Holy Bible tells the story of Adam and Eve living in the Garden of Eden where everything they need is provided. Then they fall out of grace, and are exiled from this Garden of Eden into a land for them to conquer. What changed? Everything, from a life of no cares, to work and struggle for survival. Adam had eaten of the fruit of the forbidden tree of knowledge of good and evil or belief in duality. Then he blamed Eve for having tempted him which led to their leaving from the Garden of Eden.
Metaphysically: There is one soul which expresses both male and female attributes. Eve represents our soul’s subconscious mind, desire senses, love, inspiration, and intuitive senses. Adam represents the conscious mind, judgement, action, ego, mental thinking, knowledge and wisdom. Eve tempting Adam is his inner desire nature. Adam allowed his desires to tempt and over rule that which he knew to be right. He then denied his participation, and felt guilt which brought shame and suffering. Adam chose freedom from responsibility, and fell victim to his own actions. Thus experiencing the knowledge of duality of good and evil. The rest of the Bible is a road map to gather wisdom, awaken our Christ Consciousness, which leads us to the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden represents the plenty of divine ideas that we cultivate to create our experiences; it is a state consciousness of purity, oneness, and eternal life.
In the book of John 8:31-32: “Then said Jesus to the Jewish people who believed in him, If you continue in my word, then you are my disciples indeed; And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
What is his word? This word are his teachings in spiritual matters. Such as, you are gods. God is an all powerful loving presence within us that is a creative principle. That we love one another as He has loved us — that nothing of this world has power over our true Christ nature. That we too can do these works and even greater works than these shall we do.
True freedom is an inside job. We have our housekeeping to do to clear out our subconscious mind of layers upon layers of beliefs based upon fear, superstition, observation, our past experiences, and the opinions of others. The old physical sciences no longer hold true in a world based upon Spirit as substance - God as all, both visible and invisible.
A term that has become quite popular is “interdependence.” We are dependent on an inner level within ourselves; an inner source that is also, inter connected with all life. There is a greater realization of our connectedness with one another. We have become more aware of our footprint upon our earth. There is a greater sense of responsibility for our actions that is pushing us to globally work together to resolve the problems of the world.
All true freedom comes from our knowing our connection with our Source. For us we call this Source, God, or Infinite Spirit, Divine Presence, Great Spirit to name a few. There is the same Divinity and life within everyone, and in all life everywhere. It is this Divine Presence that connects us all – that is calling us forth, urging us to a greater level of understanding of our environment and of our inner divine self – the Christ consciousness. This very life of God is living each and everyone of its creations. There is no separation in God, there is no duality of good and evil; there is just goodness, love, life, peace, creativity, intelligence, abundance, harmony which is our freedom to be.
Being free is then knowing who we are, the very life that we are. As Jesus said, I didn’t come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. Jesus the Christ was a master teacher, a prophet, an avatar, a fully Self realized person. Jesus mastered the appearance world of suffering, limitation, and nature itself through healing, multiplying substance, walking on water, calming the storms, and raising the dead.
Jesus said, that we cannot serve two masters; that of Spirit and the material world. Serving spirit is really being in surrender of our belief in a world of matter and separation for a world of Spirit of Love we get to create and play in. It is having faith in the invisible Divine Spirit. The laws of Infinite Spirit are “Love God with all your heart, mind and soul.” and “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” From more contemporary teaching we can add: “What you do to another you are doing to yourself” and “Where you put your faith you create.”
Believing in the physical world of matter as cause, is really servitude or slavery of your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual life. It is a belief in death, limitation and suffering of all kinds. The law of matter is “Survival of the fittest,” “Resources are limited,” and “Everyone dies.”
Through the Christ consciousness within us we have dominion of our thoughts, attitudes, beliefs and feelings, which gives us mastery of our life. We understand cause coming from within us, that we are cause. Thus this is the freedom to change our thoughts, to change our attitudes, to change our beliefs, and to change our actions and our life. We then forgive, and choose again based on the law of love and our oneness with all life everywhere. The more self-responsible we are for our thoughts and actions, the freer we are to express our true divine Self.
Let us affirm: “Today I have the freedom to be a fully Self-Realized expression of God.” I’ll close with the following essay rom Emmet Fox’s booklet titled, The Historical Destiny of the United States and The Mystery of the American Money: “Unless you are seeking to embody the American Spirit in your own personal life and conduct, you are no true American, even though you may have authentic Mayflower ancestry.
If you allow yourself to judge the worth of a man by anything except his character, if you discriminate against him for any reason that is outside of his own control, you are no true American. If you judge him by his parents, or his connections, or his external conditions, instead of by himself, you are no true American.
If you allow yourself to be hampered by any question of precedents or traditions, you are no true American. If you think that any kind of honest work can be degrading, you are no true American. If you would not rather be independent in plain surroundings, than dependent in luxury, you are no true American.
If you allow yourself to be dazzled by any exalted Office, or intimidated or hypnotized by pretentious titles or gorgeous uniforms of any kind, you are no true American.
And, unless you believe that the poorest boy or girl doing chores around the farm, or playing on the sidewalk of a great city is just as likely — given the opportunity — to turn out to be the greatest soul in the nation, as the child who is reared in the lap of luxury, you are no true American.”
Let us affirm: Today I live in freedom: freedom of Truth, love, prosperity, health, and knowledge.