Journey of a Lifetime: A Group Story – Chapter 12

Journey of a Lifetime: A Group Story is an account of the journey of a group through more than thirty years’ work.   From February 2018 a chapter is being posted each month.  Here is this month’s chapter. Please Note: Copies of the book are available from Sydney Goodwill. 

CHAPTER TWELVE– Freedom

When oneness is visibly expressing through our lives then it is clear that there are no obstructions or barriers to the free flow of life or relationship. It then becomes possible to understand and to experience that life-sharing process we call identical at-one-ness. Oneness opens into the experience of omnipresence and the freedom from separating forms. Let us examine the path to this state.

How freedom is usually defined is determined by the point of human consciousness at any time. If human beings feel oppressed they fight for freedom. This fight for freedom from oppression moves on through the many restrictive forms we may identify that can imprison the human spirit Human beings do not seek a greater freedom until they see a greater goal or way of life. So freedom to a great extent is governed by vision. However, freedom is not freedom unless it is based in the good of the whole.

Within this human experiment it becomes obvious that we all inevitably and inescapably interact in relationship within a whole. With such recognition the necessity for both individual and group responsibility should be apparent. It is just common sense that we cannot experience anything that we are not expressing. If we do not like what we are experiencing we need to check just what it is we are expressing. If we do not like what others are expressing towards us, we should check our own emanation. Of course this is just basic psychology, as most people will recognise, although the majority of people do not proceed to apply this understanding in their life expression.

If someone is expressing something that we do not like, and if we react to that, there are two people expressing the same force. We must be aware of the fact that whatever force anyone projects can touch that in another. It is not a matter of suppressing a reaction we feel seething within us in order to arrive at resolution or agreement, because that very force we seek to suppress floods into and informs the situation. Although with this approach we may bring a temporary resolution or compromise to any given situation, we by no means bring resolution to this human dilemma wherein there is a continual and compounding misuse of force. This misuse diverts and arrests the free flow of life as it could express through unimpeded relationship and cooperation.

This is a habitual but usually unnoticed state of affairs which is maintained with fervor while each party is seeing a divided view in the moment instead of identifying within the whole of a situation. The observation of the inevitable outcome of these interactions, to which most people continually subscribe, forces us to acknowledge the necessity to shift our life focus out of individual or separate space and into the spiritual dimension of unity. This can lead to the achievement of equilibrium in life expression, born of the ability to remain centred within our own being.

This is no guarantee that those around us will be all sweetness and light. However, we operate within a principle and it is not about making the world comfortable for ourselves. We cannot transform the world unless we ourselves are first transformed. This takes place as we stand within our centre. When we cannot be pulled off centre we are taking responsibility to transform the separative forces of the planet which alone militate against freedom.

We need to be beyond irritation, that very common complaint of our planet. It is the most common disturber of equilibrium. In fact, even disciples are plagued by their susceptibility to irritation. It draws us off centre. We get pulled out of the flow of life. Standing within the centre everything looks different. For the first time we can work with freedom. There is no possible response to irritation. We are able to work with our full complement of energy. We see clearly and understand what motivates others and move to balance forces. Our judgment is of the forces involved and not of the individual.

For example, we observe that people lock themselves into patterns of their own making. This is particularly noticeable within family situations. Even when people merit the name of disciple and are able to relate to others as souls, they find it difficult to carry this through to their own families and close associates. But unless we are willing to release all those who share their lives closely with us, holding nothing and no one to ourselves, we do not have the freedom to assist in or bring light to any situation.

And when we note the confining patterns, self-created of the stuff of the personal world, we understand the necessity to observe life and its interactions from the level of soul relationship and no longer be caught in these patterns. This by no means suggests that we withdraw from the fulfillment of duty and accepted responsibilities but within the individual there is a reorientation of attitude and all affairs are guided from the realized inner life.

There is a freedom that we know when identified in spiritual being wherein we experience a depth of solitude beyond all personal touch and yet in no way separated from response to the true needs of others or to the work in the world. We simply stand free and everything is seen as it is and every act is true.

The Principle of Freedom in Group Work

We may ask why do we not maintain equilibrium in group work? How can we expect co-workers to express freely around us if we are projecting sundry individual or personal requirements, and irritation when not met? If the individuals in a group are not free from irritations and such forces then there are certain areas of the world work closed to them. You cannot have a separative personal will to the fore and still freely cooperate with Shamballa energy or the Will aspect.

Just as when we are free from the pairs of opposites we are free to work with them creatively in our service, so also when we are free from forces we are free to work with them creatively in the advancement and the protection of the work. For example, what do we observe when we read the New Testament story of Christ driving the moneychangers out of the temple? The observer would say he was expressing anger and no doubt he was. It was not anger in the emotional sense as we know it, but a force that he sent forth to expose and correct a distorted expression. And what is more, it was not really a spontaneous reaction in the moment but appears to be a premeditated act since we are told he first made a scourge of cords with which to enforce his action.

Shamballa Energy and Freedom from Form

In the above story we can see the Christ wielding the destroyer aspect of the Will with its powerful, expulsive and clarifying force. Back in Pisces the disciples of the time may or may not have recognised the force which the Christ was wielding, but now we are challenged to work with Shamballa energy, acknowledging that this is only possible through group use and the revealing energy of understanding.

Another such story tells of Christ and the fig tree. Finding the tree with only leaves and no fruit, he told it no one would eat its fruit forever. On returning the same way the following morning they found the tree withered to its roots. And alas, another non-productive form bit the dust!

We might also observe the Soul when it notes that any form has served its purpose and begins to withdraw its life. There follows the death of that form. This may also be applied to thoughtforms, group forms, institutions, and even civilisations. The freeing of the life is more important than the destruction of the form, but often the life cannot be freed unless the form is destroyed.

The operation of the Shamballa force, as it expels and clarifies, need not necessarily destroy a form, but rather that which hinders the free flow of life through any form. It can be transformative in its action, engendering a greater, freer expression of life within an existing form. This may be more clearly understood when we consider the task of establishing right human relations between people and nations, and right relationship within and between groups, bringing existing forms to their true purpose and expression of life. When there is a free flow of energy between and through all forms within the planetary life then a greater freedom will express.

Freedom as we can know it at this point in time within the planetary system in which we live is limited in comparison with Freedom as it essentially is, and yet we barely touch on that freedom that is immediately available and stands open before us – if we care to enter it.

The New Race Among Us

At this moment in time when the divine Will is beginning to appear on Earth, and people and nations everywhere are recognizing the One Humanity, we are aware of those individuals and groups among us who are here to carry human understanding forward on its next step upon the Way. They do not subscribe to narrow or separative doctrines but in their lives and their words they naturally exemplify Oneness.

In the world today we can readily identify three distinctly different groups in incarnation. The first group, fast crystallising, yet responds to the past methods and ideology. Among the second group we find the world disciples and all those who respond to the new day with its understanding of freedom and the greater reality. A third group is comprised of those who have no response to the old ways and who are intelligently seeking an understanding of the universal principles (however they may define that) and what is required to operate within them.

These people in the third group are more interested in truth in its greater sense than in the details of its working out. They work more from this point of focus. This understanding is innate in them and they can profit by interaction with members of the second group. They respond to working cooperatively as a team and potentially therefore to the principles of group work.

Observing some of these people in operation in various fields of endeavor it is noted that they innately have a freedom of mind with well-developed intelligence. It is not dependent on an acquired knowledge. That is there for use and they know it. They operate from principle and they seem to have a facility to go immediately to the issue, to the essence, in the moment and see how things relate in the broadest sense.

These new ones are most responsive to the guidance by demonstration given by members of that group in the world who understand the Aquarian principles and see service as a way of life. Just give them an illustration and they will find their own expression within society or within any world work which encourages the freedom to express their unique contributions. They are not followers, they are innovators.

As the world today recognizes the fact of interdependence and moves towards globalisation we note that this new group is no exception. It is upon this platform that they will build.

The thinkers of the past phase are highly developed and focused in the concrete rational mind. By contrast the newer thinkers see the rational mind only as an instrument. Mentally they do not enter into a sequential ordering or processing of information but everything is grasped in its synthetic state, coordinated simultaneously in the mind, and precipitated outward into useful application.

They have a refined sensitivity and are naturally telepathic and responsive to impression. They will recognise where there has been a synchronization of thinking and will readily accept that. Theirs is the mind that recognises group and realises that there are others who have a contribution to make to bring the parts together within the whole. They also realise that such a task requires a group intensity of focus to put it all together. Each one falls naturally into place within this totality of expression without the necessity for any elected leader or teacher to direct or control.

This new mind expresses freedom unlimited by acceptances, observations and restrictions of the past and is consequently open to respond with clarity to the newly emerging energies which are destined to enliven and inform the new day.

Free Will

In the context of this new freedom, how do we understand free will? Unless we define it in context of the good of the whole we may feel we are free to impose our personal will on others. Within the realm of our spiritual selves, our free will yet offers us choice only within the bounds of that Great Life in whom we live and move and have our being. We are governed by the laws and principles operating within this system.

It will be obvious that we function with freedom only when we act in cooperation and accord with spiritual purpose. Once we enter the state of freedom we express within it. It is not possible to have a ‘piece of freedom’ any more than you can enter the realm of pure love and only have a ‘piece of love’. You either have freedom or not. Freedom does not own limitation. Certainly our experience and expression grows continuously when we operate within freedom.

Does it appear contradictory, or perhaps paradoxical, to say that we may experience or grow into freedom without limitation and yet recognise that our freedom is circumscribed within the bounds of a Greater Life? It is said, “We cannot alter the direction of the wind but we can adjust our sails.” Let us work together in cooperation with Life.

Throughout the universe this is the story. The forces within any system serve to drive the entities evolving within that system to seek freedom. Always to move to something greater, an expansiveness of being. So we can say we have accepted limitation so that we may grow beyond it. We always arrive at freedom within and from a particular system before we move on to another system. We observe the freeing of the life confined within the atom, be it the atom the physicist knows, or the human atom (man), or the bounds of that Great Life we know as the Logos, or beyond.

Even in the personal world, if you ask the average person, “What is the meaning of it all?” they may not know but this does not mean they are going to stop living. From the very experience of life itself on this planet they are growing. Inevitably. This is evolution.

There is also evolution within the spiritual dimension. There is a relative freedom. You cannot have a piece of it. You are either in it or not and you do not recognise limitation within it. You are growing continuously within it, just as the Logos himself is bringing his purpose to the fullness of expression within the planetary system. And so it is throughout the universe and this expansion of awareness and expression is going on everywhere.

Freedom is actually an aspect of divinity as are will, love and intelligence. That we have stepped into freedom suggests that we have left behind our personal baggage. You cannot leap across the abyss carrying weights any more than you can pass through the eye of a needle carrying burdens.

On this journey what do we expect? What do we expect to see? We can fall into the trap of looking for the phenomenal when those things that we seek are often obscured by the phenomenal. We must break from identification with form, the common place, and find another way – break free from a habitual way of seeing things, our usual definitions, our external experience. Everyone is looking for something to see.

When you know something because you have studied it, do you need to see its form to know it? Still you may have created an image in your mind’s eye. But we actually know, apart from the image, or we would not have been able to create the image in the first place. We are so used to the dense physical world that we look for form and place. This is no way to go about recognizing and identifying with the inner, our natural subjective habitat. We can only know directly, accurately, clearly, when we are not putting images between. Focusing on the phenomenal blocks direct knowing.

Freedom is standing in spiritual being. There is nothing, nothing known in human experience that is capable of preventing our freedom to move in life and with conscious awareness. Standing free in consciousness and free from the hold of form, we live in form, through form, but in no way imprisoned by form. We are challenged to know and to experience freedom from form no matter what is going on in form. People think they can only be free from form when they are either comfortable or dead!

Knowing our spiritual identity, knowing our group on the inner and outer planes, knowing the vastness that is the subtle dimension, we move at will in consciousness. There is no limit to where we may move except that limitation imposed by the present developed capacity of our vehicles to apprehend. Such development proceeds automatically as we maintain the above focus in consciousness and serve in the outer plane of the work. It is ever true that we know because we work.

Knowing Freedom

Within the context of this book freedom is principally addressed as that experience wherein the individual and the group have found the freedom of living and expressing in and from the subtle dimensions of being. While much has been said in terms of the individual, it is focused only in the understanding that in this moment in time, working with energies in service, especially that of the Shamballa force, is based within the group.

What ultimately is Freedom? Although we may find many smaller freedoms as we experience life on this planet, we only begin truly to know freedom when we can roam free in consciousness, moving within the free flow of life and within our subjective state of awareness wherein we find our true home.

We understand that there is nothing in the universe but relationship and all our relationships reveal this cosmic fact when our lives are expressing oneness. It is clear that Oneness is basic to that great Principle of Relationship. Oneness is the immediate goal ahead of humanity. As we stand centred in Oneness, knowing souls as one, we realise that the Centre is everywhere present and the experience of omnipresence is known. Omniscience lies open before us and omnipotence lies ahead.

Together we have travelled through time upon this planet arriving at the awareness of group consciousness. Together we will proceed until we arrive at that complete liberation wherein the world of form drops from our focused viewpoint and no longer attracts our interest.

Together let us embark upon the next stage of our Journey.