The Impulse to Freedom

Looking into what lies behind the world events that seem so challenging in these times, we might realise it is the impulse to freedom which is the causal driver behind outer happenings. But what is true freedom? In worldly terms we might think it is being free to do as one wishes no matter what harm it causes to others; or freedom to think as one wishes, however circumscribed by the degree of truth that fuels our thinking; or freedom of emotional expression, however conditioned by patterns of reaction moulded from the trauma of life experience. Yet life experience is the very teacher that eventually expands our understanding and releases us from imprisonment into a larger sense of identity.

In the introduction to the book, Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu writes:

Many have sometimes decried the long years he [Mandela] spent in prison as wantonly wasted years. But they forget that when he went to prison he was an angry young man appalled at the miscarriage of justice that had happened in his trial and many other such trials before, penalising people for wanting to claim their God-given inalienable rights to freedom and true citizenship in the land of their birth. After all he had been the head of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the ANC, because he believed firmly that you should return force with force and use all available means to overthrow a despotic dispensation which had spurned non-violent overtures to change. Those years in prison were quite crucial. Suffering can of course embitter the one who suffers. But in many other circumstances it can ennoble the sufferer. We were richly blessed that the latter happened with Mandela. The crucible of excruciating suffering through the rigours and tribulations of incarceration, the forced separation from his beloved Winnie and their young children purified the dross and deepened his spiritual resources. He began to be one who could understand the fears and anxieties of his adversary and he grew in that time into magnanimity and generosity of spirit.”

While this account focusses on one human being it influenced all involved and human consciousness worldwide. US President Bill Clinton said: “Every time Nelson Mandela walks into a room we all feel a little bigger, we all want to stand up, we all want to cheer, because we’d like to be like him on our best day.” The power of the release of our consciousness from the restriction of conditioned thoughtforms and fears not only frees ourselves but contributes to the freeing of the human spirit. Our lives, whether we are conscious of it or not, are contributing parts of a great freeing process that drives the whole Cosmos.

It is the urge to freedom that draws the soul to undertake the evolutionary journey, through incarnation after incarnation. At the very heart of our being, divine purpose is working out through the law of freedom. Life after life we enter into, and then release ourselves from, the prison of forms to finally know ourselves as part of the living essence of the one Life, the One in Whom we live and move and have our being. As we enter into that identical at-onement with all of life, we realise that we are only truly free when we are all free. The Tibetan Master explains this great Law of Freedom:

It is the principle of freedom which enables Sanat Kumara to dwell on the Earth and yet stand free from all contacts, except with Those Who have trodden the Path of Liberation and now stand free upon the cosmic physical plane; it is that which enables the initiate to achieve a state of ‘isolated unity’; it is that which lies behind the Spirit of Death and forms the motivating power of that great releasing Agency; it is that which provides a ‘pathway of power’ between our Hierarchy and the distant sun, Sirius, and gives the incentive towards the ‘culture of freedom’ or of liberation which motivates the work of the Masters of the Wisdom; it is that which produced the ferment and the vortex of conflict in far distant ages and which has been recognised in the present through the results of the Law of Evolution in every kingdom in nature; this is that which ‘substands’ or lies under or behind all progress. This mysteriously ‘exerted influence,’ this ‘pulling away’ from form (as we might simply call it), emanates from Sirius and for it we have no name; it is the law of which the three cosmic laws—the Laws of Synthesis, of Attraction and of Economy—are only aspects. None of these three subsidiary laws imposes any rule or limitation upon the Lord of the World. The Law of Freedom, however, does impose certain restrictions, if one can use such a paradoxical phrase. It is responsible for His being known as the ‘Great Sacrifice,’ for (under the control of this law) He created our planetary life and all that is within and upon it, in order to learn to wield this law with full understanding, in full consciousness, and yet at the same time to bring release to the myriad forms of His creation.” The Rays and the Initiations, page 416-7

The constraints of worldly circumstance are chosen by our soul and can be transcended as spiritual identity is realised. There are many in the world right now, imprisoned by incarceration or by deprivation of basic material needs, who stand for a greater reality than their gaolers – no matter how clever or malicious the excuses offered for their oppression. The representatives of truth and freedom are myriad and in every nation around the globe. They are living their lives for the common good and understanding that we share one interdependent life.

The Tibetan Master explains to a disciple how to live as a free soul in the world:

Your major need … is freedom, is liberation. I do not mean freedom from incarnation or liberation from the pressures of life, but the freedom which the sannyasin knows as he roams free in the three worlds—unsupervised or unintruded upon by aught but his own soul. It is the freedom which gives mental help, emotional response and physical time as and when the disciple chooses. These are not evoked by habit or by the demand of others, but are the free contribution of the soul to a current need. Your response is not always to need, is it, my brother? Ponder on this.” Discipleship in the New Age, Vol II, page 758

Nelson Mandela responded to the need of the whole over retribution for the few. His living demonstration drew forth the soul in others and ultimately led to a new dispensation for his country. It is a demonstration for all of us. In this hour of need for our world, may we free ourselves from the manacles of a backward view, and open to the vista of a new world built with the heart and inspired by the divine essence in all. Mandela reminded us that: “to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” We are all on the road to freedom. Let us speed our way with the affirmation: “Forgetting the things which lie behind, I will strive towards my higher spiritual possibilities.”

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
                                               ~Rabindranath Tagore

 

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