Tag Archives: The Free School

I Am On A Freedom Journey

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I am on a freedom journeyI am on a freedom journey

The March/April session of the Free School of the New Message from God is called “The Journey to a New Life” and offers a number of opportunities to explore this avenue of spiritual growth.

One of the revelations we are asked to read and listen to during this session is called “The Freedom Journey.” It opens with the following words:

“Spirituality is fundamentally a quest for freedom—freedom from certain things and freedom for certain things.”

If I am on a freedom journey, I first need to be clear about what I want to be free from and what I want to be free for. At the last Campfire Chat, Marshall Vian Summers said some words that made a deep impression on me.

He said, “Freedom is not free. It must be earned, sustained and protected against both its inner and outer adversaries. Knowledge is free but you must gain the freedom to experience it, accept it and follow it in all kinds of situations.”

In this context, I wish to be free from past restraints, such as taking on too much work, keeping an eye on my children, being influenced by what other people are doing or not doing. And I wish to be free for pursuing a life in the bosom of nature, for expanding my inner journey, for learning to be self-sufficient, for providing food for myself and others under my own steam, and for many other things I may not be fully aware of at the moment but am ready to embrace.

I am on a freedom journey, and it is taking me out of city living to a place far from the madding crowd in the Russian countryside. This is not an escape for me, or some other form of seclusion or isolation, it is the fulfillment of a deep yearning I have felt for well over thirty years now.

While mapping my freedom journey and examining my life to date, I became aware that what began as an echo of recognition during my student days has slowly grown and evolved to bring me to the place I stand today, a place that promises the fulfillment of my dream.

“To really know where you are, you must know where you have been and how you got to where you are,” go more words from Marshall that speak to me loud and clear.

I am on a freedom journey, and I am open to where it will take me. I am willing to learn new skills, to work, to adjust, to be flexible, to roll with the punches, and to take what comes.

The following passages from “The Freedom Journey” particularly move me:

“You must have the freedom to open your mind. You must have the freedom to take the Steps to Knowledge and to allow Knowledge to protect you and to guide you towards a greater life. You must have the freedom to be honest with yourself and free from those influences, relationships and circumstances that deny this freedom or make it more difficult to attain.

“You must have the freedom to be with yourself completely—facing your limitations, your obstacles, your regrets, your mistakes, your strengths, your weaknesses—everything! You must be free from the fear and avoidance—the habitual avoidance—that has denied you access to your deeper nature all these years.

“You must have the freedom to be with others and practice a greater neutrality with people so that you may hear them, see them, know them and be able to respond to them at a deeper level, and also to be able to know how to be with them, how to participate, when to participate, when not to participate, what to say, what not to say, what to do, what not to do.”

As I have been contemplating these issues over the past few weeks, one of my recent steps in my Steps to Knowledge practice was Step 253. “All Things I Truly Need Will Be Provided For Me.” Since the opportunity to live in the country has basically been handed to me on a platter, I take particular delight and comfort in this step.

I am on a freedom journey, and only time will tell where this freedom journey will take me. I wish to be ready to meet every consequence and fulfill every necessity.

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Welcome to Mystery of Ascension! We are students and advocates of the the New Message from God. We are members of a worldwide community. We seek to assist the world in successfully navigating difficult times ahead. We seek to assist the world in successfully emerging into a greater community of intelligent life. You will also find some poetry. Find out more about us here. Contact us here.

Compassion Is The Antidote To Suffering

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compassion

Living in separation is by definition a state of suffering, but the antidote seems to be compassion.

One of the revelations offered for study in the November-December session of the Free School of the New Message from God is called The Separation. The entire first month of this session–God, Cosmology and Creation–is devoted to this revelation, whereby those participating are asked to read it and listen to it repeatedly. This is very sound advice because, personally, I have found this revelation to be a hard nut to crack. It has taken repeated reading and rereading, listening and listening again to even begin to gain an inkling of what is being conveyed here. I am trusting what it says in the introduction of the Study Plan for this session and wish to acquire the self-understanding, insight and compassion for the world around me it promises.

“The perspective and insight provided to us by this month’s revelation on our core condition of Separation is a true gift. It has the power to generate enormous self-understanding and insight and compassion for the world around us.”

You can listen to part of this revelation here.

This week, the third week of the session, I am asked to search out all the references to “suffering” in the revelation and ask myself what light this sheds upon my experience in life so far. The word “suffering” appears a total of eight times in The Separation, four of them in the same paragraph. It was this particular paragraph that struck me as I studied this teaching. And I must say that I felt very affronted. I do not like to think that I am not aware of how much I am suffering because I do not know what it is like to be free of it. Even the state I call “normal” is a state of suffering, I am told.

It is then all a matter of time, and time here can be equated with suffering, the suffering you experience to various degrees every day of your life. You do not even know how much you are suffering because you do not know what it is like to be free of it, except perhaps for brief moments here and there. Even your state you call “normal” is a state of suffering—a state of apprehension, concern and anxiety; a state overshadowed by the difficulties of life and the great change that is happening in the world at this time.

I do not like to think that living in a state of separation from Creation, my Source and my deeper nature means suffering to one degree or another every day of my life. I would like to think there is some redeeming grace, some antidote. And I find there is.

Compassion is the antidote to suffering

Another practice this week asks me to choose someone I know or know of and put myself in their position, seeing and feeling how they are suffering (or have suffered) from the effects of the Separation in their lives and affairs. This, of course, is an exercise in compassion, for when I switch the focus from my own suffering and observe other people’s suffering, I am filled with compassion.

The way I now see it is this. In separation I suffer because my focus is inevitably on myself. But my life is not about me, it is not about getting what I want, it is not about self-fulfillment, it is not about being better, more beautiful, more successful, more loved, more appreciated. Instead, it is about touching others and the way in which I touch them.

My steps of the past two days have been Step 121. Today I am Free to Give and Step 122. I Give Without Loss Today. These steps call for thinking of others and giving them something they need, something I would like to receive myself. For what I am asked to give can only increase as I give it. What came to mind for me was to give compassion. I wish to treat myself with more compassion and I can only do that by showing more compassion for others.

I am getting the idea that compassion is the antidote to suffering.

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Welcome to Mystery of Ascension! We are students and advocates of the the New Message from God. We are members of a worldwide community. We seek to assist the world in successfully navigating difficult times ahead. We seek to assist the world in successfully emerging into a greater community of intelligent life. You will also find some poetry. Find out more about us here. Contact us here.

Renew and Rejuvenate

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renew and rejuvenate

Renew and rejuvenate is a call to release the mind from its clutter and unproductive thoughts.

There are many places in the teachings and revelations of the New Message from God that speak of the value of having an uncluttered mind. The practices in Steps to Knowledge call for having a still mind and entering into stillness to enhance and gain deeper insight into the idea presented in the particular Step for the day.

One of the New Message books I find particularly helpful and inspirational is called Greater Community Spirituality (you can download it for free at this link). It is a new revelation for the new millenium. It is a doorway into a greater universe. It provides the greater context for realizing the purpose that brought you into the world at this time. It contains 27 chapters, each answering a fundamental question about the meaning of life, our relationship with God and our destiny, all from a Greater Community perspective.

Part of the recommended reading for the new November/December session of the Free School of the New Message called “God, Cosmology and Creation” just happens to be Chapter 13. What Must Be Unlearned? from Greater Community Spirituality, and it directly addresses this dilemma of having an uncluttered mind.

“Stand within your mind and it will seem to engulf you. Stand outside your mind and you will be able to see through it, direct it and use it.”

It goes on to say that in order to renew and rejuvenate the mind, it must be emptied, it must be opened, it must be free. The analogy is given of a house stuffed to the ceiling with all the possessions you have ever owned—everything. You have never thrown anything away. You say that you want to bring new things into your house, but there is no room. You want to create new feelings and a new atmosphere in your house, but there is no space for it. Everything is cluttered and you feel cramped and increasingly uncomfortable. It is as though you are imprisoned there and spend all your time maintaining everything you have accumulated.

Just as you can only bring new things into your house if you throw out the old things, free up space, renew and rejuvenate, so it is with your mind. You can only embrace new experiences and thoughts after you clear your mind of its accumulated clutter. Just as old possessions that no longer serve any purpose fill your house, so old thoughts clog up the space in your mind, but you are loath to let them go. They are part of the past you so dearly cling to without even realizing how unproductive and even detrimental they now are. You cannot be free to embrace the new if you are clinging to the old.

The following struck me deeply as I read this chapter: “How can you release something if you are holding on to it? The only way to release something is to go where it is not needed, where you cannot take it with you and where it has no relevance and no importance.”

It is really as simple as that.

Renew and rejuvenate

If I do not renew and rejuvenate my mind, allow it to become uncluttered, not only will I not have enough space for new thoughts, my mind will become hard and brittle.

This is also pointed out in the chapter in Greater Community Spirituality mentioned above:

Here you are frozen in the past and bound to reinforce it at all times. Without a greater authority in your life, this is what the mind will do. It will calcify and become hard and brittle.

This is confirmed by other great writers such as Johannes Wolfgang von Goethe who said:

“We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.”

Practical advice also comes from a leading expert, who said it is no good just moving the mess around. In order to clear the mind, unwanted items must be thrown away to free your “internal world.”

I wish to renew and rejuvenate my mind today.

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Welcome to Mystery of Ascension! We are students and advocates of the the New Message from God. We are members of a worldwide community. We seek to assist the world in successfully navigating difficult times ahead. We seek to assist the world in successfully emerging into a greater community of intelligent life. You will also find some poetry. Find out more about us here. Contact us here.