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doer
Advanced Member
uSA
198 Posts |
 Posted - 24 Jun 2003 : 21:55:06
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TRUE FREEOM -- What is it? How can we achieve it? What are the pitfalls on The Path to True Freedom? Is True Freedom even possible at all?
It seems that almost everyone in the world is concerned with "freedom." Yet so few individuals exhibit behavior that stems from their ability to THINK FREELY, and therefore to ACT FREELY.
Always there are "reasons" for their inability to be "free." Mostly these are EXCUSES -- such as "if only the government would allow me to do this thing or that," "if only I had more money," "if only I had a good marriage," "if only I could do what I wanted," etc., etc., etc.
We must understand that FREEDOM begins in the MIND. From there it is exhibited in all acts, objects and events -- as SYMBOLS of the extent to which the mind is free. There is a saying, “Attitude equals Altitude.” This merely suggests that our ability to rise to the greatest height in Life, is limited ONLY by our attitude.
Our DESTINY is limited only by our THINKING.
By “Destiny” is not meant “predestination.” By Destiny, is meant that which we create for ourselves through our thinking and acting. For instance, an engineer may think of a new design for a coffee cup. The cup may take weeks or months to build and test for usefulness and durability. Finally the coffee cup is patented and produced. The final result -- the coffee cup in existence -- is the DESTINY of the engineer’s THINKING. So are ALL acts, objects and events, our DESTINY -- because we THOUGHT them into existence.
On the other hand, “predestination” means that everything is “laid out” for us. We merely go through the motions of acting and reacting to circumstances in our lives. This is exactly opposite of the concept of Freedom and Free Will.
So how can we control our Destiny so that is results in True Freedom?
Be Well,
Doer
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doer
Advanced Member
uSA
198 Posts |
Posted - 25 Jun 2003 : 01:25:57
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"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels nor arms. Crouch down and lick the hands, which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
- Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776.
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doer
Advanced Member
uSA
198 Posts |
Posted - 25 Jun 2003 : 01:36:19
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"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."
-- From Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
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doer
Advanced Member
uSA
198 Posts |
Posted - 03 Jul 2003 : 17:13:49
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Well, gee . . .
This Forum Topic was started in the hopes of our sharing understanding on how to achieve TRUE FREEDOM. Seems almost EVERYONE is interested in paying TAXES -- by the number of posts in that Topic. But NO ONE? -- is interested in becoming FREE? For shame. For shame.
Be Well,
Doer |
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Lewish
Advanced Member
uSA
496 Posts |
Posted - 03 Jul 2003 : 18:56:42
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Well, George,
Maybe some of us are just so busying trying to educate others about becoming free, that we haven't had time to form a reply. :-)
Lewis |
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Lewish
Advanced Member
uSA
496 Posts |
Posted - 03 Jul 2003 : 18:59:31
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Oh, and for everyone else, if you haven't read "Rulers of Evil" by Tupper Saussy I highly recommend it. It really gives one a new perspective on how the people of this country were put into slavedom. The story begins about 1600 AD. And yes, it is non-fiction.
Peace,
Lewis |
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Livefree
Advanced Member
USA
270 Posts |
Posted - 26 Aug 2003 : 14:31:06
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Freedom is maturity; licence is very childish. Freedom is possible only when you are so integrated that you can take the responsibility of being free. The world is not free because man is not mature. Revolutionaries have been doing many things down the centuries, but everything fails. Utopians have been continuously thinking of how to free mankind, but nobody bothers, because man cannot be free unless he is integrated. Only a Buddha can be free, a Mahavira can be free, a Christ, a Zarathustra can be free, because freedom means being aware. If you are not aware then the state is needed, the court is needed. Then freedom has to be cut from everywhere. Then freedom exists only in name; in fact it doesn't exist. How can freedom exist when governments exist? It is impossible. But what to do?
Osho |
Edited by - Livefree on 26 Aug 2003 14:34:30 |
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berkano
Advanced Member
uSA
129 Posts |
Posted - 05 Sep 2003 : 22:18:15
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You make some excellent and ponderous observations and question. The outwardly visible things (the courts, cops, armies, governments) are evidence that the people do not grasp freedom on the inside. Men do not generally know what freedom is. Men don't even have an inkling of what freedom is, although they think they know.
Freedom is this, and nothing less: to overcome all obstacles; to overcome all enemies; and lastly, but most importantly, to overcome death; to become an immortal child of God IN THE FLESH before death takes the body down to the dirt. This is the science of freedom.
In sum: Freedom is willful obedience to God and His Spirit.
People are immature. They believe that the government will save them from death, but this belief is superficial and does not instill security in the soul of the deluded. Only oneness with God, by obedience to His Law, can save one from death. Even righteous Abraham died, not recieving all the promises. He did not overcome the enemy death and at that time he was not completely free.
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever should believe on him should not perish [die, grow old and die] but have everlasting [perpetual] life."
Jesus said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death. Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death."
In the greek the last clause of this verse can be read a few ways: "never see death 'for ever'" or "never taste of death 'to the age'" or "live unto the age forever."
The scripture is not talking about spiritual death [separation from God] but the literal cessation of breathing of the physical body that the spirit inhabits.
This is unequivocal and clear. This is why Jesus said he would lay down his life. He grew from grace to grace until he was literally immortal and ageless while still in the flesh. He conquered the physical body so that its desires no longer compelled him, but rather, he compelled the body through direct command to elemental atoms. This is how he was able to heal and perform miracles and read every thought of the minds of men; this is how he was able to hide himself and flee when surrounded by a lynch mob ready to stone him--he spoke to matter and spirit and both obeyed his will--He broadcast and optical illusion to they eyes of his enemies and walked right through the midst of them and escaped.
The gospel is not about "good living." It is the program for each man to become immortal *now* and to love his neighbor by making it as easy as possible for his neighbor to progress to this state of immortality and unity with the Creator. It's an all for one, one for all situation.
Sin is the cause of both spiritual and physical death. Sin takes on many forms, from behavior to belief to delusions. Those who grow old and die, although they may be righteous and just, have not overcome all things. Something held such a man back and led him to age and death. If Jesus had not been crucified he would still be alive today and he would still have the perfectly healthy body of a virile young man. And although he was crucified, he took up and renewed that body anyway, and he still lives.
Many angels are immortal men who were once mortal and overcame death and hell. They do not mingle with society and make themselves known because they cannot stand to look upon sin except with shuddering and abhorrent disgust that does not abate or subside in time. But occasionally, when a mortal is pure enough through obedience and his thoughts are not to sickly and sinful, resurrected men and women will visit such a soul to teach him/her.
Furthermore, these immortal men can cast off their bodies and take on new mortal ones at will. "With God all things are possible." This is sometimes referred to as a Bodhisattva, But not all Bodhisattvas were once immortal.
The way to become like Jesus and the other Priests after the Order of the Son of God is not easy. It is a trial by the hottest fire and one must confront and uproot an insidious evil from his own breast to get there.
I hope these remarks provide some food for thought and discussion. God is not tinkering with us. He is trying to turn us into spiritual warriors with an unimaginable mangnitude of love and internal power within us. Blessed be the name of the Most High God!
Peace be with you,
Berkano
quote:
Originally posted by Livefree
Freedom is maturity; licence is very childish. Freedom is possible only when you are so integrated that you can take the responsibility of being free. The world is not free because man is not mature. Revolutionaries have been doing many things down the centuries, but everything fails. Utopians have been continuously thinking of how to free mankind, but nobody bothers, because man cannot be free unless he is integrated. Only a Buddha can be free, a Mahavira can be free, a Christ, a Zarathustra can be free, because freedom means being aware. If you are not aware then the state is needed, the court is needed. Then freedom has to be cut from everywhere. Then freedom exists only in name; in fact it doesn't exist. How can freedom exist when governments exist? It is impossible. But what to do?
Osho
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doer
Advanced Member
uSA
198 Posts |
Posted - 19 Sep 2003 : 09:37:59
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There are various manifestations of Freedom. Of course the highest is Spiritual Freedom. All others follow this. If one has Spirtitual Freedom, then he in turn has Mental Freedom, Emotional Freedom and Physical Freedom.
As part of Physical Freedom, we must include Government, Finance and the like. The main reason that we lack Freedom in these areas, is because we did not manifest our Emotional and Mental Freedom through vigilence over our Governments. So we have now lost our Physical Freedom to a great extent. The following essay gives hints as to how and why we have lost our Governmental Freedom through the loss of Financial Freedom --
From: http://www.the7thfire.com/FD/mandrake_mechanism.htm
FACT --
The Federal Reserve is candid.
The Federal Reserve itself is amazingly frank about this process.
A booklet published by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York tells us:
"Currency cannot be redeemed, or exchanged, for Treasury gold or any other asset used as backing. The question of just what assets 'back' Federal Reserve notes has little but bookkeeping significance."
Elsewhere in the same publication we are told: "Banks are creating money based on a borrower's promise to pay (the IOU)...Banks create money by 'monetizing' the private debts of businesses and individuals."
In a booklet entitled Modern Money Mechanics, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago says:
In the United States neither paper currency nor deposits have value as commodities. Intrinsically, a dollar bill is just a piece of paper. Deposits are merely book entries.
FACT --
Marriner Eccles was the Governor of the Federal Reserve System in 1941. On September 30 of that year, Eccles was asked to give testimony before the House Committee on Banking and Currency. The purpose of the hearing was to obtain information regarding the role of the Federal Reserve in creating conditions that led to the depression of the 1930s.
Congressman Wright Patman, who was Chairman of that committee, asked how the Fed got the money to purchase two billion dollars worth of government bonds in 1933.
This is the exchange that followed.
ECCLES: We created it.
PATMAN: Out of what?
ECCLES: Out of the right to issue credit money.
PATMAN: And there is nothing behind it, is there, except our government's credit?
ECCLES: That is what our money system is. If there were no debts in our money system, there wouldn't be any money.
FACT --
Robert Hemphill was the Credit Manager of the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta. In the foreword to a book by Irving Fisher, entitled 100% Money, Hemphill said this:
If all the bank loans were paid, no one could have a bank deposit, and there would not be a dollar of coin or currency in circulation. This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash, or credit. If the banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless situation is almost incredible -- but there it is.
FACT --
Every effort has been made by the Federal Reserve Board (FED) to conceal its powers, but the truth is - the FED has usurped the Government. It controls everything here (in Congress) and it controls all our foreign relations. It makes and breaks governments at will.
-- Congressman Louis T. McFadden
FACT --
The truth is well known among our principal men now engaged in forming an imperialism of capital to govern the world. While they are doing this the people must be kept in a condition of antagonism. By thus dividing the voters we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance to us, except as teachers to lead the common herd. Thus by discreet actions we can secure all that has been so generously planned and successfully accomplished.
-- The Bankers’ Magazine, USA, 1892
FACT --
Until the control and issue of money and credit is restored to the government and recognised as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talk of the sovereignty of Parliament and Democracy is idle and futile.
-- Mackenzie King, Prime Minister of Canada in 1935
FACT --
"This [Federal Reserve Act] establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President [Wilson} signs this bill, the invisible government of the monetary power will be legalized....the worst legislative crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking and currency bill."
--Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr. , 1913
"From now on, depressions will be scientifically created."
-- Congressman Charles A.
Lindbergh Sr. , 1913
"The [Federal Reserve Act] as it stands seems to me to open the way to a vast inflation of the currency... I do not like to think that any law can be passed that will make it possible to submerge the gold standard in a flood of irredeemable paper currency."
-- Henry Cabot Lodge Sr., 1913
STEAL THE GOOSE
They hang the man and flog the woman
That steal the goose from off the common,
But let the greater villain loose
That steals the common from the goose.
The Law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine.
The poor and wretched don’t escape
If they conspire the law to break;
This must be so but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law.
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common’
And geese will still a common lack
Till they go and steal it back.
English folk poem, circa 1764
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God is Love
Senior Member
uSA
53 Posts |
Posted - 04 Jan 2004 : 16:47:22
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Simply put, I believe freedom is love. Love is to set yourself and others free.
Personally, I think that the only true freedom that we will experience in our lives will come to us when God frees us from imperfection via His love.
In the meantime, we attempt to be as free as we possibly can despite the way the world has become.
"We now know that the unborn child is an aware, reacting human being who from the sixth month on (and perhaps even earlier) leads an active emotional life."----The Secret Life of the Unborn Child |
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True Freedom
