True Freedom

Read John 8:28-36 Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham, and have never been in bondage to any one. How is it that you say, ‘You will be made free’?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not continue in the house for ever; the son continues for ever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” John 8:31-36

Buddha knew that Right Action produces freedom, real spiritual freedom. He knew that a time would come in the evolution of consciousness when we would be free to choose Right Action. Orthodox religion would have us believe that we are miserable sinners. Therefore, as sinful beings we cannot be free and we cannot go to heaven. We are told to obey this and that rule and that we can barely get a thing right. The end result of this is people who are afraid to act.

Yet, above all else, our purpose for incarnating is so that our Right Action produces freedom. How can we know what Right Action is?

St Paul writes “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Rom 8:18

This glory, in Greek, doxa, means that the glory of Christ will shine from us, not when we get to heaven, but now, in the present. We are not sinners, wrong-doers; we are all working towards the possibility of revealing this doxa. All that we are required to do is to change our thinking; to think from the point of view of freedom not sin. Thinking is a divine gift and we acknowledge that we have received this gift by using it.

John points out that we are not slaves, that we are sons and continue in the house forever. As sons, Right Action is a natural ability, a free-making ability. We are not free when we are group conscious, – descendents of Abraham - when we do what society expects. We may feel free because we don’t have to think! We are only free when we express our individuality … which, of course, must only be done in humility.

Sin and humility are greatly misunderstood today. In the Greek the word ‘sin’ is hamartia which means ‘to miss the mark’ and implies that we have other arrows to fire that can hit the bullseye. Humility, someone recently said, comes from the Latin word, “humus” which means fertile ground. If we are egotistical, freedom cannot take root in the fertility of our being. Our ego always tries to displace our higher self, our I AM. We are slaves to our ego; it ensnares our thinking and drags us down so that we become inferior in our own mind.

Remember that creation waits in eager longing for us (Rom 8:19). We “carry the very essence, the very blood, the very life of God within us” (because of Golgotha). … “The Cosmos is waiting for you to realise that and to act accordingly.” says Rev Mario Schoenmaker.

Right Action means that we have the freedom to act as spiritual beings. The Jews said that because they were descendents of Abraham they were not in bondage. This is not true; their very words confess that they are in bondage to heredity. Individuality says: "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" Mt 12:48

The slave does the bidding of the master; the son has self-mastery. The inner ability to know Right Action, to control our astral desires and passions, to be centred within our selves, comes from the Christ impulse within us. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

If we use our divine gift of thinking we can assure ourselves that we are gods in the making and that creation is waiting in eager longing for those of us who can act out of spiritual freedom. Rev Mario says that “To reveal yourself to them in your divine glory and liberty is the most wonderful thing you can ever do. If you do this, the spiritual worlds will assist you without you knowing this consciously.”

The role model for Right Action is the great initiate Jesus who was able to become the first Christed human being. We can express our individuality now, in humility, and allow the glory of Christ to shine into the darkness of this world through our Right Action.

References from an address given by Rev Mario Schoenmaker 1.9.1996