MASTER, NOT SLAVE

Some years ago I became very ill. When my physician was finally consulted I was at deaths door, but curiously still functioning. The onset had been so gradual that my body and life had adapted to it. My life had shrunken to the point of work and commitments, nothing else. By Fridays I was so tired I would come home and only move for necessities, resting and marshaling energy for the coming week. Looking back as my health returned it amazed me how I had allowed my circumstances to become so altered, how I had just accepted my circumstances, rationalized them, without a fight, all because it happened gradually, under the radar of my daily consciousness.

During the course of our lives our circumstances, living conditions, go through many alterations. Careers and children the leading causes early, aging and possibly becoming care givers more so later. Although we never fully understand going in how becoming parents or relocating/changing careers will impact us or just how many times I will have to use the can in the middle of the night, growing older and these other things, typically, come with some foreshadowing, approaching head on, unlike what transpired when I became so very ill, which crept up silently like a snake. Spiritually the same thing can happen in our lives. When faced with a definite problem or difficulty we react and take some form of action, preferably spiritual, but even running around shouting the sky is falling is action, demonstration, albeit a poor one. Then there are the snakes. When we first begin walking the path, Living on the Spiritual Basis, we are aware of everything around us. The scales have been removed from our eyes, we are seeing life and our existence through a new pair of glasses, illumination all about us. Snakes do not like illumination for their activities. Having had our first taste of freedom from the bondage of self we naturally believe that our days of slavery are behind us, never to return. If only it were that simple. The price of spiritual freedom is unrelenting vigilance. Unfortunately many become complacent, in time becoming moribund and rigid in their thinking, no longer open to the fresh winds that constantly flow from the source. Though once dynamic, free and open they have now unconsciously constructed walls built out of the brick of righteousness set in the mortar of pride, living in their shadows, making themselves slaves to self once again though mouthing spiritual sayings and platitudes that have lost any real significance in their lives. Stay vigilant in prayer and meditation, turn to Him who has all knowledge and power, remain open minded, willing to learn and you need never be in bondage again.