Acharya Ajay Jeffrey Bauer
Speaks on "Moksha"
Sunday, September 18, 2016 at 11:00am
One of the most fundamental desires of human beings is for freedom. This desire is inherent in human nature. We do not want to be confined or controlled by outside agencies in our physical life, in our mental life, in our emotional life, nor in our spiritual life. We rebel against such impositions with all our being. We cry out for freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of religion, and so forth. In fact much of human history can be understood in terms of the pursuit of these freedoms. In Hindu philosophy “Moksha” refers to liberation or emancipation. We may ask: liberation from what? Liberation into what? What freedom do we truly long for? Why do we long for it? What is the nature of that freedom? What are the true obstacles to the freedom we so desire? These questions will be the focal point of our service this Sunday.
From Gurus and Swamis
We possess free will. Each and every one of us is endowed with freedom of will. God has given us this freedom. Free will is one of the fundamental conditions of spiritual life. The attainment of the consciousness of God depends upon it.
-- Swami Premananda, “Free Will and Divine Guidance”
The earthbound live in fear and worry:
"What will happen to me?"
The astral bound are impatient and doubting:
"How long will self realization take? When will I be free?"
Only the mystic lives with courage and wisdom:
"The real is within and with me always. By the grace of God I will exist in heaven as I AM on earth."
-- Swami Kamalananda, “The Mystic Cross”
When man raises himself above sense enslavement and passes completely out of its influence, he becomes liberated from bondage and is placed in his real Self, the Eternal Spirit. On attaining this liberation, man becomes saved from all his troubles, and all the desires of his heart are fulfilled, so the ultimate aim of life is accomplished.
-- Swami Sri Yukteswar, “The Holy Science”
Noble Thoughts
You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief, but rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.
-- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet “
Unless one is free one cannot explore, investigate or examine. To look deeply there needs to be, not only freedom, but the discipline that is necessary to observe; freedom and discipline go together. We are using the word 'discipline' not in the accepted, traditional sense, which is to conform, imitate, suppress, follow a set pattern; but rather as the root meaning of that word, which is 'to learn.' Learning and freedom go together, freedom bringing its own discipline; not a discipline imposed by the mind in order to achieve a certain result. . . One cannot learn about oneself unless one is free, free so that one can observe, not according to any pattern, formula or concept, but actually observe oneself as one is. . . . and in that there is great beauty."
-- J. Krishnamurti, “The Flight of the Eagle”
"Endued with self-discipline, free from fear of loss and lust of possession, pure in the consciousness of divinity within one's own self as well as in all other forms of creation; such a man of wisdom can bear the inevitable pain and sorrow of this world, for he has transcended sensory consciousness.
Gautama Buddha, “The Path of the Eternal Law: Dhammapada”, translated by Swami Premananda