Achariya Ajay Jeffrey Bauer
Speaks on "True Freedom"
Sunday, March 26, 2017 at 11:00am
The desire for freedom is one of the most impelling forces in the lives of not only human beings, but in all forms of life. “Give me liberty, or give me death!” said Patrick Henry. We all want to be free. Freedom is a quality of our soul. Sadly, that innately pure desire for freedom is often misguided and lead astray by our sense-bound ego and leads to sensory indulgence and the shirking of responsibility. Or, we hold the erroneous belief that to gain true freedom we must withdraw from this world (escape the “wheel of karma”). Does God, with whom we seek oneness and identification, withdraw from this world? Decidedly not! Look at the splendor of God’s manifestation, which we are so abundantly aware of in this season of rejuvenation. There is no holdback. We are the living manifestation of God’s transcendental perfection. Let us shine forth with the full glory of our soul in this life. The secret to true freedom is in living fully in this world but with non-attachment.
—Achariya Ajay
From the Gurus and Swamis:
AUM
"I am the living manifestation
Of thy transcendental perfection.
Through me thou dost reveal thy magnificence
That thou mayest witness my omnipotence
And that I may realize thy glory."
—Swami Premananda, Prayers of Self-Realization
"All nature continually offers itself to the Infinite: ever drawn into its light, finding its way in harmony and its ultimate freedom in the One. Is nature’s spontaneous renunciation not also the law of my own soul? When my soul will merge into pure light, leaving no portion in darkness, touching and illuminating all, conscious of the One Self I will be a true renunciate, performing all my actions as effortlessly as the sun rising and the meadowlark singing."
—Swami Kamalanda, Reflections On Still Waters
"The heaven and earth, the infinite space and the endless forms, are all sacred manifestations of the one God. His presence pervades all in every direction, yet he is the center of all. All emanate from him.
"Life must be guided on the path of righteousness because it is spiritual in its origin, pure and holy in its essence and divine in its destiny. Man is a living soul because life is a divine reality."
—Shyamacharan Lahiri, Sayings of Shyamacharan Lahiri
Noble Thoughts: "Let Noble Thoughts come to us from every side." —Rig Veda
"My purpose is to make man unconditionally free, for I maintain that the only spirituality is the incorruptibility of the Self which is eternal, is the harmony between reason and love. This is the absolute, unconditioned Truth which is life itself. I want therefore to set man free, rejoicing as the bird in the clear sky, unburdened, independent, ecstatic in that freedom."
—J. Krishnamurti, quoted in
Krishnamurti – A Biography by Papul Jayakar
"As the crust of our outer nature cracks, as the walls of inner separation break down, the inner light gets through, the inner fire burns in the heart, the substance of the nature and the stuff of consciousness refine to a greater subtlety and purity, and the deeper psychic . . . personality reaches its full stature. The soul, the psychic entity, then manifests itself as the central being which upholds mind and life and body and supports all the other powers and functions of the Spirit; it takes up its greater function as the guide and ruler of the nature."
—Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine
"The seed of God is in us. Given an intelligent and hard-working farmer, it will thrive and grow up to God, whose seed it is; and accordingly its fruits will be God-nature. Pear seeds grow into pear trees, nut seeds into nut trees, and God seed into God."
—Meister Eckhart, quoted in The Mystic Vision by Andrew Harvey