This Week’s Quotation:
To be really free, the human capacity has to engage in contrarian thinking—thinking that goes in the opposite direction of what might seem logical on the face of it. Instead of thinking that you have to claim your own freedom, you have to find a way to surrender your freedom to the eternal cosmic Being who you are. Instead of being driven by your personal will, your personal choice, your personal ambition, you have to surrender your will, your choice, and your ambition to the eternal cosmic Being who you are.
Becoming a Sun
p. 206
To Be Really Free
Author, Becoming a Sun
Do you feel free?
There are so many factors that are impinging on our lives right now. There are governments imposing their will. And so often they don’t seem to have the good of the people or the planet in mind.
This global pandemic is impacting nearly everyone’s lives. And that brings a great economic impact. Many of us have been staying mostly at home. It can seem like the world is closing in on us, giving us less and less room to move.
Then there are the unique, complicated factors in each of our individual lives.
The chapter of my book from which the excerpt above comes from speaks about Nelson Mandela, a true hero to many of us. How is it that he walked into the most confining of circumstances—a prison—and walked out 27 years later as a man of peace who became the father of his country?
The simple answer still rings like a church bell throughout the world. He accepted the outer confinement of his life and embraced that situation in which he found himself. The record of that is clear. And he set free the creative spirit within himself.
Counterintuitive, isn’t it? Especially when we think of doing that in our own circumstances. But I am pretty sure it has already begun to happen for you at this time of our global experience. I suspect there are already signs that you have touched a freedom, deeper and more profound than ever before.
Let’s fan those flames of freedom. Let’s find out what it means to be really free. Let us use this time of global crisis to set free the human spirit, beginning with ourselves. And then we will see what kind of world that will bring.
What does it mean to become a sun?
Every human being is already a sun on the inside—a being of intense love and light. The difference is that some people have the vision and courage to become a sun on the outside. This difference is our human destiny.
