Direct Connection vs.
Free Will
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From the BornSlaves.com FAQ on being a machine, it is clear that I have witnessed the exercise of free will only at only one moment in life, at the acceptance of our obedience. There is no opportunity to exercise that choice until it is presented to us. My post # describes the steps of spiritual evolution I experience that we all go through. None of us is prepared and qualified to exercise that free will choice until we have fully developed egotistically. We need an almost arrogant confidence about our ability to achieve before we are ready to obey. When we are ready, free will can be exercised, either to chose to consciously give up free will, or to continue to pretend that we’re acting from free will instead of all the influencing factors that cause us to behave as we do. Nothing about spiritual evolution, going from spiritual childhood, to adolescence, and then onto adulthood has anything to do with religion. Religion plays a critical part in each of our lives but our spiritual lives are not defined by religion any more than it is defined by our work environment, our family or any other single influence. All of these experiences is how we develop. Our drive to be happy is a search for being authentic, finding and being who we are created to be. Who we are will always be about what we can do for the world, and not what we can do for us. The only reason to have any capacity is to influence the world according to the Universal plan. What we think is control, viewed from the mature spiritual perspective, is nothing more than telling the Universe what we want to have happen. That’s like telling the Creator how to do Its job. Consistent with that, ordinary prayer is about asking the Universe Its help to achieve what we have already told IT we expect. Any desire that has to do with what we want is an egotistic desire, and, therefore, has nothing to do with being obedient, or “connected”. So long as we are fulfilling goals we have identified and defined we are only fulfilling selfish needs. When we no longer determine the goals we are pursuing, and instead are given the goals, then we are living obediently connected. I know that’s not how it looks to any of us while we are still developing egotistically. Connection is an alignment of wills. Obedience is the word used most often to describe the act of alignment of wills and is what creates the connection. After wills are aligned, there is only one will. When the “one” will is the Universe’s will, the will of the intelligence “source”, our own will must be ignored. There is no alignment so long as dual wills exist. So long as we still feel any right to our own will, there is no connection. My personal alignment occurred through a series of events (that I wouldn’t wish on My worst enemy) that forced Me, finally, to swear that I would never believe anything I’m not living, and to not live any way that I don’t believe. With a high IQ and scientific educational background it was easy for Me to theorize many things, and I did. I could argue any point of view I wanted, and always felt like I was winning every argument. I learned that this exercise of the ego is what made My ego feel good, and feel strong. This was all nothing more than My personal egotistic development and critical to My capacity to ultimately obey. Being connected is having no such desire to feel egotistically good and strong. Being connected is not caring how I feel about what I am given to say, do or think. Being connected is about receiving continuous assignments, none of which are subject to My review nor My consideration. Being connected is about giving up the right to say “no”. Most of us spend our life wondering what to do. We struggle to find the internal voice that makes us sure of everything we decide and pursue. That struggle always will continue until we swear, in advance, to do and say anything we will be given to do. Egotistically, we are trained to hear the options presented, analyze and consider whether or not it makes sense, is reasonable, and something we want to do, before we say “yes” or “no”. The problem is that the Universe has never wasted a command. Until IT knows we will do anything asked of us, it will not give any order. The Universe will not play egotistic games with us. Anything we think is an order, isn’t, until we have exercised an absolute vow to accomplish anything we are given. Until that commitment is convincingly offered, we are exercising our egotistic wishes, and still developing our spiritual adolescence. The ego takes credit for what we accomplish from such exercise of our wills, and the ego claims the result to be “control”. The Universe isn’t vindictive. So it doesn’t cause us to fail simply because we are making our decisions egotistically. We interpret the Universe’s kind nature at letting us achieve what we want egotistically as being control. What it is, in fact, is how we are trained to have confidence. We are “connected” only when that confidence is given away in unqualified obedience. Expressions of “free will” and being “connected” cannot occur simultaneously. Each is the diametric opposite of the other. Being connected is the result of having used free will to permanently surrender any right to free will. If free will is still an option, then we’re not yet “connected” and that surrender has not occurred. The Universe only fills out signed checks. Free will is the right to decide whether or not to sign each check. The Universe will not provide orders to anyone who still holds that right. Like everyone, I presume, I tried to trick the Universe into thinking I was sworn to obey, while still holding the option to accept or reject any assignment given. The Universe, I learned, cannot be tricked. Either I obey, or I don’t. The Universe knows that until I have said “yes” before any order is given that I am not obeying at all. The right to consider the options is disobedience. Once the options are considered, when we proceed we are merely only agreeing, and not obeying. The Universe will not give us options for us to consider agreeing with. It’s “all or none”. We obey or we don’t. It’s that simple and that demanding. I thought I was smart. Since I could out-argue everyone else, I thought I could out-trick the Universe as well with the same “smart” twists in logic and conclusions. I tried to use the technique that every ego tries to use, that goes something like this: Someone offers Me an orange. I respond “No, thank you.” From that, the one offering the orange concludes that I have decided to starve Myself to death, and then proclaims that I am clearly “wrong” because having a death wish makes no sense. When, in fact, I had just eaten and only refused the orange because I was not hungry. Using this technique no one could disagree with anyone or any concept. It’s a technique I’ve used and seen everyone in egotistic development use. It’s a part of growing up spiritually. Every time I used this technique, either with others or with the Universe, I arrogantly felt I had won the argument. From that I assumed everyone could see how smart and how “right” I was. After all, a death wish is not a good thing, and I knew I could get everyone to agree with that. I felt so smart and so smug. However, everyone could see right through My logic, but knew how important winning was to Me, so I wasn’t confronted. That made it easy to feel as though I continued to win. The Universe doesn’t play word games. The Universe gave Me the exact life I needed to understand that I had no control over anything, that trying to control was telling “God” what to do, and that the ordinary prayer of asking for things was simply a confirmation of My arrogance from telling the Creator what I expected of IT. Being connected is having no religion to broker My relationship with the Source. Being connected is having no sense of self other than being an instrument for the Universal plan. Being connected is knowing there is no reason to have talent or skill unless it is to support the Universal plan which will never be shared with Me. Being connected is accepting that the most I can ever know is what I am personally supposed to do in each moment. When connected, the responsibility is only to the “order”. It is not My business to even know the results of what I do, nor to take any credit for what is accomplished through Me. I cannot be connected and view any capacity or influence that I have as any more than a gift. Each gift is either from My parents, My peers, My family, My teachers, My religious influence, or the gift of My orders from the Universe. To take credit, and to claim free will, is blatant arrogance and disrespect of the Creator and of Its control. I learned how impossible it is to claim to have both free will and to be spiritual. Spirituality begins when we surrender free will. Until then, I, like everyone else, thought I was spiritual because I didn’t deny the existence of some unseen intelligence that existed outside Myself. Admitting to the existence didn’t make Me spiritual. Obeying made Me spiritual. Admitting to the existence of a spiritual intelligence merely kept My options open. Only the ego is arrogant enough to try to accomplish being connected, to gain the benefits, and then turn around and try to take claim and credit for those benefits. The only claim I can make is to the quality and consistency of My obedience. Everything else IS a gift, purely, clearly and completely. An absolute freedom from what others think comes from being connected. Having others disagree with My experiences is, at most, an amusement that comes from remembering being devoid of My connection and so sure of My erroneous egotistic views back then. The same freedom from taking credit for what I do is a freedom from criticism. None of My actions or words is Me, and none of it is Mine. Try to claim it, and the Universe will stop giving the commands that allow IT to accomplish Its tasks through Me. The Universe cannot be misled into believing I obey when I don’t just so I can get orders which I could then abuse. We cannot abuse the privilege of being given orders, the privilege of being connected. The orders will stop. What I do as an Owner, then, is act from the commands I am given. Because none of My intention comes from Me, all the SM experiences and all the decisions I make regarding My slaves is consistent with all their life experiences. Those experiences give evidence to a slave that My commands could not be egotistically based. What each slave had to initially take on“faith” becomes a knowing. The doubt, and the need to question disappear. The slave learns and inherits the Owner’s connection. Knowing The Owner’s connection allows a slave the same opportunity to live by obedience, and to surrender the ego and all egotistic agenda and limitations. Like being pregnant, there is no such thing as being partly obedient. We either are or we aren’t. So long as we claim free will, we aren’t. Because the Universe doesn’t give a connection without the deepest commitment we are capable of that we will always and only obey, there is no “sometimes on” and “sometimes off”. The unwavering consistency is what gives the feeling of being home, and the freedom to relinquish doubt. Any discussion that continues to honor the value and legitimacy of the ego and its free will precludes the admission and discussion of living spiritually. One is a means to the other, but they don’t co-exist. Arguments that revolve around free will and egotistic agendas that make us proud, powerful, or capable of intimidating others are not discussions of finding and accepting our spiritual lives. Instead, they are discussions of how we prepare for our spiritual lives. Having said that, accepting our spiritual lives IS spiritual adulthood. Not everyone is yet ready to enter adulthood. Adulthood is possible only after completing our spiritual childhood and adolescence. The process isn’t linear enough to say there are those ahead and behind us in the process, but we each can use help along the way. What’s important to remember is that someone who isn’t where we are right now isn’t “wrong”, but simply at a different place in their development. Respecting that allows us each to learn the most from each other. Being spiritual, being connected, requires giving our entire lives to our unwavering obedience. No part of our selves, or our lives, can be excluded. The difficulty isn’t in qualifying to become connected. The challenge is in letting go of our limited, egotistic, free-willed and self-controlled lives. Graduating from spiritual adolescence requires so much ego that we become reluctant to hand over what we have worked so hard to achieve. However, when ready, handing it over is all we have to do. This is, what happiness is. SlaveMaster
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