--- On Thu, 11/9/08, The Almighty Gap! <therustycowboy@...> wrote:

 

Many thanks for the first question in what I hope will be long series from all members.

 

The following is only my opinion, based upon my understanding of Rosicrucian teachings and my own experience.

 

Liberation in the fullest sense is possible only for the divine being within, for the Inner God. Liberation means freedom from death, from suffering, from evil, from pain, and, ultimately, from any limitations whatsoever. Freedom means not being under pressure to do what we don't want to do. By this I mean not only by people or things outside of us, but more, and especially, by forces within us compelling us to do what they want. I'm referring to the 12 fields within the microcosm, and to compulsive thoughts, habits and desires that feed on us and grow like spiders, sucking out our energy. In effect we're marionettes hanging on the strings of our auric being, our Voldemort, doing exactly what he tells us.

 

Most of us would very much like to be liberated from certain habits or desires we have. Perhaps some of us are addicted to something, or we have bad character traits we'd like to get rid of. A is addicted to shopping, and spends too much. B has an irascible temper and flies into a rage against petty irritations. C has deviant sexual desires, and D has an unfulfillable longing to be rich. The list is endless, and none of us is without some inner force that causes us unhappiness. Even if it's outside events that make us unhappy, we'll find after honest and thorough examination that we are the cause of those events, and that it's our reaction that's usually causing the suffering, rather than the events themselves.

 

We should look the facts in the face and recognise the real situation: we're marionettes in the spider web of our own auric being, i.e. the living, conscious result of our own past. This is inescapable. There is no way we can free ourselves from our inner Voldemort, because we are a miniature copy of him. He is our personal god, our creator, our higher self.

 

By a great effort and a lifetime application we can CHANGE some of our bad habits, and perhaps gain control of our thoughts to some extent. We may be able to overcome some addiction, or curb our impossible desires. But despite our greatest efforts, we'll still be the puppets of our own fallen microcosm. If we lose one bad quality we'll gain another. There are twelve brightly radiant force fields in our microcosm, and these will express themselves through us, no matter what we do. We are made of them, and there's nothing we can do about that.

 

I think the first step towards liberation is to realise that. We need to experience our imprisonment to the greatest possible reality, with our face pressed against the hard stone walls, almost suffocating in the anguish of our restrictions, feeling our chains cut deeply into every limb.

 

If there is no way out, what is the point?

 

The fact that we long for liberation, and I'm not talking about freedom from some addicting, but the longing for freedom from fundamental imprisonment, proves to me that there IS such a thing as real and permanent freedom.

 

This is my answer to finding freedom from imprisonment: look for what is keeping you locked up. And in my opinion that's a very simple thing. Its name is a one letter word; the simplest letter of all: "I". Just a vertical stroke of the pen. And the way to liberation is just as simple: put a horizontal line through the vertical one. Chop your ego in half and form a cross. Go the way of the cross; practise the Endura, the way of self dissolution and self sacrifice.

 

What exactly is it that is liberated? It is not the "I", the egocentric consciousness, but the Inner God, who is imprisoned within our microcosm. He, she or it is asleep in our heart, in the centre of the microcosm. He's been there for thousands of incarnations, waiting for us to realise he's there. This is where the thirst for liberation is coming from. This is the small, quiet voice, whispering to us about another universe where it originated. If we listen to it and begin to understand its words, we'll find out that an inconceivably long time ago there was a catastrophe, during which the original human being, the Child of God, fell into a universe where it does not belong, and is still there, in a trance-like state. It is aching to return to the Light, where it belongs. And it tells us that if we give up our "I", if we are willing to die for its sake, it will take us up into itself, and ascend with mighty wings into its Fatherland, where we will live in absolute rapture and eternal freedom, in the Love of God.

 

May this raise of lot of questions amongst you all!

 

For further reading I recommend Chapter X, The Mystery of the Endura, of The Great Revolution by J. van Rijckenborgh.

 

Love from Hans