Soul Freedom Brings Union
The Essence of Soul Freedom
Separation exists in Body, Mind and Heart Freedom, but not in Soul Freedom. Soul’s desire is to manifest union in the material realm, to bring into synchronicity and harmony all 4 Freedoms. While there are many paths to the meeting place of inner and outer worlds, of spirit and matter, a mate relationship is one of the most readily available and easily accessible. It is the primary vehicle through which human beings can join together and in doing so create union. Your relationship can become your spiritual practice, through its joys and trials you can learn to become the best you can be.
The essence of Soul Freedom is faith. When you are in a relationship based in Soul Freedom you have faith that you can create a passionate, harmonious life with your mate even though couples around you may be leading lives of stressed dullness and disconnection. You have faith that together you can weather the storms that life will rain on you.
Having faith doesn’t mean you just sit back and do nothing; on the contrary, the responsibility of Soul Freedom includes the necessity to take action. At the same time, you let go of attachment to the results of your action. You turn the final outcome and how it unfolds over to that which is much larger than yourself (God, Goddess, the Divine).
Passionate Detachment
Don Juan, the central character in Carlos Castaneda’s series of books, advises that to be an impeccable warrior you must act as if what you do matters even though you know that it doesn’t. You must live your life with passionate detachment. When we say that what you do does not matter, it is simply a recognition that we ultimately have control over nothing. All you have is choice. Each individual is a tiny part of something infinitely vast and wonderful which you influence but cannot control. When you understand that you have control over nothing your response can be despair or detachment. Despair is powerless, detachment is freedom!
In a relationship, passionate detachment means putting the best of yourself into your life together. Allowing your creativity to shine forth in your actions—revealing your love, respect and desire—but at the same time without expectation of your mate’s response. You may plan to be together forever and do your best to make that happen, but you know that you have no real control over the future—accident, illness, perversity can separate you. And yet you don’t let that stop you from committing to a lifetime of loving.
The Meaning of Life and The Meaning in Life
The meaning of life is forever a mystery. But the meaning in life is entirely different. Meaning is not built-in to the actions, events or outcomes you encounter in your life; rather you bestow meaning upon them as an act of your Soul Freedom. In this sense something is only as important as you determine it to be. Because experience is so subjective it is primarily your beliefs and emotions that determine how you bestow meaning. Different people attach different meanings to the same thing!
When people forget that the meaning they bestow upon something has real significance only for themselves, the result can be conflict. You may recognize these situations from your own relationships.
One of you stresses that it is essential to be early for activities because being early means you are conscientious and thoughtful.
The other prefers to arrive just as activities are getting underway because being early means you are uptight and trying to be in control.
One of you wants to spend money on a new luxury SUV because showing your affluence means you are successful.
The other prefers to buy a standard model vehicle because showing your affluence means you are materialistic and competitive.
Fortunately beliefs and emotions are open to change and by simply remembering that things mean only what you determine them to mean, you and your partner don’t have to choose one way or the other. You could agree to disagree and come to a solution that is not based primarily on a need to be right, or a need for you both to share a single point of view. You can create new ways from two ways!
Knowing that you bestow meaning enables you to elevate the simplest facets of your relationship life to moments of great power and beauty. Examples of this are:
- giving meaning to your relationship by making it the most important thing
- regarding your relationship as a spiritual practice
- elevating your sex to sacred loving
- transforming ordinary activities such as bathing, preparing and eating food, dancing, and touching into ceremonial and ritualized behaviors
- treating every moment as a meditation.
Happiness
Happiness is your birthright. Happiness does not need to be a fleeting, momentary and fragile thing. Happiness is a natural accompaniment to Soul Freedom. Soul finds happiness in simplicity, in the mystery of everyday life: the warmth of a lovers’ touch, the interplay of stimulating conversation, the satisfaction of a job done well together.
When you enter into a committed relationship with another human being, vowing a covenant with each other, you take a giant step in reclaiming your Soul Freedom. Doing this so elevates your happiness that it becomes free of the chains that formerly bound it to the circumstances of your life. In other words, your happiness is not dependent on whether the circumstances of your life are going well or badly. This is a profound example of the experience of transcendence that accompanies the embrace of Soul Freedom.
