____________________________________________________________ 互户互户互猾せカせЙせカせЙせカせЙせカせЙせカ  *** The Little Worker *** ____________________________________________________________ 互户互户互猾せカせЙせカせЙせカせЙせカせЙせカ  Published by CDTTT-The Committee for the Difussion of The Third Testament March 2000 _________________________ TABLE OF CONTENTS: - A Editor's Note - True Freedom - Free Will - Of responsabilities and duties ____________________________________________________________ 互户互户互猾せカせЙせカせЙせカせЙせカせЙせカ  A Editor's Note Freedom...what a beautiful word but, alas! what have mankind has done with it! Many believe that the simple exercise of free will is freedom...but as we will see in this month's topic, this notion could be deceitful and wrong, very wrong. That's why while speaking of freedom, we must go into revising our concept about free will and duties and responsabilities that emanate from it. I hope that you find this controversial topic interesting enough to dedicate a moment of truce in our very personal bonfire of vanities and human necessities in order to give it a thought. ____________________________________________________________ 互户互户互猾せカせЙせカせЙせカせЙせカせЙせカ  TRUE FREEDOM Life is a gift that the Lord gives to us. It is an opportunity to grow and evolve spiritually. Life offers a wide variety of opportunities but it brings a fair amount of risk if you are not careful. Everybody talks about freedom, it has in all times been a big issue, but what does Freedom really mean?. We first have to understand that our body is limited, it is constrained to time and space, whereas the spirit has no limits, it exists beyond time and space. Therefore, freedom lies within the spirit. The flesh will never be free as it depends on so many things: oxygen, food, rest, etc. If you want to be free do not neglect your spirit, every time you speak, speak with the truth; walk your life with dignity and always have elevated thoughts. Offer the world what is just and good and you will feel free. The world we are living in dictates so many foolish things, in the media, for example, you are constantly being bombarded with ideas like: the more you have the more you are worth, everything we hear is attached to the flesh and to the material life. So it is really easy to fall, but please do not devote yourself to earthly ambitions and obsessions as they enslave you, it is there where you lose your freedom. Always make your deed a creative one. Your creative labor will set you free as you will be working in perfect harmony with the people around you. Discover the true flavor of life, let your spirit begin to feel the tenderness of our Lord's love and allow him to guide you through the path of truth. Materialism makes men feel distant form one another. Do not allow disagreement to come between the ones you love. Envy and ambition of power blind men and women and they get trapped in their own web and they lose their freedom. There is a general tendency to use intelligence and free will to create a life on earth using "love" and greed to satisfy material things, to abuse the desires of the flesh and be guided by low passions, selfishness is an ingredient that is widely spread and certainly pride as well. I invite you to use your intelligence and free will to create a life on earth using true love and compassion, to satisfy the desires of the flesh with the love of the spirit towards your companion and be guided by the truth, to be proud of what you accomplish with love as you will realize the amount of pleasure and satisfaction that you received from your deeds. This is the true feeling of freedom. Get rid of selfishness and start caring about others. Keep your home as your temple, fill it with warmth, light and peace and you will be free. And second, do not forget that the life of the spirit has its own forces and man has to be in contact with these forces in order to resist temptations, ordeals, obstacles and disappointments in his ascending path towards perfection. So do not get entangled with material things that instead of setting you free, will condemn you. Try finding the true meaning of FREEDOM. "Submit your freedom of will to My Law and to your conscience, and you will not feel slaves, but truly free." From teaching 55 of The Book of The True Life, The Third Testament. ____________________________________________________________ 互户互户互猾せカせЙせカせЙせカせЙせカせЙせカ  -Free Wlll Free will is that wonderful gift of the spirit that makes us what we are, because without it, we couldn't be God's children. Because there is a difference between being a child of the Father and being a creature of the Lord. Perhaps some persons believe that it is just the same; but think about it: What enormous difference separates a creature that obeys an inexorable law and a spirit that has the option we call freedom of choice! Does the sun have to make every single day a decision about the path it going to follow or about its speed across the sideral regions? Does a mockingbird have an oportunity to choose, let's say, regarding how many offsprings it wants to bear? But how different is man -remember, man is a gender which involves male and female- because in man lives a spirit, full of free will and freedom of choice. We, as God's children have even the liberty to deny His very existence. Do you believe that animals, minerals, plants or stars have that option? Can they decide to worship the Creator in this or that way? But free will, being a precious gift, is not unlimited, it's power, being so inmense, has a border, a frontier and that is God's own and perfect will. Sure, we can make many decisions not only with our lives but also with the ones of those who surround us. But where is that being that can alter God's decisions? Where is that creature that can make God deviate from His perfect and holy wish? We can get on top of the Sears Towers and using our free will, decide to throw ouserlves to the abyss. But, wait! While falling to a certain death, we suddenly have a change of heart and of mind, and then we decide to use that same free will to reverse our first decision. Do you think that that is possible? Well...no. And obviously enough, we can decide, as many do, to start smoking just for the sake of it, and we even dare to call that freedom? Yes? Is that so? Well, let's see if that's the same when we decide NOT to smoke. Oh, boy, in that very moment, as it happens in the example of the person throwing himself or herself from the Sears Towers, we suddenly realize that we ran out of that power, that a simple decision does not suffice to change the course of events previously initiated by that same force, free will. Then we discover, with a deep regret in our hearts, that free will is not the same as freedom. From teaching 15 of The Book of The True Life (The Third Testament): "4. Understand, that the Law is the path devised by the love of the Supreme Creator to guide each one of His creatures. Meditate upon the life that surrounds you, composed of an infinite number of elements and organisms and you will end up discovering, that each body and each being, proceed along a path or trajectory guided by a force apparently strange and mysterious. The force is the Law that God has decreed to each one of His creatures." "On analyzing these teachings, you will conclude by understanding that truly everything lives, moves and grows under a Supreme mandate; you will also discover that in the midst of that creation man comes forth, distinct from other creatures, because in him exist reason and free will." "Within the spirit of man exists a Divine light that is his conscience, which illuminates his intelligence and inspires him toward a fulfillment of his duties. For if an irresistible force obligated him only to follow a straight course, his compliance would not have any merit; and he would feel humiliated on realizing himself incapable of acting on his own free will, and that in spite of that, he would still be subject to a Law; but under those conditions in which your existence would evolve, who would be able to guide your thoughts toward righteousness? Only the Divine light of the conscience, which inspires man to comply with the Law, a light which dwells within the spirit and, through it, manifests itself to the flesh." ____________________________________________________________ 互户互户互猾せカせЙせカせЙせカせЙせカせЙせカ  Of Responsabilities and Duties Every freedom is understood not only by the mere exercise of it but also by the responsability that it carries along. Since remote times, great thinkers -Socrates, Plato, Aristotle- spoke about this. They knew then, as we all should know now, that in order to have a freedom, we should deserve it either by duties or by pacts. Take for example, the right of nationality; any man is granted, at the moment of birth -and in some countries even at the moment of conception- a set of rights or "freedoms" that should accompany him or her in the course of his or her life: the right to live, the right ro speak, the right to choose where to live -well, at least when there is no war at home- but everyone understands that, included in that package of freedoms, comes the commitment to perform certain duties and responsabilities: pay taxes, obey human authorities, respect other people's rights and freedoms, and so forth. So, all these rights and freedoms are not, er, free, so to speak. They have a price, and when someone decides not to pay that price, oh, surely he or she is going to pay one way or the other: he or she would become then a criminal, a traitor, a renegade or a deserter...or a social outcast at the very least. And what happens next? He or she is deprived of his or her freedom and his or her rights are diminished in such a way that, even if they still are respected, they are so dim that they are almost inexistent. If that happens with human nature and human laws, what do you think happens regarding spiritual nature and the divine Law? Many call punishment to that which happens when it is justice, simple and raw justice. But that's another topic. ____________________________________________________________ 互户互户互猾せカせЙせカせЙせカせЙせカせЙせカ  My beloved, do not forget to unite your thoughts of love with all of God's servants, here and in the spiritual realm, so we all can saturate the world with good will and blessings, because he that blesses, is blessed. Your Brother in the Lord The Little Worker http://144000.net/