Audio version read by Rev. Steven Lane Taylor, B.Msc.
How very precious is the freedom of independence from relying on anything outside of oneself! Without such freedom, people often feel that their soul is being suffocated. This is due to the lack of breathing room to move, think, and feel life with the sense of liberty that comes from not being dependent on anything or anyone outside of oneself.
How many people today live lives of quiet, or at times, not so quiet desperation? How many people feel trapped by other people, or by conditions in their lives? How many feel this way, believing, for example, that they have no choice but to remain in some form of employment with which they feel very uncomfortable? How many feel that they are in a relationship with a spouse or significant other that they cannot abandon, even though they wish to, for fear of losing financial, emotional, or sexual support?
Whether it regards employment, income, or personal life issues, having to live without a feeling of independence is pure misery for many. The truth, however, is that people do tend to become dependent upon employers, significant others, spouses, family members, and friends.
It is far easier for most people to accept and live a life of dependency on others than upon what they are within themselves. However, when they do this, they are sacrificing their freedom of independence.
Many people today, who are discontented with their lack of freedom and independence, turn to all sorts of abuses in their lives, such as gambling, sexual extremes, and so on. Such behavior represents an attempt to dull the psychic pain they have from feeling as if they are prisoners of their dependency on people and conditions outside of themselves.
When people feel this way, they are seeing life through the eyes of their personal ego mind, which is the source of their insecurities. This uncertainty of their personal ego can be the cause behind allowing themselves to become dependent on other people and circumstances outside of themselves.
To the spiritually wise, the personal ego is a false illusionary identity that conjures up insecurities because it feels limited. People who know they are unlimited will not have insecurities that lead to outer dependency.
A true spiritually-awakened mind knows that a portion of their mind is universal mind, or God, whose presence is unlimited. By identifying with the universal mind and forming an inner relationship with it during meditation, a person no longer feels identified with the limited personal ego insecurities that give rise to outer dependency.
Such universal-mind God-identification creates a state of consciousness that knows, through God, that it is unlimited in the scope of what can be accomplished without outside dependency. So if you are not doing so already, seek God’s universal mind presence within yourself, that you may be free of dependency on others, and declare your own independence.
Some may say that because of age or ill health, they have no choice but to be dependent on others. You must not be one of them! Realize that if you have a state of consciousness that declares its independence, based on God’s presence, your physical body will feel better and healthier as a result. Feeling a sense of independence, spiritually and psychologically, greatly influences the chemistry of your body, to enhance youthfulness and improve well-being. This, in turn, will make you less dependent on others.
For a person along in years, or suffering from ill health, feeling more independent can have enormous health and healing benefits. Most people are far happier being independent than dependent, even in older age and ill health.
I encourage you to look within to God, both in yourself and others, that through such an attitude and consciousness, you may invoke the unlimited potential of the divine within you, so that you may have the freedom to declare your own independence.
Text taken from Dr. Paul Leon Masters’ “The Theocentric Way of Life,” Volume 3: Module 12.
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