Freedom lies in wanting only what God wills. When that is our condition, we can do anything, because we are not doing anything but rather God is willing through us, and our lives become expressions of God’s perfect love.
This is not something that we do: rather, it is something to which we give our consent, and then remain in a state of readiness and willingness. A kind of energetic passivity attends. When swimming in the sea, have you ever allowed yourself to sink? To be pulled by the always flowing tides? It is like that: a surrendering, a letting go, a sinking into currents not of our own making.
Resistance is not a meaningful reflection of freedom. The choice to hear another voice beside the one for God, the choice to hear it but refuse its message, and the choice to obey in part and refuse in another part are not aspects of freedom. A Course in Miracles points out that “[C]hoosing depends on a split mind” (T-5.II.6:6). So long as we are choosing between outcomes – one the basis of what we will get – then we are not truly free.
When our will opts for anything other than alignment with God’s will, it remains entrapped and enslaved. There is no compromise in this regard.
Yet we have cause for freedom here and now (T-26.VIII.9:3). A Course in Miracles offers us – through its curriculum, including diligent application of its lessons – a way to relearn freedom. It teaches us that we are already one with God and need only remember and accept this simple fact.
You cannot walk the world away from God, because you could not be without Him. He is what your life is. Where you are He is. There is one life. That life you share with Him (W-pI.156.2:4-8).
That is the singular truth to which A Course in Miracles is forever directing us: that we are already one with God and perfect freedom, happiness and peace is literally as far away as the next breath. It takes time for us to learn this, and to bring it into application, but that does not make it less true.
When you have learned that your will is God’s, you could no more will to be without Him than He could will to be without you. This is freedom and this is joy (T-8.II.6:4-5).
The degree we remain unhappy, divided, confused, lonely and in conflict is simply the measure of the degree to which we are trying to obey a will foreign to our own. That is not freedom and its reward is always death. The alternative isn’t really an alternative: rather, it is simply to stop doing what we are doing and give our attention to God, to Truth as God created it. That can sound unduly mystical or even elitist but it’s really not. Spend five minutes looking for God and God will consent to be found: in a light breeze, in a child’s laugh, in a tangle of violets, the scent of cookies, the kindness of a friend.
And in time, all these symbols will recede in importance, as we will understand that they are but mediators between God and our self. Seeing that there is no space between God and self, what use are symbols? A happy day approaches, beyond words and means; our willingness it come hastens its arrival.
