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Today's
Meditation:
We
value our freedom, and historically, many
people the whole world over enjoy much higher levels of
freedom these days than human beings ever have on such a
large scale. It seems, though, that we've reached a
point at which we take our freedom for granted, and there
is a great danger that as more and more people do so,
we'll start to see our freedom more as an entitlement than
as a great privilege and responsibility.
For
a person who recognizes the incredible power of his or her
freedom, it means that we have many chances to act on
issues that need to be acted on, no matter what their
scale. Our freedom is a gift, and as with all gifts,
we have a choice how we can use it. The freedoms
that we have on a large scale affect our free will, too--
our ability to decide what we will do on a personal
level. It obviously doesn't mean the ability to
drink as much alcohol as we want and then jump into a car
and drive around town. It doesn't mean that we can
help ourselves to the money in the cash register at the
supermarket, either.
But
our free will does give us the ability to affect many
different aspects of many people's lives, if we act
according to what we know ought to be done. And the
fact that I have the ability to act upon my free will,
following my conscience when and how I need to, puts a
great deal of responsibility into my hands to act in ways
that will benefit the greater good. And if I can
learn to act in those ways consistently, then I truly am
learning how to be free.
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