July/August 2006 Spirituality
Five Ways to Raise Your Level of Spiritual Freedom

by Guy Finley

Guy Finley

Here are five proven practices you can put to use right Now to ensure that you reach ever-higher levels of personal and spiritual freedom. These powerful practices work best if you begin by meditating on the deeper meaning contained in each statement. Then, consciously allow your mind to contrast your present level of freedom with that of the example you just meditated upon. In this way, we not only begin to gain a greater understanding of the truth of our present condition, but we also awaken a wish inside of us to aspire to the greater levels of consciousness that we now know are within our reach.

  1. We are spiritually free when we no longer want anything to do with sitting in judgment of others, regardless of their perceived transgression. We realize that we live in an intelligent universe whose unerring system of justice ensures that no act—good or evil—goes unrewarded.
    Exercise: Learn what it means to leave those who would punish you with word or deed to the bitter fruit of their own designs. Let go of the judge inside you by recognizing we cannot hold someone’s feet to the fire without getting burned ourselves.
  2. We are spiritually free when we never again feel envy for any other human being because of their position or possessions in life. We understand that regardless of external appearances, the quality of our life experience is not determined by what we may or may not possess, but only by what we have allowed to take possession of our heart.
    Exercise: Catch and drop any part of yourself that wants you to think about yourself relative to others by comparing yourself to them. Serve your True Nature instead by choosing to remember that who you really are is incomparable.
  3. We are spiritually free when we never again allow ourselves to get caught up in some mad rush, regardless of what seems at stake. We know that wherever we are, whatever the circumstances, we are always in the right place at the right time to further our relationship with God and his Life.
    Exercise: Real victory in life is always the discovery that we can’t give ourselves away to negative states and experience a positive outcome. Detect and reject any feeling that wants to put its rush on you.
  4. We are spiritually free when not one part of us harbors any hatred or resentment for any other human being, regardless of how badly that person may have once treated us. We have seen for ourselves that giving any dark state a reason to exist is the same as supplying it with a hidden refuge in ourselves.
    Exercise: Realize that it isn’t our enemies who are burdened by those black wishes we hold for them, but it is we who are held hostage in the darkness of our unenlightened nature. To see that it is hatred that hates is to let it go.
  5. We are spiritually free when we have no fear of shouldering those moments when life brings more challenges than we have ever had to handle before. We understand the great law of life that holds we cannot be harnessed to any load without being given the subsequent strength we need to succeed with it.
    Exercise: Always accept a little more responsibility whenever conditions in life ask you to step up and test your inner resolve. Just as our willingness to risk failure is one of the prerequisites for learning to live without fear, so too is our willingness to reach the end of our power an invitation to realize a source of a power within us without end.

Guy Finley is the best-selling author of Let Go and Live in the Now (Red Wheel) and 30 other works on self-transformation and higher success. Visit www.guyfinley.org.