1993-08-01. Slavery
Nashville #5
Topic: Slavery
Group: Nashville TeaM
Teacher: Ham
TR: Rebecca
Opening
HAM: Greetings. I am Ham. a teacher. Our lesson tonight is about slavery.
Lesson
There are many ways that humans become enslaved. Usually the bonds are so subtle, we are so used to wearing shackles that we notice them not except when under duress of some form. Shackles can be forged out of subtle psychological materials such as wanting recognition, or lying about our place is society, or the need for influence not genuinely attained and so forth.
This unbalance in the psychology produces a counterbalance of its opposite; the want of social humiliation and self-abrogation, basically desires entailing various forms of self-destruction. Think of the self as a balance point around which desires of the self balance. The desire for self-exaltation is balanced perfectly by the desire for self-destruction. The man who entertains fantastic and unreal views of his worthlessness, and the weight on each side always balance in the center.
As maturity grows and the weight of the need for self-exaltation lessens, so also does the need for self-destruction, until finally the mature soul transfers all such need-weights onto the Father. No longer does the pendulum swing between these destructive forces, but rests quietly upon God alone. In the mature person, he realizes that all strife over or for the self is in vain and is spiritually unavailing; and as he increasingly places the burdens of self upon our Father, increasingly is he freed to act according to our Father’s will, and his acts glorify not the small and pitiful self, but the Father of all reality. His acts become glorified and sanctified. His reason for living is no longer tethered to the unreal visions of the straining ego, but rather is his vision, his purpose, and his being strengthened, solidified and made real by the gift of our Father within.
When we work for ourselves alone, all is vanity, all striving fruitless, and all accomplishment is barren and devoid of reality, but when we work for the spirit who lives within us, the God of all creation, then our efforts are fruitful, all our doings meaningful, and all our striving sanctified. When one reaches such a state of grace, then are there no accidents in life. All acts, large and small, become unified into a meaningful whole. All circumstances contain harmony and all disunity contains unity.
In the life of such a love-centered being no man is truly an enemy, for there is gained from all acts, for and against such a person, lessons of eternal import. Being centered in Love forever frees the ego from the sting of disappointment or the false exaltation in triumph. Being centered on God, all such acts are equally meaningful. Likewise, the temptations toward potential evil no longer are a threat. Freedom from temptation is found, and it is true freedom indeed. Once the weight of self has truly been transferred, finally and unequivocally, then no longer is one tempted to place this ego weight into areas of ego flattery, not equally into areas of self-abasement, and usually where there is one, the other follows swiftly.
