Free Will
If we wish to make any progress in our search for new ways of eliminating anything that is troubling our world, including depression and suicidal tendencies, to my mind, we have to look for their possible causes and that means digging for their roots. My own life has taught me that to find them it is necessary to reach deep into our own individual psyche, as well as that of our whole race. We have to go much further back in time than we can imagine for as long as we are still merely concerned with that which is visible and happening on the surface of our lives. Things change profoundly as soon as we find out the true, that is spiritual purpose and meaning of our earthly existence.
Many of us live in societies that to a large extent have lost their spiritual centre and focus of life. Although many by now are regaining theirs, great numbers of people are not even aware of why they are presently here and what they are meant to do with their lives. Take for example the Rabbi Yehuda Ashlay 1884-1954, who wrote under the name Baal HaSulam. Undoubtedly a very learned man, in his ‘Freedom of Will’ he stated: ‘We are born into a family we did not choose. We are also raised in an environment we did not choose.’
In ‘Attaining The Worlds Beyond’ Michael Laitman, Kabbalist, Founder and President of Ashlag Research Institute, another learned man no doubt, wrote: ‘Against your will you are born, against your will do you live, and against your will you will die. . . We continue to grow and develop in an environment not of our choosing. During this growth and development stage we are sculpted by the environment and our own genetic attributes until we are able to begin processing various choices available to us. We may think we have free will since we are able to choose what we want to eat, drink, which friends to have, what we wear, or what is our stand on environmental issues. However, choices we make and inclinations we have come from society and genes and we are ultimately influenced by them, no matter which way we turn to. Where is free will then?’
There is more in this vein, but I imagine you get the drift. Everybody can only write from their own perception of life and what a bleak and cheerless picture the two men are painting because of being trapped in the beliefs and dogmas of their respective belief systems. I know from first hand experience what a gloomy, sad and depressing our earthly existence can be for as long as one still views it from the blinkered view that our life is a one-off thing. The more our earthly self becomes detached from the knowledge of its true reality as an immortal spirit and soul, a spark of the Divine, who is experiencing life in physicality, the more we feel like being trapped in a dark box from which there is no escape. With the passing of time this becomes a veritable dungeon of despair, which unknown to us for a long time, is entirely of our own making. The walls of our prison consist of the many false beliefs, superstitions and prejudices about God, and of who and what we truly are. Our earthly personality has accumulated them in the course of many lifetimes
In that impoverished state the world is indeed a very threatening and frightening place, in which we feel hopelessly and helplessly subject to the forces of a frequently unkind destiny, which we fail to understand. God and the Angels alone know for how many lifetimes anyone’s earthly self has been in this position. Is it any wonder that depression is so widespread and causing severe problems to so many?
All of that sounds discouraging, doesn’t it? But take heart! Spiritually knowledge is light and not knowing is darkness. And every earthly self eventually reaches the point on their evolutionary journey through life when the first glimmers of the light of understanding appear in the deepest and darkest hours of what is known as ‘the dark night of the soul’. There comes the moment when the Divine spark in our heart begins to stir from its slumber and our spirit and soul start knocking on the inner door of our earthly consciousness. As this aspect of our nature slowly awakens and stirs into life, influences enter our field of vision to help us realise that there is much more to Earth life than that which we have known up to now. Through catching occasional glimpses of other realities and dimensions, maybe by reading or watching a film about them, a new perception of life sneaks into our consciousness.
The more it opens up, the clearer it becomes to us that the things that are invisible to earthly eyes are of far greater importance than everything that takes place on the physical plane of life. We discover to our astonishment that God and the Angels really do exist on the higher and highest levels of life, and that this is humankind’s true home, the place where every one of us once came from and one of these days shall return to. With increasing clarity we recognise that God and the Angels are something much greater and far more beautiful than anyone on the Earth could ever have imagined. They are part of everybody’s own true eternal reality, very real and most certainly not something that just exists in stories for children and people who are a bit soft in the head.
The awareness that life is a continuum without beginning or end brings comfort and relief to our heart and soul. It’s good to know that time and again we have been returning to Earth life, and that from the moment we emerged from the heartmind of God, until our final reunification and homecoming, Angels and Masters, friends and helpers in the spirit world are surrounding and helping us. Although they are invisible to our earthly eyes, they have always been and forever will be our constant companions who never leave us. They are the ones who safely every new earthling into their next lifetime and out of it again. On the inner level of life all is one and in truth none of us is ever alone on the Earth plane and the same applies on all other levels of life that are still waiting to explored by us.
* * *
The above is a chapter from ‘The Spiritual Aspects Of Depression And Suicide’
.If it has whetted your appetite to read more, please follow the link below:
‘The Spiritual Aspects Of Depression And Suicide’
