A Wisdom Archive on Freedom

The struggle in a human being is always that he thinks freedom means getting somewhere. But wherever you go, you will not be free. Spiritually, there has always been talk of surrender.
But the moment logical, educated minds hear the word surrender, they will build forts around themselves.
(See also: Surrendering, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Surrendering: Surrender, the Only Real Freedom

I am a Hindu because I was born in a Hindu home. The Hindu way of life appeals to me because it gives me freedom to think and act. It does not bind me to rigid codes or to some particular book, but only requires that I try to follow the first two parts of the eight-fold ashtanga yoga, namely, yama or abstentions and niyama or observances, expecting me to do nothing more than being a good member of society. Practice of the next six parts is optional.

 
(See also: Hinduism, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul )

Read more here: » Hinduism: Why I'm A Hindu, And Other Thoughts  

Nirvani (Sanskrit). One who has attained Nirvana - an emancipated soul.
 
That Nirvana means nothing of the kind asserted by Orientalists every scholar who has visited China, India and Japan is well aware. It is "escape from misery" but only from that of matter, freedom from Klesha, or Kama, and the complete extinction of animal desires.
 
If we are told that Abidharma defines Nirvana "as a state of absolute annihilation", we concur, adding to the last word the qualification "of everything connected with matter or the physical world", and this simply because the latter (as also all in it) is illusion, maya. Sakya-muni Buddha said in the last moments of his life that "the spiritual body is immortal" (See Sans. Chin. Dict.). As Mr. Eitel, the scholarly Sinologist, explains it: "The popular exoteric systems agree in defining Nirvana negatively as a state of absolute exemption from the circle of transmigration; as a state of entire freedom from all forms of existence; to begin with, freedom from all passion and exertion; a state of indifference to all sensibility" and he might have added "death of all compassion for the world of suffering". And this is why the Bodhisattvas who prefer the Nirmanakaya to the Dharmakaya vesture, stand higher in the popular estimation than the Nirvanis.
 
But the same scholar adds that: "Positively (and esoterically) they define Nirvana as the highest state of spiritual bliss, as absolute immortality through absorption of the soul (spirit rather) into itself, but preserving individuality so that, e.g., Buddhas, after entering Nirvana, may reappear on earth" - i.e., in the future Manvantara.

 
(See also: Nirvani, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,  )

For more dictionary entries, see » Freedom Dictionary

I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.
Isaiah 43.25
 
Whatever defect I have of eye, of heart, of mind,
or whatever excess there is,
may Brihaspati remedy it.
Gracious to us be the Lord of the world.
Yajur Veda
 
Carry us across, as by a boat
across the sea, for our good,
Shining bright, drive away our sin.
Rig Veda
 
Without forgiveness life is governed by... an endless cycle of resentment and retaliation.
Roberto Assagioli
 
Never does the human soul appear so strong as when it forgoes revenge, and dares forgive an injury.
E H Chapin
 
Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.
Hannah Arendt
 
It is far easier to forgive an enemy after you"ve got even with him.
Olin Miller
 
He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself; for every man has need to be forgiven.
Thomas Fuller
 

 
(See also: Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul )

Read more here: » Peace of Mind: Quotes on Forgiveness

Mukta and Mukti (Sanskrit). Liberation from sentient life; one beatified or liberated; a candidate for Moksha, freedom from flesh and matter, or life on this earth.

 
(See also: Mukta and Mukti, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,  )

For more dictionary entries, see » Freedom Dictionary

We seem to be free, to do that which we choose and not that which is chosen for us; but possibly, the freedom may be illusory; in fact, it may be bondage.
 
We may be bound by predestination, the will of a Supreme Intelligent Power, or blind inexorable Nature, or the necessity of our own previous development.

 
(See also: Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul )

Read more here: » Peace of Mind: Of Freedom, Fate And Free Will

Shien-Sien (Chin.). A state of bliss and soul-freedom, during which a man can travel in spirit where he likes.

 
(See also: Shien-Sien, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,  )

For more dictionary entries, see » Freedom Dictionary

A right is the power or privilege to which one is justly entitled or a thing to which one has a just claim. Rights serve as rules of interaction between people, and, as such, they place constraints upon the actions of individuals or groups (for example, if one is granted a right to life, this means that others do not have the liberty to murder him). Most modern conceptions of rights are universalist and egalitarian; in other words, equal rights are granted to all people. Such rights may be defined in terms of the Golden Rule (" ... Including:

• Right - Legal rights
• Right - Important documents

Read more here: » Right: Encyclopedia - Right

Watcher or Silent Watcher, Wondrous Being Generically the dominant self or overlord of any hierarchy. Throughout a human being''s complex nature dwells his own spiritual Wondrous Being, the fountain and fundamental law of his whole nature; there is the Silent Watcher of the Brotherhood of Compassion, who is identical with the Watcher for our globe; the Watcher for our planetary chain; for our solar system, its habitat being the solar chain; for the Milky Way; and for the home-universe. At the other extreme there is a Silent Watcher for every atom, as for every other entity, whether large or small. The Watcher for individual people is the monad, the divine prototype at the upper rung of the ladder of being; an individual dhyani-chohan, the spiritual individuality during the manvantara, and as best it can it works through its "shadows" or incarnations.
 
In the earlier third root-races, the Sons of Wisdom produced by kriyasakti a progeny called the Sons of Ad, Sons of the Fire-mist, or Sons of Will and Yoga. This was not a race, but "at first a wondrous Being, called the ''Initiator,'' and after him a group of semi-divine and semi-human beings. ''Set apart'' in Archaic genesis for certain purposes, they are those in whom are said to have incarnated the highest Dhyanis, ''Munis and Rishis from previous Manvantaras'' -- to form the nursery for future human adepts, on this earth and during the present cycle" (SD 1:207). This Wondrous Being, who descended in the early part of the Third Age, is the tree from which have come the great historically known sages and hierophants, and it holds spiritual sway over the initiated adepts. "He is the ''Initiator,'' called the ''great sacrifice.'' For, sitting at the threshold of light, he looks into it from within the circle of Darkness, which he will not cross, nor will he quit his post till the last day of this life-cycle. Why does the solitary Watcher remain at his self-chosen post? Why does he sit by the fountain of primeval Wisdom, of which he drinks no longer, as he has naught to learn which he does not know . . .? Because the lonely, sore-footed pilgrims on their way back to their home are never sure to the last moment of not losing their way in this limitless desert of illusion and matter called Earth-Life. Because he would fain show the way to that region of freedom and light, from which he is a voluntary exile himself, to every prisoner who has succeeded in liberating himself from the bonds of flesh and illusion. Because, in short, he has sacrificed himself for the sake of mankind, though but a few Elect may profit by the great sacrifice" (SD 1:208).
 
The Watchers of the seven spheres are the rectors or governors of the seven planets, also called Watchers of the earth and man. The Watchers of the four quarters of the sky are the mystical four Maharajas. Watchers reign more or less directly over mankind during satya and subsequent yugas down to the beginning of the third root-race, after which come patriarchs, heroes, etc. Each people or nation has its direct Watcher, guardian, or Father-in-Heaven, as for instance Jehovah-Sabaoth-Saturn for the Hebrews.

 
(See also: Watcher, Silent Watcher, Wondrous Being, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul )

For more dictionary entries, see » Freedom Dictionary

Upanishad (Sanskrit). Translated as "esoteric doctrine ", or interpretation of the Vedas by the Vedanta methods.
 
The third division of the Vedas appended to the Brahmanas and regarded as a portion of Sruti or "revealed" word. They are, however, as records, far older than the Brahmanas the exception of the two, still extant, attached to the Rig -Veda of the Aitareyins.
 
The term Upanishad is explained by the Hindu pundits as "that which destroys ignorance, and thus produces liberation" of the spirit, through the knowledge of the supreme though hidden truth; the same, therefore, as that which was hinted at by Jesus, when he is made to say, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free " (John viii. 32). It is from these treatises of the Upanishads - themselves the echo of the primeval Wisdom-Religion?that the Vedanta system of philosophy has been developed. (See "Vedanta".)
 
Yet old as the Upanishads may be, the Orientalists will not assign to the oldest of them more than an antiquity of 600 years B.C. The accepted number of these treatises is 150, though now no more than about twenty are left unadulterated. They treat of very abstruse, metaphysical questions, such as the origin of the Universe; the nature and the essence of the Unmanifested Deity and the manifested gods the connection, primal and ultimate, of spirit and matter ; the universality of mind and the nature of the human Soul and Ego.
 
The Upanishads must be far more ancient than the days of Buddhism, as they show no preference for, nor do they uphold, the superiority of the Brahmans as a caste. On the contrary, it is the (now) second caste, the Kshatriya, or warrior class, who are exalted in the oldest of them. As stated by Professor Cowell in Elphinstone’s History of India -  - "they breathe a freedom of spirit unknown to any earlier work except the Rig Veda. . . The great teachers of the higher knowledge and Brahmans are continually represented as going to Kshatriya Kings to become their pupils." The " Kshatriya Kings" were in the olden times, like the King Hierophants of Egypt, the receptacles of the highest divine knowledge and wisdom, the Elect and the incarnations of the primordial divine Instructors - the Dhyani Buddhas or Kumaras.
 
There was a time, eons before the Brahmans became a caste, or even the Upanishads were written, when there was on earth but one "lip ", one religion and one science, namely, the speech of the gods, the Wisdom-Religion and Truth. This was before the fair fields of the latter, overrun by nations of many languages, became overgrown with the weeds of intentional deception, and national creeds invented by ambition, cruelty and selfishness, broke the one sacred Truth into thousands of fragments.

 
(See also: Upanishad, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,  )

For more dictionary entries, see » Freedom Dictionary