Transition

     My vision when I started this blog was to share my spiritual thoughts and writings with people and to share some of my favorite quotes and stories by other people that helped to guide and enlighten me along my spiritual journey.  I scheduled all (or most) of the blog posts ahead of time, with no real plans for what would happen after the scheduled posts were done. 

     Now that my original posts are finished, I would like to transition to another aspect of the spiritual journey.  For me, a major part of the spiritual journey is grounded in the philosophy of freedom.  In my view, there can be no adequate conception of spirituality without freedom being a foundational part of it.

     In spirituality, anyone trying to live the Godly path should never try to force their will upon another; neither should they let anyone force their will upon them.

     From a spiritual and philosophical perspective, the freedom to live according to one’s own conscience or understanding of God or spiritual principles should never be compromised, nor should anyone be forced to do something that goes against their conscience.

     I believe that a major part of the spiritual journey is for each person is to learn to have the courage and inner fortitude to live according to their conscience and philosophy, despite the many forces that try on a daily basis to bend them to their will and lead them away from the Godly path.

     When it comes to freedom, how free can most people say they really are?  If we’re going to be completely honest with ourselves, there are many forces, both private and governmental, that work very hard to bend us to their will.  Some of it is made to seem legitimate and is backed by physical force, such as the loss of freedom by imprisonment if someone disobeys a government “law,” whether the law is just or not.  At other times people try to take our freedoms through dishonesty, mind control, and deceit, working in the shadows to manipulate our deepest fears and desires, and will even exploit our good qualities if it helps them to achieve their goals.

     For the next forty days, I’m going to share excerpts from a book I wrote entitled, Them and Us: A Philosophy of Freedom.  The book is written less like a spiritual book and more like a book of philosophy, though in my view it is still very spiritual.

     One thing that I would like to address right off of the bat is that although the book is entitled Them and Us, in no way am I advocating that we should hate anyone who tries to force their will on us or manipulate our minds.  I believe in nonviolent, noncooperation with evil and in doing one’s best to remain loving despite the actions of others.  It is, at times, a hard sacrifice to live this way, but it is the way of love.

     Also, there is nothing wrong with pointing out the unloving or even sinister actions of others.  Unfortunately, there are many people in the world who are sick with desire and ego, who somehow find reasons to justify, in their own minds, their cruel and wicked behavior.  We must resist these kinds of people.  We must expose their ways and enlighten people of their goals and actions until we are strong enough to build a better world, one based on love of God and freedom, where people live in voluntary communities guided by Godly principles and respect, not forced servitude and systematic violence.

     I admit, some of the information and ideas in this book may be hard to swallow.  Even if your mind tries to resist some of the ideas, I urge you to read on anyways and investigate what I’m saying for yourself.

     Who knows, perhaps my ideas will challenge you to see freedom in a new or different light?  The thing is, you’ll never know unless you give the ideas a chance and let them challenge your current understanding of the world.

     Lastly, I’m choosing to post the excerpts from this book daily for a number of reasons, the first of which is because I think that the ideas will stay fresh in your mind better with daily exposure rather than having a few days in between posts.  A second reason is to help show how beneficial it is to have philosophy as a daily part of your life.  And lastly, to demonstrate that you are not too busy to take a few minutes out of your life to dedicate to philosophical or spiritual endeavors.  If you are, I pray that you find a way to balance and order your life so that you can exercise your mind and spirit for at least a few minutes each day.  Just as we need food to nourish our body and keep us going, it is the same with spiritual matters.  Without daily nourishment, we can become spiritually weak or uninspired.

     In conclusion, I hope that what I have written will inspire you in your own spiritual journey for freedom and peace.  If you would like to read the book in its entirety without waiting for me to post excerpts, I will have a link under the “Books” section where you can read or download it at your leisure.

     Thanks for reading!

―Adam Soto