Breaking The Chains Of Bondage

By James Donahue

The great Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi once said: "In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth."

There is a secret to be shared here that most people in the so-called "free world" will probably refuse to accept without giving it some thought: we have all been born into a society that accepts slavery as a way of life.

Think of this. The moment we choose to leave the roost as young adults we begin the lifelong struggle against debt. And debt is slavery. If we choose college it involves borrowing thousands of dollars to pay for tuition, books and living costs. If we find a job and get married we buy a car, rent or buy a house, stock it with furniture and other household appliances, and begin paying for it. If the bank notices that we are making regular and faithful payments, we are issued plastic credit cards that tempt us into buying more toys and plunging even deeper into debt. We spend our lives trying to pay off that accumulated debt but never quite get there.

This is slavery.

We must maintain employment, even if we don’t like our jobs, because we must constantly earn that meager wage each week. And when the check arrives, we all go through the stomach churning process of calculating which bills must be paid before we dare use any of the balance to buy food, clothing and medicine for ourselves and the family.

As the debt accumulates, wives find themselves also seeking employment just to get enough to balance the household financial needs, perhaps acquire a nicer home, or buy more "stuff." We are all lured like lab rats into big shopping malls, department stores and into shopping networks on our televisions and computer screens to buy some new thing we don’t need but we are told that it will make us happy. Believe me, it is a trap.

Our daily lives have become so hectic, there is very little spare time left for that quiet thought and meditation Gandhi spoke of. And when we have spare time, we are tempted to waste it on the myriad of temptations for personal pleasure that slam our brains from almost everywhere we go and everything we do. We have music concerts, athletic events, parent-teacher conferences, church services, social gatherings, holiday celebrations and an amazing assortment of television entertainment now being piped into our homes.

If these things aren’t enough, we also have the issues of alcoholism, drugs, gambling casinos, prostitution and pornography to rattle our brains. People who have the financial means spend their free time playing with personal speed boats, climbing mountains, going deep-water fishing, sport diving and attending baseball games.

There are summer fairs, carnivals, parades, fireworks displays, fish fries, art shows going on in nearly every community. Oh, my, where does all of that time go?

I recently bought a new computer to replace the old and outdated machine I had been struggling with. I was amazed at all of the "free" toys it came equipped with. It is loaded with games to play, music download devices and links to such time-wasting community linking sites as Facebook, Twitter and Skype. But I bought the machine as tool for writing, handling images and bookkeeping. In order to adapt this wonderful new computer for serious uses like this, I was required to purchase and download special software. Now as I work, the toys loaded in this device blink at me constantly from the side of my screen.

My point is that the world we live in is carefully designed to distract us all from our very reason for being on this planet and living in these bodies. I don’t think we chose to come here to spend all of our time being chained to a job and seeking pleasure during the hours we are not at labor. We had a purpose. Our real task was to discover ourselves, determine why we came, and then carry out our mission.

The decision my wife and I made years ago to shed the yokes of organized religion, and to walk a spiritual path that looks within to find the light of the energy within ourselves, has helped us switch on that "third eye" and see beyond the constant barrage of lies and twisted facts pumped daily into the minds of the masses.

Living this kind of life style is not confining. We still have lots of time to read great books, watch select programming on our televisions and read about world news events on the computer screen. We have time for social visits and attending town parades if we choose. All it takes is a few minutes of quiet time, perhaps just before we go to sleep, or in the quiet hours when we awaken. We have learned how to make contact with the power that exists within ourselves. Our lives have become enriched because of it.

Yes, we are still enslaved by the banks that mortgage our house and hold us captive with excessive interest rates on credit cards, but as retirees we are blessed with monthly Social Security checks and Medicare medical services that sustain our daily needs. We pay those bills but we do not dwell on this. Money is an invention by humans who use it to enslave the masses, and they have been very successful at it.

We are no longer bound by this problem. We have found our freedom in our love for the family and those we come in contact with. We have found our freedom in the fact that we no longer fear. What if the revenue stops, the storms destroy our homes and leave us destitute and living on the street? There is an understanding that no matter what happens to us on this physical realm, our spirits are free. We will always be taken care of. Death is but a transition from this plane to the spiritual realm from which we came. When it happens, it will mean that we are just going home.