There is no ‘you’ apart from the universe. You are the universe temporarily in the disguise of a person.” —Eckhart Tolle

Similar to what Rumi wrote, “You are the ocean in a drop,” we are charged over and over throughout the ages to know that we are more than what we appear to be.

There is nothing more important than this knowing right here and now in this time in our evolution as a species. It feels like the ancients are crying out for us to remember. It seems like the Collective Consciousness is announcing and spilling out all that we need to see (as bleak as it looks) in order to realize that we must let go of our stagnant ways.

Every civilization, if we care to look back, points to this. None have survived through separation. Fighting fire with fire burns down the whole forest. We must use water, and what is water but the flowing energy of Consciousness.

Everyday, we are confronted with opinions, changes, the thinking of others, laws, mandates. These things are not outside of ourselves. We are smack in the middle of a cauldron of consciousness and we get to decide what we will think and how we will act. Do you think or does it feel like something is thinking you? I feel like we sometimes spend more time being thought than thinking.

We, the individualizations of the one Universe have the thinking faculty of freedom of thought. If we are feeling like we cannot control our thinking, it means that we have given over our minds to the mass consciousness. If we cannot make up our own minds about things regardless of what we hear; and, instead, feel ourselves everyday waking up to a fear, doubt, or a sense of confusion, we are giving ourselves over to mass consciousness.

I have worked hard in the realm of consciousness to understand it, to test my use of it, and to stay centered in the deep I Am. Still at times, I can find myself lost in thought and not thinking at all. However, once you know something, you cannot go back. I know and I go into my laboratory of Mind and remember. I remember that I am temporarily expressing as Rita in this form right now for a purpose. My purpose is different than yours or his or hers, but I know we all have a purpose. No one is ever lost and no matter how far down the rabbit hole we’ve gone, there is a tunnel back out and up to a higher ground.

Today, I am knowing that I must surrender to what is, but I do not have live in it. I, as a free state of consciousness, can choose to experience what is from a higher level. That level would be love – love for myself and for others. I have the freedom to remember who I am and live from that state of mind. I trust that I am guarded, guided and directed to know what is to be done by me. I trust that, even if everything is taken away from me, that I have everything within me to grow my forest of experience anew.

Freedom is my birthright, but not in the temporal world. Yes, we have fought for it over the ages, but in essence, we have not really won it. We are seeing this now. Freedom isn’t something you go to battle for and then sit back and say “Oh, I have it.” It is a state of consciousness that must be kept alive by the individual in every moment. It is a way of life. Just like forgiveness is a way of life, freedom is a practice that is executed from mind to action. It is constantly re-birthing itself.

As we celebrate the Fourth of July today, as we celebrate our forefathers and mothers and all that has come before to birth a free nation, I am realizing that this was all the effect of a free consciousness. True freedom begins in consciousness. We might have had the opportunity to live on the consciousness of our forefathers and mothers, but that is only good for so long. We must have the conscious of freedom. We must be led by that consciousness to create effect anew, again and again. Everyday and every moment, new freedom thinkers are born to keep freedom in the world of effect alive and growing.

Happy Independence Day!

In Love and Truth,

Rev. Rita