July 2
But Did They Bring Us Liberty?
Ultimately, we are all looking for happiness, and that cannot be experienced without liberty. We see happiness as God. Everything and everybody is looking for happiness. But it’s not something that has to be brought in from outside. Happiness is already within us, and is to be experienced.
No one can bring us liberty, bring us happiness. The founding fathers made the Declaration of Independence, but did they bring us liberty? Did they bring us happiness? They could not. They could only guide us, as all the great men and women do. We have to follow that guidance. The Declaration is a beautiful expression of age-old religious truth. We are all made in God’s image, says the Bible. If we want to experience that joy within, we have to liberate ourselves from our own self-made bondage.
Nobody on earth is interested in binding you. Even if someone were interested, nobody could do that. It’s completely in your hands to be bound or to be free. Bondage is not real. If you think that you are bound, you are bound. If you think that you are free right this moment, and that from time immemorial you have never been bound, then you are free. You feel that freedom. So, the freedom or the joy of freedom has to come from right thinking—from not thinking that you are bound. Who is a free person? The one who is interested in liberating himself or herself from self-made bondage.