The concept was to make one from many by melting and fusing together in the fire.

One would take the ores required for metals and heat them to great temperature sufficient to burn away the impurities and cause the false ash to fall away from the now bonded, fused molten metal remaining from the ores.

I have always marveled at the parallel in meaning between the use of this word and our own internal process of maturation and the manner in which this process reflects the true purpose for our presence here in life, the sacred nature of our path and the core essence of the importance of the power of choice.

Concomitant with the concept of choice, is the necessity of the capacity of forgiveness, for with each error we commit, forgiveness is an essential response in our capacities or we shall become trapped in condemnation, judgment, retribution and punishment whether self or other generated and inflicted.

As I have aged, I look back and see how often I have addressed these issues through my life process.  I have observed the different systems of thought people apply to them.

When I was a Christian, I gravitated to the school of ‘Grace’, because of these issues, and my conviction that it was the entire point that we must live through our errors and suffer the experience of their consequence. Only in this manner could I truly learn.

I saw how the unhappiness of people was sometimes an inability to resolve internal ambivalence and that maturity was really about the ability to achieve such a resolution.

Now I am attending to the purpose of spiritual discipline, which is aimed at training by making a value commitment to the One Thing based on wisdom.

Such discipline, over time changes experience, and the effect of the feedback of one’s actions alters ones internal soul and teaches it the truth of the wisdom to which one has committed in disciplined action.

But the point of it is all is the making of One Thing.

Forged in the fire of life.

Integrity – A true purpose for our presence and the reason why we need the freedom to choose and to fail.

Freedom, therefore, has more than fundamental anthropological human value, it is of the essence of existence spiritually, and if lost, removes the value of existence.

Let us be clear about what is necessary for spiritual life and why so many have viewed it as worth dying to preserve.