The Power Of Being

Here in the material world what matters is what we do, not our intent.  It is all about the results.  Because we are judged by our actions, the temptation is obtain a certain result, and often by whatever means possible.  “The ends justify the means” is something often said.  This is the consequence of living in an apparent world.  We are not punished for violating the law, we are punished for getting caught.

We create rules and laws so as to maintain order in the material world.  The benefit of creating the rules is that we can amend them to fit our desires.  After time, we equate what is legal with what is moral and ethical.  More often than not, honesty is motivated by fear rather than a need to live by Spiritual truths.   Ultimately we seek material security and we see this as best achieved through wealth and power.  We are like babies, who play peek-a-boo.  They think that if they can’t see you, you can’t see them.  A desire to feel significant motivates us to meet or exceed whatever society currently deems the standard for being valuable.

If Society applauds charity, we will be seen as charitable, if it is money, we will appear to have money.  If it is beauty, we will do whatever we must do to look beautiful.  We seek to look good.  When the light shines on us, we want to be viewed as special.  Most of us judge ourselves by the judgment of others.  Someone can go to church or to Temple every week, and be certain to tithe the appropriate amount to be seen as a charitable church going person.  Monday, that same person can lay off hundreds of workers in order to avoid having to deal with a decrease in his or her lifestyle - unfazed by the lives being destroyed in order to maintain a level of opulence.

A knife can be used to cut the food that we eat, and it can be used to kill.  We have found that almost everything that we create can be used to enhance lives or destroy them; the choice is dependent on our free will.  So, we have been given the ability to use logic, reason and creativity to make the world into a Heaven, or to justify why it is not our responsibility.  If there were a Satan, then the extent of his power would be to present us with an opportunity to make a choice.  Everything in our lives creates a choice.  And as a race, as inhabitants of this planet earth we have all participated in making the choices that have led us to where we are today.   It is very easy to see that the problems that we face are the result of greed, greed we attribute to the comparatively few who control the greatest amount of the world’s wealth.  But that is the easy answer.  It is easy to blame them because they are sitting on piles of money while we are waiting for the crumbs that will no longer be flowing downward - but we are all, or the majority of us are equally to blame.

The system that ensured that the wealth of the world would eventually settle in the hands of a privileged few has been fought for and protected by us, we the majority who hoped that if we fought to maintain the system - we too would one day be on top of that mountain and reap the rewards of that system.  Those who have are no greedier than those who want.  The difference is positioning - not intention.    The Capitalist system that has evolved - as it naturally would is by its design exclusionary.  It is a pyramid by continued design and fortification.  Most of us have not fought for an auto executive’s right to make $50,000,000.00, we fought so that, that right to be waiting if we get there.   It was never unfair until it became unfair to us.  We don’t follow the obvious - built-in trail of poverty unless it leads to us.  Everything that becomes manifest becomes so because there is enough emotional energy behind it to raise it from the unmanifest reality to the manifest.  We have fought to defend a system that cannot work without the majority of the stress on the bottom and very little room at the top, in order to save our own personal spots at that top.

The system is wrong.  It is not open and it is not fair.  It is not built to be fair, and that is why we have liked it, because if and when we rise to the top, we too, want the ability to block all the entrances so that none of the wealth slips out.  It seems impossible to imagine that anyone with a High School degree could not figure out that if we keep milking all of the resources from the bottom of the pyramid, thereby shrinking it, and pulling all of those resources to the top of the pyramid, thereby grossly enlarging it, it would become an inverted pyramid and fall.  The only possible explanation for how we could have reached this point is that we have, in great numbers, become consumed with lust for the things of the world at the expense of our ability to see where this would take us all.

There are four basic rights which form the foundation of Capitalism.   The four basic rights are:  the right to private property. The right to keep all profits made after taxes, the right of choice and the right to compete with other business’.   As with all rights, there is no limit to the extent to which one may go to defend those them.  If I come up with an idea for a new kind of car, the major auto makers have the “right” to use their considerable wealth and power to make sure that my car never reaches the market.  Capitalism eliminates the possibility of a free market.  I don’t have a lobby.  If a corporation chooses to pay all of the earnings to the upper management, while eating through the pensions of the employees, they have that right.  However, under this system, the only right that I have as an employee is the right to quit.  It has become almost the equivalent of being anti-American to criticize the Capitalist system, as though it has somehow replaced Democracy in our minds - somehow we have come to see the two as one, when in reality the fulfillment of one nullifies the other.

It is the Capitalist system that has spread like a cancer throughout the world and is eating us alive.  Capitalism is not Democracy.  Democracy is harder to spread.  Equality is only popular with those who believe that they are not being treated equally.  We are only at the beginning of the suffering that this cancer is causing in the world.  We are like diabetics who are looking for another cause for our diabetes because we can’t face giving up sugar.  I think that we all know how that turns out.  We need to give up our search for happiness in money.  People with money only look happy, and we need to stop buying the whole appearances thing.  It is time for us to revision the American Dream.  It should be the dream where everyone is able to have enough, enough food, enough shelter, enough love and therefore, enough happiness.  Those of us, who are not on the top of the material food chain need to seek joy in what we can all share, seek entrance into the club with open membership.  And those of us who are hiding behind our golden gates, need to open those gates and find ways to share what we have that we will never need with those who need but will never otherwise have.  This is a moment of choice for the wealthy.  It is a time to reach into their hearts and light them up with generosity, or wait, just a little while longer and it will all be taken away as our world crumbles around us.  At this time, it no longer matters what other people think about us based on what they see.  Now we are being carefully monitored by the One who sees what no one else does, the One who sees into our hearts and watches what we do.  It will never again look as good to have more as it does to give more.

I don’t see Barack Obama coming into the White House and working miracles, his miracle was making it to the White House.  I see him as the face of the melting pot in which we live, with pride.  I see him as a man with one agenda - to place this nation back on the path our forefathers intended.  He is a father of two young children and understands that the lives that they lead as adults will depend, as will the lives of every child in this country, on building up the foundations upon which the country can again grow.

We cannot be the greatest nation in the world if we are not the healthiest, we cannot be the greatest nation in the world if we are not the most educated.  This does not mean having the healthiest rich, but having the healthiest masses.  It does not mean having the most educated rich, but having the most educated masses.  To continue on the path that we have been going would deny his children and all of our children a future that is safe, that is free, and that is happy.

I had given up on this country ever being strong again.  I had given up because to do so will require great sacrifices, especially from those corporations and individuals who are responsible for the enormous gulf that has grown over the past twenty years between the wealthy and the middle class, causing the middle class to become an endangered species in the United States.  I have hope because I see Barack Obama as a man who is willing to do the hard things, as us to do the hard things for the right reasons.

But I must say that personally, and a bit selfishly, I am grateful beyond words for Barack Obama.  It is not just because he has changed the lives of African Americans and how they will forever on see themselves.  But because he has given a true place in history to a growing segment of the population, to I have been a lifelong member - an unseen, uncounted, and poorly represented minority group  known to the Census Bureau as ‘Other’.

Why is there a day and a night? Why did God create the Sun and Moon? It is the same reason that He created male and female, up and down, in and out, left and right, fire and water, air and earth and all opposites. The first reason is that without interaction, the self cannot know itself. If the self does not know what it is, it has no understanding of what it can become.

A more accurate translation of Genesis does not limit creation to a one time action; it is more accurately an ongoing process. So, we need to know that we are a self or an actor. To understand more clearly what we are, we must first know what we are not. For example, the only way to know that one is tall, is to know what is not tall. The way to know what a man is, we must know what a man is not. In this world of ours, it is through opposition that we understand the world that we live in and who we are. Light would have no meaning without dark, good would have no meaning with bad, nor joy without sorrow. It may be that “I think therefore I am”, but what I am requires a process of elimination.

It has been said that this is the only one of God’s schools that has ‘free will’. Immediately we know that if we have free will, then we must have choices. For those choices to make any difference in our evolution as souls, we must have within our makeup a part of ourselves that is attracted to one category of choices and another part of ourselves that is attracted to another. So, we are each born with an ego, which is materially directed. It is like the soul of the body. It would worship the things of the earth, if it came to feeling good, then it would choose things that appealed to the five senses. It would seek love in the form of attention and admiration from another or many others. Its god would be whatever the most powerful force in the world was. And it sees itself as alone and so seeks what is best for the self.

On the other side sits the spirit. This is our connection to God. The spirit knows God and seeks the joy that comes from God. It knows that we are all one and it finds its joy in giving and sharing with others. It is selfless and seeks the food that nourishes the spirit and brings us closer to God. So here the soul sits between the two voices and impulses. We live with the desire for God on one side and the desire for the things of the world on the other. Being in the physical body on the earth the easier voice to listen to is the voice of the ego.  It is the soul, through the journey from life to life that learns to listen less to one and more to the other.  It is the soul that learns through the choices made in deference to the ego or to the spirit.  That choice, to choose between the two opposite pulls - that represents the souls free will on earth.

When the sages speak of the “dead” and the “tomb”, in reality they are referring to the soul entering the body. The body which exists for such a short time that  it is considered dead.  It is just like when a person is on death row and walking to the execution they say, “Dead man walking”. From the moment that we are born into this body we are walking towards the death of the body, in essence, we are dead men walking. When the spirit leaves the tomb of the body it is resurrected and returns to the spiritual plane that it emerged from, and the ego returns to the material world from which it came. It is difficult for the spirit to live on the material plane as it would be difficult for the ego to live on the spiritual plane. The ego would experience Heaven as hell, just as the spirit experiences the earth as hell.

These twins, the ego and the spirit are bound together because the soul cannot expel the ego. It is the engine that drives the vehicle that we need on earth. It cannot expel the spirit because the spirit is what supports the driver (soul) while it is the body (vehicle) on earth. The soul is the reason for the existence of both and our lives on earth are possible because of both.

There is no such thing as evil, because all that exists is God and all that is God is good. But let us digress for a moment. In my youth I was considered attractive. Men were initially drawn to my looks or my sexuality. The things that were on the surface, superficial, are still a part of me. I related to myself on the inside, my soul, my spirit, my heart. I felt that part of myself, my inner being as the greater part of who I was eternally. I did not feel loved, in fact I was not loved when men claimed love for me based upon what they saw on the outside, how I looked, or what I had. Those things were temporary, my looks would change – age, my financial status would fluctuate, they were of me, but they were not me. In the same sense, all of the things in the material world are of God, simply because there is no such thing as outside of God. But they are the temporary, transient things of God, not the true eternal parts of God.

The eternal parts of God have no form, and give to the heart and soul and not to the body or the ego. So the ego is tempted by what it can experience with its senses.

We depict Jesus the Christ as aesthetically beautiful. There is no way that he could have ever looked like the pictures that we see of him based upon his lineage and the fact that he and his family were able to hide in Egypt at the time that they did. He would have been very dark skinned with curly hair, there was no intermarriage at the time because there was no great migration from continent to continent. This image of Jesus aids the ability of many to worship him. Yet what I find the most disturbing is that most of the people who claim to love Jesus, love him because they believe that he died on the cross to erase their sins. To God, this is a sign of idol worship. To God, worshiping an action is no different than worshiping a statue. If we truly loved and believed in Jesus, we would follow in his footsteps, we would live our lives as he lived his. The Buddhists love and believe in the Buddha, and so they live their lives following the ways of the Buddha. If Christians truly loved, believed in and worshiped Jesus the Christ, the world would be a different place.  There would be no inquisition, no crusades, no witch trials, no slavery, no judgment, to economic disparity, no withholding of health care, no prejudice and no poverty. The more wealth a Christian society had, the more it would have to give to the people. We do not worship Jesus as the Son of God, we do not worship Jesus, we worship the sacrifice that we interpret as having saved us from having to live the life of Jesus.

Satan saw this in Job. When God called together the Sons of God and Satan to show what an exemplary human being Job was, Satan immediately saw that Job loved and worshiped God because of the wonderful life that God had given him. Job followed the laws and did all of the things that were expected of him, but there was something in his love that was lacking. God gave Satan permission, in increments, to test Job until finally Job did turn against God. Eventually, after God spoke to Job, Job evolved from a superficial worship based upon what God did for him and the fear of what God could do to him, to a deep love and awe of God.  This love was not conditioned on what Job wanted from God it was an unconditional love of God in all of His Majesty. Once Job was filled with the love of God without condition, God rewarded him with more than he had to begin with.  However, by then, nothing that God could give to Job could increase the wealth that he had in the shadow of the true and deep love that he had for God.

I know many people who love Jesus, and do not believe that he died for their sins; they love Jesus for the same reason that the Buddhists love the Buddha; it is for the divine immeasurable  love and compassion that pours from each of their hearts for all of God’s creatures.

In the Old Testament Satan is not the enemy of God, but the adversary of man, the tester. Satan tests our love for God, believing that if nothing else that we do is perfect, our love for God should be pure and, uncompromising. Jesus proved His to be so. Satan tempted Jesus just as he tempts all of us, with money, power, status – envy, hatred, prejudice, and judgment, all of the things that fuel the ego and deplete the spirit. Satan tests us because he is the last gate to pass through before God. He guards God against those whose love is not true. Religion is one of Satan’s biggest tools, because it can be used to divide and distract. Some religions cause our egos to be so devoutly attached and protective of our division, that we forget the One God we are supposed to be giving our devotion to.

I believe that we are moving in a direction to a new Christianity for the twenty-first century. It will be a religion that will carry us to the end of time. It will be made up of true Christians who will sell off all that they do not need beyond modest comfort, and give the excess to the poor. They will follow the Christ just as the Buddhists follow the Buddha, and there will be no discrepancy between the teaching of Jesus and actions of  those who follow in his name. It could be called, “The Followers of the Living Christ”. This will be a religion that unites rather than divides, and embraces rather that excludes. It will be one that is defined by love, understanding, faith, forgiveness, humility and compassion - all of the qualities  that defined the Christ himself.