HHHhhmm I love this fuckin book
Guy asks: What’s wrong with that? You said yourself sometimes war is necessary to end evil.
We’re going to have to elaborate on that, because I can see that statement being used and misused-just as you are doing now-to try to make all sorts of points, or rationalize all sorts of insanity.
By the highest standards I have observed humans devise, killing can never be justified as a means of expressing anger, releasing hostility, “righting a wrong” or punishing an offender. The statement that war is sometimes necessary to end evil stands true-for you have made it so. You have determined, in the creation of Self, that respect for all human life is, and must be, a high prime value. I am pleased with your decision, because I did not create life that it may be destroyed.
It is respect for life, which sometimes makes war necessary, for it is through war against immediate threat to another life, that you make a statement of Who You Are in relationship to that.
You have a right under highest moral law-indeed, you have an obligation under that law-to stop aggression on the person of another, or yourself.
This does not mean that killing as a punishment is appropriate, nor as retribution, nor as a means of settling petty differences.
In your past you have killed in personal duels over the affection of a woman, for heavens sake, and called this protecting your honor, when it was all honor you were losing. It is absurd to use deadly force as an argument solver. Many humans are still using force-killing force-to solve ridiculous arguments even today.
Reaching to the height of hypocrisy, some humans even kill in the name of God-and that is the highest blasphemy, for it does not speak of Who You Are.
Guy asks: Oh, then there IS something wrong with killing??
Lets back up. There’s nothing “wrong” with anything. “Wrong” is a relative term, indicating the opposite of that which you call “right.”
Yet, what is “right”? Can you be truly objective in these matters? Or are “right” and “wrong” simply descriptions overlaid on events and circumstances by you, out of your decision about them?
And what, pray tell, forms the basis of your decision? Your own experience? No. In most cases, you’ve chosen to accept someone else’s decision. Someone who came before you, and presumably, knows better. Very few,of your daily decisions about what is “right” and “wrong” are being made by you, based on your understanding.
This is especially true on important matters. In fact, the more important the matter, the less likely are you to listen to your own experience, and the more ready you seem to be to make someone else’s ideas your own.
This explains why you’ve given up virtually total control over certain areas of your life, and certain questions that arise within the human experience.
These areas and questions very often include the subjects most vital to your soul: the nature of God; the nature of morality; the question of ultimate reality; the issues of life and death surrounding war, medicine, abortion, euthanasia, the whole sum and substance of personal values, structures, judgments. These most of you have abrogated, assigned to others. You don’t want to make your own decisions about them.
“Someone else decide!” I’ll go along, I’ll go along!” you shout. “Someone else just tell me what’s right and wrong!”
This is why, by the way, human religions are so popular. It almost doesn’t matter what the belief system is, as long as it’s firm, consistent, clear in its expectation of the follower, and rigid. Given those characteristics, you can find people who believe in almost anything. The strangest behavior and belief can be-has been-attributed to God. It’s God’s way, they say. God’s word.
And there are those who will accept that. Gladly. Because, you see, it eliminates the need to think. Now, let’s think about killing. Can there ever be a justifiable reason for killing anything? Think about it. You’ll find you need no outside authority to give you direction, no higher source to supply you with answers. If you think about it, if you look to see what you feel about it, the answers will be obvious to you, and you will act accordingly. This is called acting on your own authority.
It is when you act on the authority of others that you get yourself into trouble. Should states and nations use killing to achieve their political objectives? Should religions use killing to enforce their theological imperatives? Should societies use killing as a response to those who violate behavioral codes?
Is killing an appropriate political remedy, spiritual convincer, or societal problem solver? Now, is killing something you can do if someone is trying to kill you? Would you use killing force to defend the life of a loved one? Someone you didn’t even know? Is killing a proper form of defense against those who would kill if they are not in some other way stopped? Is there a difference between killing and murder? The state would have you believe that killing to complete a purely political agenda is perfectly defensible. In fact, the state NEEDS you to take its word on this in order to exist as an entity of power.
Religions would have you believe that killing to spread and maintain knowledge of, and adherence to, their particular truth is perfectly defensible. In fact, religions require you to take their word on this in order to exist as an entity of power.
Society would have you believe that killing to punish those who commit certain offenses(these have changed throughout the years) is perfectly defensible. In fact, society must have you take its word for it in order to exist as an entity of power.
Do you believe these positions are correct? Have you taken another’s word for it? What does your Self have to say?
There is no “right” or “wrong” in these matters. But by your decisions you paint a portrait of Who You Are.
Indeed, by their decisions your states and nations have already painted such pictures.
By their decisions your religions have created lasting, indelible impressions.
By their decisions your societies have produced their self-portraits, too.
Are you pleased with these pictures? Do these portraits represent Who You Are?
Be careful of these questions. They may require you to think.
Thinking is hard. Making value judgments is difficult. It places you at pure creation, because there are so many times you’ll have to say, “I don’t know. I just don’t know.” Yet still you’ll have to decide. And so you’ll have to choose. You’ll have to make an arbitrary choice.
Such a choice-a decision coming from no previous personal knowledge-is called pure creation. And the individual is aware, deeply aware, that in the making of such decisions is the Self created.
Most of you are not interested in such important work. Most of you would rather leave that to others. And so most of you are not self-created, but creatures of habit-other created creatures.
Then, when others have told you how you should feel, it runs directly counter to how you do feel-you experience a deep inner conflict. Something deep inside you tells you that what others have told you is not Who You Are. Now where to go with that? What to do?
The first place you go is to your religionists-the people who put you there in the first place. You go to your priests and your rabbis and your ministers and your teachers, and they tell you to stop listening to your SELF. Scare you away from what you intuitively know! They’ll tell you about the devil, about Satan, about demons and evil spirits and hell and damnation and every frightening thing they can think of to get you to see how what you were intuitively knowing and feeling was WRONG, and how the only place you’ll find any comfort is in their thought, their idea, their theology, their definitions of right and wrong, and their concept of Who You Are.
The seduction here is that all you have to do to get instant approval is to agree. Agree and you have instant approval. Some will even sing and shout and dance and wave their arms in hallelujah!
That’s hard to resist. Such approval, such rejoicing that you have seen the light; that you have been saved! Approvals and demonstrations seldom accompany inner decisions. Celebrations rarely surround choices to follow personal truth. In fact, quite the contrary. Not only may others fail to celebrate, they may actually subject you to ridicule. What? You’re thinking for yourself? You’re going to decide on your own? You’re applying your own yardsticks, your own judgments, your own values? Who do you think you are, anyway?
And, indeed, that is precisely the question you are answering.
But the work must be done very much alone, very much without reward, without approval, perhaps without even notice.
And so you ask a very good question. Why go on? Why even start off on such a path? What is to be gained from embarking on such a journey? Where is the incentive? What IS the reason? The reason is ridiculously simple.
THERE IS NOTHING ELSE TO DO.
Guy: What do you mean?
I mean this is the only game in town. There is nothing else to do. In fact there is nothing else you CAN do. You are you going to be doing what you are doing for the rest of your life-just as you have been doing it since birth. The only question is whether you’ll be doing it consciously, or unconsciously.
We’re going to have to elaborate on that, because I can see that statement being used and misused-just as you are doing now-to try to make all sorts of points, or rationalize all sorts of insanity.
By the highest standards I have observed humans devise, killing can never be justified as a means of expressing anger, releasing hostility, “righting a wrong” or punishing an offender. The statement that war is sometimes necessary to end evil stands true-for you have made it so. You have determined, in the creation of Self, that respect for all human life is, and must be, a high prime value. I am pleased with your decision, because I did not create life that it may be destroyed.
It is respect for life, which sometimes makes war necessary, for it is through war against immediate threat to another life, that you make a statement of Who You Are in relationship to that.
You have a right under highest moral law-indeed, you have an obligation under that law-to stop aggression on the person of another, or yourself.
This does not mean that killing as a punishment is appropriate, nor as retribution, nor as a means of settling petty differences.
In your past you have killed in personal duels over the affection of a woman, for heavens sake, and called this protecting your honor, when it was all honor you were losing. It is absurd to use deadly force as an argument solver. Many humans are still using force-killing force-to solve ridiculous arguments even today.
Reaching to the height of hypocrisy, some humans even kill in the name of God-and that is the highest blasphemy, for it does not speak of Who You Are.
Guy asks: Oh, then there IS something wrong with killing??
Lets back up. There’s nothing “wrong” with anything. “Wrong” is a relative term, indicating the opposite of that which you call “right.”
Yet, what is “right”? Can you be truly objective in these matters? Or are “right” and “wrong” simply descriptions overlaid on events and circumstances by you, out of your decision about them?
And what, pray tell, forms the basis of your decision? Your own experience? No. In most cases, you’ve chosen to accept someone else’s decision. Someone who came before you, and presumably, knows better. Very few,of your daily decisions about what is “right” and “wrong” are being made by you, based on your understanding.
This is especially true on important matters. In fact, the more important the matter, the less likely are you to listen to your own experience, and the more ready you seem to be to make someone else’s ideas your own.
This explains why you’ve given up virtually total control over certain areas of your life, and certain questions that arise within the human experience.
These areas and questions very often include the subjects most vital to your soul: the nature of God; the nature of morality; the question of ultimate reality; the issues of life and death surrounding war, medicine, abortion, euthanasia, the whole sum and substance of personal values, structures, judgments. These most of you have abrogated, assigned to others. You don’t want to make your own decisions about them.
“Someone else decide!” I’ll go along, I’ll go along!” you shout. “Someone else just tell me what’s right and wrong!”
This is why, by the way, human religions are so popular. It almost doesn’t matter what the belief system is, as long as it’s firm, consistent, clear in its expectation of the follower, and rigid. Given those characteristics, you can find people who believe in almost anything. The strangest behavior and belief can be-has been-attributed to God. It’s God’s way, they say. God’s word.
And there are those who will accept that. Gladly. Because, you see, it eliminates the need to think. Now, let’s think about killing. Can there ever be a justifiable reason for killing anything? Think about it. You’ll find you need no outside authority to give you direction, no higher source to supply you with answers. If you think about it, if you look to see what you feel about it, the answers will be obvious to you, and you will act accordingly. This is called acting on your own authority.
It is when you act on the authority of others that you get yourself into trouble. Should states and nations use killing to achieve their political objectives? Should religions use killing to enforce their theological imperatives? Should societies use killing as a response to those who violate behavioral codes?
Is killing an appropriate political remedy, spiritual convincer, or societal problem solver? Now, is killing something you can do if someone is trying to kill you? Would you use killing force to defend the life of a loved one? Someone you didn’t even know? Is killing a proper form of defense against those who would kill if they are not in some other way stopped? Is there a difference between killing and murder? The state would have you believe that killing to complete a purely political agenda is perfectly defensible. In fact, the state NEEDS you to take its word on this in order to exist as an entity of power.
Religions would have you believe that killing to spread and maintain knowledge of, and adherence to, their particular truth is perfectly defensible. In fact, religions require you to take their word on this in order to exist as an entity of power.
Society would have you believe that killing to punish those who commit certain offenses(these have changed throughout the years) is perfectly defensible. In fact, society must have you take its word for it in order to exist as an entity of power.
Do you believe these positions are correct? Have you taken another’s word for it? What does your Self have to say?
There is no “right” or “wrong” in these matters. But by your decisions you paint a portrait of Who You Are.
Indeed, by their decisions your states and nations have already painted such pictures.
By their decisions your religions have created lasting, indelible impressions.
By their decisions your societies have produced their self-portraits, too.
Are you pleased with these pictures? Do these portraits represent Who You Are?
Be careful of these questions. They may require you to think.
Thinking is hard. Making value judgments is difficult. It places you at pure creation, because there are so many times you’ll have to say, “I don’t know. I just don’t know.” Yet still you’ll have to decide. And so you’ll have to choose. You’ll have to make an arbitrary choice.
Such a choice-a decision coming from no previous personal knowledge-is called pure creation. And the individual is aware, deeply aware, that in the making of such decisions is the Self created.
Most of you are not interested in such important work. Most of you would rather leave that to others. And so most of you are not self-created, but creatures of habit-other created creatures.
Then, when others have told you how you should feel, it runs directly counter to how you do feel-you experience a deep inner conflict. Something deep inside you tells you that what others have told you is not Who You Are. Now where to go with that? What to do?
The first place you go is to your religionists-the people who put you there in the first place. You go to your priests and your rabbis and your ministers and your teachers, and they tell you to stop listening to your SELF. Scare you away from what you intuitively know! They’ll tell you about the devil, about Satan, about demons and evil spirits and hell and damnation and every frightening thing they can think of to get you to see how what you were intuitively knowing and feeling was WRONG, and how the only place you’ll find any comfort is in their thought, their idea, their theology, their definitions of right and wrong, and their concept of Who You Are.
The seduction here is that all you have to do to get instant approval is to agree. Agree and you have instant approval. Some will even sing and shout and dance and wave their arms in hallelujah!
That’s hard to resist. Such approval, such rejoicing that you have seen the light; that you have been saved! Approvals and demonstrations seldom accompany inner decisions. Celebrations rarely surround choices to follow personal truth. In fact, quite the contrary. Not only may others fail to celebrate, they may actually subject you to ridicule. What? You’re thinking for yourself? You’re going to decide on your own? You’re applying your own yardsticks, your own judgments, your own values? Who do you think you are, anyway?
And, indeed, that is precisely the question you are answering.
But the work must be done very much alone, very much without reward, without approval, perhaps without even notice.
And so you ask a very good question. Why go on? Why even start off on such a path? What is to be gained from embarking on such a journey? Where is the incentive? What IS the reason? The reason is ridiculously simple.
THERE IS NOTHING ELSE TO DO.
Guy: What do you mean?
I mean this is the only game in town. There is nothing else to do. In fact there is nothing else you CAN do. You are you going to be doing what you are doing for the rest of your life-just as you have been doing it since birth. The only question is whether you’ll be doing it consciously, or unconsciously.