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Phoenix Rising:
You have said that, for the most part, humans are doing the
best they can. Nevertheless, throughout our many cultures,
we have differing values that cause social conflict and even
inner conflict. Terrorists seem to believe that their ends
justify any means. Some people believe that killing another
human is never justifiable for any purpose, even self-defense,
yet police sometimes have to make a decision to kill one person
in order to save another. Some people are unable to swat a
mosquito, but are okay with putting up houses to attract bats
that will do the killing for them. I’d like to explore
ethical decisions and dilemmas such as these and the principles
behind them that play such a big part in the world scene and
in our personal lives from one minute to the next.
Samuel:
When I say “You’re always doing the best
you can,” it is with regard to victimization. If you
are willing to come from the perspective that others are doing
their best, then you’re going to be coming from a different
angle in your thinking about them and their actions. That’s
not saying that everybody really is doing their best all the
time.
Thank you for clarifying that.
First, I want to know how you define the words
ethics and morality: The dictionary gives them as synonyms,
but you make a distinction. Would you say that morality depends
on individual or culturally acquired beliefs, whereas ethicality
relates to higher spiritual principles?
Ethics are based on culturally acceptable
norms, and differ with different classes within a society
and between different societies in the world. Ethics are man-made.
Morals tend to be security-oriented spiritual philosophies.
Do you understand what I’m saying there?
So morality refers to applying spiritual law
to how one plays out one’s life and the decisions one
makes.
And what is the number-one vehicle for that
definition? I’ll give you a hint. It starts with “religion.”
And ends with religion?
That’s right. Essentially what I’m
saying is that ethics is the means by which people act in
the world and is an outflow of ego, and morality is a means
of controlling instinctual behavior for the purposes of higher
function. As opposed to higher function causing a change,
in the way of functioning through instinctive behavior.
And what term would you use for those higher
principles?
I would call that spiritual.
Remember this, too. I don’t like rules.
I don’t like tying something down to “Here is how
this works.” I don’t like limiting truth by how
it functions in any one life, either. Perspective is everything.
That will probably affect the approach to many
of these questions.
For most humans, religion has said, “If
you do this thing, you will…,” and then there’s
some carrot placed in front of that. “You will have a
happy life.” “You will be successful.” “You
will live forever in paradise.”
Ethics is the system by which one curbs
behavior in order to acquire a particular goal. Morality is
the means by which one curbs their thinking to affect their
behavior in order to choose a particular goal. What are journalists’
ethics? What are a lawyer’s ethics?
They are prescribed rules, in a sense.
Yes. What is considered immoral?
Something that goes against one’s higher
principles.
If that is the case, there should never
be group taboos. And yet there are, which is why morality
is a thought system, as well.
What you really want is to learn your personal
morality and, from that, develop your personal ethics. Humans
want rules, because then they can put them into their moral-ethical-behavioral
system, to have the result—the paradise—that they
want in a small or a big picture. And if the rule doesn’t
work, then they think the rule is wrong, not their expectations.
I think I’m looking for rules because I
want to understand the higher principles, if they exist—because
I want to “think like Source,” to get into Source’s
head, so to speak. I’m trying to understand those principles
by which the Universe operates.
And as much as I not only understand and
encourage that, the fact is, all you’re going to find
is maybe the foundational reason that humanity made certain
principles up, and at any given time, the current version
of them. Because there is no getting down to the basics of
anything in the realm of form. It’s all illusion.
However, as a Guardian, you are not only
asked, you are expected, to behave above the ethics and morals
in the world. So, the reason these dilemmas come up is that
in order to become your most spiritually effective self, you
are not only asked to buy into the ethics and morals, you
are asked to use them as a springboard to move higher. So
when I say it’s all just illusion, and it’s all
just made up by humanity for different forms of manipulation,
there are Guardians who automatically say, “Wait a minute!
You tell us we must be impeccable. We are stuck with the Law
of Karma with regard to all of these behaviors. If they are
not rules, why are we expected to move beyond them?”
And of course that’s what Guardianship at this time of
transition is all about: creating the doorway that allows
building one set of principles into the new—what will
be.
It would seem that religious and spiritual
leaders, even with the best of intentions, guide their followers
in ways that can lead to horrible results. How can we understand
these higher principles that Guardians should be using without
reference to spiritual authorities such as yourself? How do
we know within ourselves how Source “thinks” without
reference to what you tell us or an Arabian sheik tells us?
You, as a Guardian, you as humanity, you
as readers, you as the world as a whole at this point in time,
you are always seeking that which affirms your personal experience.
You will always seek those who think like you do, express
like you do. It takes a function of mastery to be able to
leave that behind and enjoy a person who thinks very differently
than you do.
Most humans have a tendency to believe what
they think and what they do is right, and they will seek out
those teachers and teachings that affirm their version of
right. Thus, in this world at any given time, there is not
any one version of “Truth.” There are a multitude
of versions available for humanity to say, “That one
is my truth,” or “That one is my truth, and I will
defend it to the death.” Because it’s based on,
but wa-a-ay separated from, that internal knowing of what
is Truth. Which is why I regularly say, “Don’t pay
attention to the messenger. Pay attention to the message.
Run it through your heart. If you find that this is a truth
worth paying attention to, do so, and if not, run as far as
you can as fast as you can.”
There is no Truth in form beyond eight thousand
versions of “live love,” each version dependent
upon the cultural and individual mores that define living
that love.
So, are there absolute rules by which we should
govern our lives, and to what extent is life about developing
these rules, individually, racially, or culturally, for ourselves?
You have seen the sign on a restaurant door
that says, “No shirt, no shoes, no service.” If
you want to eat there, you put shoes on. If you don’t
want to put shoes on, you accept that you’re not going
to eat there. Now, on a small basis, that’s what you’re
doing every day of your life any time that you have what you
think of as a morally-based security decision to make—and
you believe all of your security decisions are morally-based.
You are looking at, “I’m a part of this culture,
so I must behave like this in order to be accepted. To go
to the restaurant of American life, I must put on shirt and
shoes.” It’s either worth it to you or it’s
not.
On a much larger scale, the purpose for
the sign “No shirt, no shoes, no service” is to
separate out those people who are willing to accept that limitation
to get what they want. Why would it be important for the Universe
to have individuals that are willing to put up with a boundary
in order to achieve what they want? I’ll give you a hint.
Think transition team; think Guardian.
To make sure it happens.
If you’re going to be in a world that
is exceptionally limited and is going to require, because
of that, a certain amount of sacrifice and a lot of trust
and faith—which is where religions come in—you are
going to need individuals who are willing to say, “I
will go through this in order to achieve that.” In a
very short term, that’s what all of humanity is doing,
in their own individual way, but in a bigger picture, that’s
exactly what Guardians are doing by being here.
You’re sort of describing the martyr to
a cause.
And at any given time that definition of
martyr could mean something as simple as self-sacrifice, or
it could mean the much bigger sacrifice of one’s life.
But, all right, martyr for a cause—as long as you don’t
say victim to the cause.
Sacrifice can create an opening for something
greater to flow in and I guess that is why Guardians come
to the planet, to help bring that about. So to me, sacrifice
is temporarily putting off gratification of desires to create
an opening for something bigger. The word martyr unfortunately
has a negative connotation to me.
And here’s the thing with that: A Guardian
is incapable of maintaining that larger picture if the human
part is unable to do it. That is the microcosm reflecting
the macrocosm.
So that means the effectiveness of the Guardian’s
work is limited by what the human can hold in terms of the
consciousness.
Exactly.
So much of human conflict is the result of doing
faithful service to different ideals which taken by themselves
seem admirable. Would you comment on the belief that serving
what I believe is good makes it okay to harm a person I believe
to be doing evil?
It is not possible for me to explain to
you humans’ misuse of Universal principles. A teacher
can only have the influence over you that you give. So, when
someone teaches you to accept this or that sort of harmful
behavior, you still have the choice. The choice is affected
by the context of your life; if someone puts out a teaching
that says you have the right to eliminate from the world anybody
who does not agree, and you are surrounded by others whom
you respect and care for who agree with that teacher, then
you are going to push aside your own doubt and go with it.
You need to look very, very carefully at any teaching that
goes against what your heart tells you.
There are all manner of things that you
don’t believe now that you used to, or that you do believe
now and did not used to. And what you want to be careful of
is that you don’t become a hypocrite by saying, “Well,
this one doesn’t matter too much, so it’s all right
to not believe this and not to do that, but this is the big
stuff and it really does matter.” Because the fact is,
it all matters. And to go back to the illustration you used,
if it’s not all right to kill, then it’s not all
right to kill a mosquito. But the justification that it’s
all right to kill a mosquito would be the same one that you’d
use to kill something higher on the food chain. Until people
can see that connection, they’re not going to be following
Universal principles; they’re going to follow religious
or cultural beliefs.
How do you avoid going overboard in the service
of “goodness?”
Remembering that “goodness” is
a personally defined perspective.
It is good to save a spider, but when she has
a web full of newly hatched babies, saving them all could
take the rest of the day and seemingly be contrary to the
rules of nature, which call for reproduction at a rate that
replaces one individual with another. All species have the
capacity to reproduce vastly more than replacement requires,
such as an insect which might lay 10,000 eggs. If it is normal
for nature to prune these species back so they don’t
overwhelm the environment, why is it ethically questionable
for us to swat a mosquito or spray an aphid?
Where does your current technology, which
can extend life no matter what the quality, fit with this?
I’m not sure.
Well, think about it for a moment. Why would
it not be right to swat a mosquito or spray an aphid if it’s
interfering with something that’s important to you, if
it’s making your garden less productive or passing along
a disease that you don’t want? You justify based on your
perception of worthiness. “My needs are more important
than that mosquito’s needs.” In your society you
have adapted that behavior, and it shows up in your medical
technology, for instance, in which I can keep you alive even
if you are unproductive, a drain on society and not happy
with your own life. It comes from a lack of respect for life
in both of those situations. And that, not the swat, is what’s
dangerous.
When choices must be made between two human
lives or between the life of a human and another mammal, how
should we be guided? Is the “value” of a life associated
with a level of consciousness or awareness that an individual,
or a species, might have attained, or the amount of “good”
it is doing? How does the Universe assess the value of a life?
The Universe does not assess a value. So
where does that value come from? It’s a self-preservation,
personal-security matter. I’m not saying there is no
value. I’m saying the Universe does not assess a different
value in one place than it does another. Nature has a certain
valuation, and humans tend to use that as a way of basing
their own valuation. In nature, to use a rather trite phrase,
“survival of the fittest”—which is not always
accurate, you know—is often thought to be the rule. Humans
have taken that, and so, when they run you over with their
own desires, if you’re strong enough to deal with it,
then you move up in the food chain. If you’re not strong
enough to deal with it, then too bad; your weakened genetics
make you unworthy. And it’s all a part of “If you
believe the same thing that I do, you are good, and if you
do not believe what I do you’re not good.” It’s
all designed to keep you in line, or, when it’s you putting
that out, make the argument that you’re right. It is
not based on where the Universe is coming from; it’s
based on your fear of insignificance.
But we do have to make choices. Spraying aphids
is an example. It can come down to the question, Do I eat
the apple or do I let the worm eat the apple—taken to
the extreme, does it survive or do I survive? So what should
guide us there? How do we make that decision. Is it fair—is
“fair” even an applicable concept in discussing
whether my life is worth more than the worm’s?
As far as the Universe is concerned, no,
it’s not an applicable concept. But insofar as your human
needs are concerned, it is, and insofar as your Guardianship
is concerned, it is. And the reason for that is that it’s
all a part of functioning within this dimension of form. In
this dimension, you are not adhering to a Universal principle;
you are adhering to a Universal principle as understood by
form, which is greatly limited. More than that, understanding
is based on each particular level of consciousness. The human
understanding of it is of course going to be based upon the
survival of the human. The worm’s version of it is going
to be based upon the survival of the worm.
The worm doesn’t even ask. The human has
the capability of asking the question.
So which one of those is right? It’s
a contextual answer. The worm has all it wants out in the
abandoned orchard that nobody pays any attention to anymore.
It doesn’t have a good life when it weasels its way into
an orchard where aphids are sprayed and mosquitoes are swatted.
Does it make the worm bad because it got into an orchard where
it will surely die? It was just doing worm things.
The pertinent question to me is, Does it make
the person bad for not having compassion for the worm and
carrying it to the abandoned orchard?
Yes and no. It depends upon the awareness
of the human. Do you know the Hindu sect that does not harm
any life? And yet, that’s not true.
You sweep the sidewalk in front of you, and
you’re still killing insects that you don’t want
to step on.
And, unless you acid-washed your body, you
are a living symbiotic host.
And if you do acid-wash your body, you destroy
all that life.
And all multitudes of beings. It’s
not possible to give yourself an excuse by claiming an innocent
heart. “I’m doing my best to revere all life. The
only life that I harm is by an unconscious mistake. Therefore
I am very holy.” No. Therefore you are very legalistic.
Therefore you are very egotistic. Therefore you are very unable
to function with higher consciousness in the world that you
live in, because in the world in which you live, the rule
is “Live love,” not “Save all life.” I
love you more than you can possibly imagine. Therefore [ironically]
I have never hurt your feelings or called you out on bad behavior.
But that’s not true. It’s because of that love that
I say to you, “Wait, don’t go there.” Because
the love of Source is an active function of living here, and
living here is going to mean you are going to make some decisions
that are going to have an effect on all life around you, and
it’s going to have an effect that some people will say
is evil and wrong and some people will say makes you a saint
and worthy of paradise. And some people will say, “Just
do what you’re here to do,” and keep on doing it.
If you buy into “This is what is worthy
of heaven and this is what is not,” then you are not
living love. You are living comparative judgment, cultural
acceptance, and—here it comes again—egotistical
behaviors. There is a big difference between being morally
correct and being aligned with Source. What is morally right
for you to do right now is changeable. It’s the decision
you make that determines the effect on you; it’s not
the rules you are following. And ultimately that is by far
a harder taskmaster than any religious or personal code of
honor. It would be so much nicer if the Universe said, “All
right, look, here are the three things that you must live
by.” Or maybe “Here are the ten things you must
live by. If you follow them, you will be God’s favorite
child.” And you know that, of course, even with a list
of commandments, religions determine the definition of each
one of those according to what it needs and what culture can
withstand at the time. And they do that by trying to break
it into little acceptable bites, like the “honor your
father and mother.”
A Guardian is held accountable beyond a
human acceptance of values, ethics and morals. But then what
if father and mother do something that is known to be wrong?
Should you not honor them then? Although it might be enough
for the unawakened to behave in a way that is civilly acceptable
and consider that enough, it is not true for the Guardian.
And the Guardian has an even greater problem in addition,
because the higher into mastery you work, the less leeway
there is for you to justify behavior that is not a part of
the greater view of love.
Are there differences between the choices a
Guardian should make and those that should be made within
mass consciousness? By which I mean, Are there situations
in which what is right for one is wrong for another?
Absolutely, and I have given examples of those
in the past when I say, “but for Guardians that doesn’t
work. Guardians are called to a different standard.”
Communication is a good example, or functioning within relationships.
But it’s not incorrect for the non-Guardian
to act by that higher standard. I mean are there conflicting
standards, or is one just a higher perspective that we grow
into?
Unfortunately it’s yes for both. And of
course that seems very conflicting.
A Guardian is required to fulfill compacts.
Humanity is not. For humanity, following some of its compacts
can be wrong. So, as an example, a Guardian is required to
speak truth. (Quick aside: YOU are not required to speak it
aloud all of the time.) Truth, as you know it. To lie is going
to bring about negative consequences. It is better to say
nothing. Humans, on the other hand, mass consciousness as
a whole, often survives through untruth. And since survival
is the rule of their life, it is all right for them to speak
untruth to survive. That’s radically different. However,
it’s based on a Guardian having a different definition
of survival. This experience is not about your living as long
as you can. It’s not about surviving in the urban jungle.
It’s not about catering to your fears in order to live
another day. It’s about fulfilling your commitment to
bring about the completion of the Plan for this planet and
all life force on it. And that standard makes it different.
An active Guardian is not capable of consistently functioning
by the standards of the world, and trying to do so will cause
that Guardian to become ultimately separated, to become unable
to function in either world. That’s why it’s such
a danger.
When you judge yourself by the world’s
standards, you will always find yourself lacking, because
the decisions you make every day are not based on the world’s
standards. It’s important to realize that, so that if
you’re going to be beating yourself up, you’re going
to beat yourself up for the right thing.
Is there a moral difference between causing
something to occur and, through inaction, allowing it to occur?
As a Guardian, in order to live love here,
you are required to develop certain abilities. By developing
those abilities, you become capable of creating, magically
maybe, what is needed for you to continue on. By not making
use of your highest potential and therefore not being able
to create what you need to do what you have to do, you are
going to be able to justify and excuse having a hard time,
in living a less productive and more unhappy life. As a Guardian,
by not doing you are going to cause yourself to judge yourself
by human standards, because mass consciousness judges itself
as worthy or unworthy based upon what does and does not confirm
its belief in itself.
The only thing mass consciousness can create
by inaction is dysfunction; a Guardian’s inaction creates
a lack of life, of passion, a spiritual problem. Inaction
in a human will create problems in their everyday experience.
Inaction as a Guardian is going to cause you to have guilt
and separation from your spiritual self. Inaction is action.
Sometimes even lofty intent leads to bad effects—an
act done in love may produce harm, such as feeding a hungry
person contaminated food or misreading a prescription in a
hospital. Does the karmic consequence of an act depend on
the intent or the outcome, or is karma even a factor here?
Karma is not a function of intent; it is
a function of action. Every action has a consequence; every
thought has a consequence; “every intent” moves
you into a different level altogether. As a Guardian you are
responsible for your intent. As mass consciousness, you are
responsible for the thought and action, and word.
Of course the thrust of this is, where does
responsibility for the outcome lie?
I’m missing something here. It seems
very clear to me.
The nurse lovingly administers the medication,
not knowing it’s the wrong one. The patient dies as a
result.
Depending upon the system of rules of that
society, that nurse may or may not be required to pay a price,
but even with unintended outcomes, that consequence will show
up as punishment for itself depending upon where that individual
is working in their own spiritual process. You may be forever
guilty and upset by that, even though it is not your fault.
And that’s because you acted within the process, and
a certain amount of that action is going to require you to
be responsible. If you live in a society—which you do
not—that says, “No problem; no consequences”
that version will never show up. But you do live in a society
that seeks blame. Where you have a society that seeks blame,
you are, within yourself, going to accept some of the consequences,
whether they are—I want to say “whether or not they
are right,” but if they are right in your society, they
are right.
You’re answering in a culturally bound
framework, and I’m trying to get above that.
I’ve already said to you, there is
nothing above that. Life is life.
Are you saying in this instance that in the
Universe’s perspective there’s no difference between
murder one and manslaughter?
Yes, I am saying that. The Universe is not
looking at the action. Humans are looking at the action. The
Universe is looking at what created the action.
The person’s intent. But I thought we just
determined that the intent is irrelevant.
No, the intent is a higher function than
thought, word and deed, and if you’re looking at it for
mass consciousness, you can only look through thought, word
and deed. But if you are looking for yourself, you as a Guardian,
then you are looking at intent rather than thought, word and
deed. You are called into action for the intent; mass consciousness
is called into action for what caused them to make that action.
Well, humanity says, “You’re receiving
this punishment because you’re responsible for this death.”
The Universe says to us, “You are innocent because of
your intent. Your intent was in service of life but something
went crazy, something went awry.”
No. It’s more like the world saying,
“You are responsible for this,” and the Universe
saying, “For what?”
There are things you consider bad that I
don’t: Triunities, nudity, masturbation—these are
silly ones, and yet there are cultural taboos all over them.
What the Universe is looking at is where you make that decision,
not what that decision is about, not what moral code you are
basing it on in this particular life.
If you lived by yourself as a hermit on
a mountain—never seeing anybody—you would be just
as responsible for your life as you are right now. There are
no breaks; there are no easier ways. But the acting out of
it is how the world judges it easy or not.
Well, it gives a different context. The accepted
common reality makes all the difference, because it’s
back to perspective on a large scale. It’s telling me
that as Guardians we need to look beyond that.
We need to be aware of how mass consciousness
lives within those realities and be able to function with
that, but be able to go beyond it, too.
Yes. Yes.
On the trip to Brazil, someone in our group
expressed an interest in going piranha fishing. To me that
seems incongruent, that a Guardian would get enjoyment out
of taking the life or inflicting pain on another creature.
It seems like this relates to those ideas about right and
wrong. I also wanted to ask, Is a vegetarian diet any more
compassionate than a diet of a carnivore? A vegetarian has
to take plant life.
Both of those questions recognize that there
is a bigger picture that needs to be looked at and that your
personal judgment of it may or may not be accurate.
You are responsible for what you know. But
you are also responsible for what you don’t know if you
are refusing to look at a particular perspective.
You mean if you’ve chosen ignorance.
Yes. You don’t get away with that.
But you will never have all-knowing. There will always be
things that Angela has learned and mastered but Stuart has
not. Therefore she cannot judge Stuart because she does not
know why he does not know it. At the other extreme, you have
access to that knowing, and if you are purposely resisting
that knowledge, it doesn’t give you an out.
There are a lot of things in your world
that someone would look at and see as the equivalent of piranha
fishing. To a vegan it’s possible that wearing leather
shoes is unacceptable, but that’s acceptable to a vegetarian.
But to the cow, it doesn’t matter if you’re vegan
or vegetarian; to a plant, it doesn’t matter if you’re
vegan or vegetarian. But due to your need to justify your
beliefs, you will put on the label vegan or vegetarian and
force yourself to live by those constructs so that you don’t
have to think through every bit of it.
You cannot live in this world harmlessly.
By being here you are creating change of one sort or another
everywhere you go.
But is there a difference between that and knowingly
participating in an activity for personal gratification, knowing
that it’s inflicting pain.
It is not possible for a Guardian to do
that. A Guardian can participate in the action, but is not
free of the consequences, and the consequences are bigger
because it’s a Guardian.
What sort of consequences does a Guardian suffer?
Well, you go piranha fishing, knowing that
it’s going to create harm no matter how you justify it—after
all, the world needs a few less fish, or mosquitoes, or snakes.
But you will not forget it. You will think
about it and feel badly about it. You will build walls so
that you can stop thinking about it, and separate, and you
will eventually become a hardened person because of that tiny
thing. You pay greatly for it. I would have no need to speak
to anybody personally about things going on in their lives
if there were not times in which you choose to  inflict
pain in one way or another.
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