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Samuel:
These are very good questions because they involve
very specific issues that some people have. They indicate
blindfolds that some people put on themselves, or filters
which everything they live and breathe and do goes through.
Phoenix Rising:
They’re disempowering issues.
And personal responsibility issues, which
is empowerment of course. However, some of the questions are
written in such a way that it would be very easy to bypass
the point that I know is being made, and I want to try not
to do that. So I’m going to work to answer the spirit
of the question or maybe even go beyond what’s actually
asked in order to make sure that this issue can be dealt with
as fully as possible.
The questions seem to fall into three groups.
One of them is manifestation, particularly of the ability
to take part in an abundant life until the day you die. “Is
manifestation different in 5:3:2 from in 4:3:2?” “Are
there rules? How do you follow them? Why do Guardians have
to follow them?” And then you have, “What about
long-term financial planning for a group of people who aren’t
even really sure if there’s a long term to plan?”
And finally, “How do you differentiate between being
responsible for what you have and doing the work that you’re
here to do, and being able to do the fun things—that
are ‘holy,’ of course—that put me in the group
of Those People Who Are More Spiritual because they do all
of this stuff?” These are all good questions.
And, “Can I be doing your work and still
not go on trips and retreats?”
And, of course the answer is?
Yes, you can.
There are people who don’t like to
miss anything. It’s not just that they want to be involved;
they actually feel slighted if the opportunity isn’t
there. A friend tells them, “I bought this wonderful
cup. It’s on sale at Macy’s.” Well this type
of person would then say, “Oh no, I cannot go to Macy’s,
so I’m missing out on that great deal,” whether
or not they really wanted the cup. You see? So I’m going
to try to show what the issues are underneath the thinking
expressed through these questions.
The first question is, “How are the security
issues that Guardians have different from those in mass consciousness?”
They’re not—and they are. They’re
not any different because, as long as you are in a human body,
you are going to be prone to the instinctual security responses
that are required for that body to stay alive long enough
to do what it’s here to do. There’s no difference
there.
However, with the activation of Guardianship,
there is a point where you realize, “I do not want my
instinctual humanness to be what guides me. I choose instead
to be conscious of the spiritual function of being here, and
to direct my actions into responses, rather than security
reactions.” That makes for a very different set of behaviors,
and ideally becomes a new set of trained instincts.
Now, that’s an oxymoron, and yet it’s
more than trained behavior, which practice, practice, practice
will bring to you. It’s more than establishing a neural
pathway that constant visualization will do for you, because
it’s specifically designed to balance—counterbalance,
actually—a survival instinct. Instead of “keep the
body alive at all costs,” it’s “learn to live.”
Do you see that difference?
So if all of a sudden mass consciousness
said, “I’m going to be consciously aware of my spiritual
existence,” what would you have?
The completion of Sacred Status.
But since that hasn’t happened yet,
you can pretty well say that the survival mechanisms, the
attitudes and beliefs, the security needs of typical humanity
are at a different level than those of Guardians, which are,
hopefully, filtered through conscious spiritual behaviors
rather than automatic just-stay-alive behaviors.
“Other than being involved with your work
and living as consciously as we can, how are Guardians’
lives different from those in mass consciousness?”
Being a Guardian does not mean you’re
not human. In a very real way, that could be the answer to
this question; it says a lot. Unfortunately, as often as I
have said that, those words seem to disappear once they go
into the brain. There seems to be no lake—known or unknown—that
holds the awareness that Guardians are human, Guardians have
a human nature; form rules. But the reason for that is that
it is so hard in this culture, and in this world, to accept
that every issue is spiritual. There are no actions that are
just actions, there are no words that are just words; everything
is spiritual.
Human nature wants to set up rules that
say, “If you do these things, you will be spiritual,
and if you do these other things you will not be spiritual,”
instead of moving above that and seeing that when you are
functioning consciously as a spiritual being, everything you
do is touched by that spirit. It has a lot to do with the
individual’s need to have a microwave spiritual life—instant
mastery. That’s what rules are for. “If I do this,
I am spiritual. I can do it.” Poof! But the reality is:
I do this, and everything in my life that is not spiritual
raises up its nasty little head and says, “Woo-hoo! Let’s
stick our foot out and trip her up!” or, “Let’s
show him how this belief from his childhood should be fearing
this.”
The more Guardians become able to function
in an attitude of oneness, the more the form’s security
needs come up, because it begins to fear losing its usefulness.
So, with any major spiritual shift, the
physical is going to sound an alarm by showing you all of
the ways that spiritual shift is only a beginning and not
an end, and the physical will therefore keep you off balance
enough that you must constantly give attention to it. And
that’s life, that’s life. That’s not bad. That’s
not good. Some of you have specifically worked on developing
ways to deal with that, and some of you are blissfully oblivious
to it even being a problem.
The paradigm you’ve created—the frame
of reference which you’re using—suggests that the
human, the physical, is the devil within us, trying to trip
us up.
It goes back to the nature of the questions
thus far. Because the physical experience has survival needs
that have to do with functioning in this world, it would seem
that the spiritual self would also have a counterbalancing
technology, so that by following the spiritual rules you would
be balancing the physical with the spiritual. But in reality
the security of the physical has its own great purpose, and
it should be listened to and paid attention to, because its
needs really amplify what’s going on in the spiritual.
But you’re never going to know that as long as you have
bought into the thinking that things of the world are bad
and things of the spirit are good, and never the twain shall
meet. When you look at things that way, that seems to be exactly
what it’s saying: You reach this pinnacle of bliss, and
the physical pops up and says, “Wait a minute! What about
me?” Well, the response from bliss is “Thank you
for being a part of this so that I am here to experience this
bliss.” But what it more often gets is, “Oh my gosh.
What about you? I’d better get out of bliss, and . .
.” and you let form not just rule but take over and keep
you away from that place of bliss.
Would you say that dealing with the physical
needs in this scenario is a part of the purpose of the spirit
being here, or is it just a necessary fact of life due to
our using form in order to work out spiritual things?
I don’t want you to separate those.
It’s not this or this. Try to see how they enhance each
other.
I’m thinking of an example: My physical
form is not a spiritual thing, so I’m going to ignore
it. So I don’t exercise and I don’t pay attention
to what I eat. But then my body starts failing, and so my
spirit has no vessel. By not keeping them together I really
have taken the spiritual out of it because the spiritual has
no way of operating any more.
That’s true, but what do you do where
you have a situation, such as with the Form [Lea], where “out”
is not only written into the compact, but the very nature
of the work itself would cause the physical problems, no matter
what she did to stay totally fit and healthy. No matter how
spiritual the work, that physical is going to continue to
degrade. What do you say in those situations? And the reason
that I bring it up is because there isn’t a single answer
that you can say “this is how it is for everyone,”
and you run into problems when you’re trying to do that.
Your example was perfect but there are exceptions.
You should base your life on something other than the exceptions,
and a lot of these questions are looking at the exceptions.
The point I’m making about gaining awareness is that
you don’t just want to develop awareness. You want a
firmly established knowing that everything in your experience
is spiritual and everything in your experience is physical
and that there is no conflict there, even though either one
of those will rub you until you give it the attention it needs.
It all has to do with what particular direction you are taking
at the moment, rather than the view of life as a whole at
any given time. By recognizing that there isn’t any separation
except as it is needed for the moment, you are more likely
at that point to be living in the wholeness, the spirit, of
what’s being said and what’s being given, rather
than the exceptions that will show up around it.
“Are your teachings from 4:3:2 about the
manifestation process and how we relate to money still appropriate
in 5:3:2? If not, what are the differences and how do they
impact our spiritual lives and daily focus?”
Remembering that generalities are not totally
accurate, but they work—you might say that 4:3:2 is about
connecting with Source, and 5:3:2 is about being Source. So
4:3:2 was about dealing with money, and 5:3:2 is about understanding
prosperity. The behaviors needed in 4:3:2 would lead you to
understanding prosperity. The behaviors needed in 5:3:2 will
lead you to understanding money. Can you see why that would
be?
Money is an element of prosperity, prosperity
is an element of money—but it’s all about which
hill you’re on as you look at the valley, the broad view
of it all. If you’re on one hill, you’re going to
look into the valley, and you’re going to say, “Oh
look, it’s all about growing soy beans.” And if
you’re on another hill, you’re going to look into
the valley and say, “It’s about keeping the crops
fed and watered so that they are healthy all the way through.”
The spirit of that question is, “Can
you tell me what the rules are now that’s it 5:3:2 so
that if they’re different from the ones in 4:3:2, I can
quit doing them, and if I need to establish some new ones
in 5:3:2, I will know what they are and can begin working
on them?” That is really sweet, but it misses the point.
It’s the doing versus the being.
Yes, but there’s another paradox: Until
you’ve been, you really can’t do; and until you
do, you really can’t be. I would love to say that the
key is just to do your best, just put in your brain that you’re
going to live love, you’re going to be on to you, you’re
not going to resist looking at yourself to recognize your
part in all that’s going on around you. You’re going
to constantly work to release the old and what isn’t
working, and accept the new and develop more loving habits,
more loving functions. You’re going to do the best you
can with what you have at the time, and everything will be
all right, and you’ll never ever have to worry about
anything and only at midnight will your life turn back into
pumpkins and rats. But it doesn’t work that way.
It sounds to me like equilibrium has more to
do with attitude.
Except where you need to be specialists.
What I’m really saying is that there’s not a nice
little box that is the greatest prize you’ve ever won,
that you can just open up that box and have all the answers.
I’m not even going to blame it on free will that you
don’t have that, even though that has a lot to do with
it. But the personality that wants that box is the personality
that is going to constantly be seeking what’s over the
next hill and missing the point about working through what
you need right here where you are—seeing the beauty,
the power, and the prosperity available in that.
I guess that’s why there are no rules of
mastery, because mastery is each individual’s pathway.
It’s their mastery; it’s not the mastery.
That’s right. You know the Buddhists
and the Hindus, since they’re both from the same root,
get that, but if you look at cultural ideas of prosperity
across the world and how they relate to religion, you’ll
find that those Buddhists and Hindus tend to be the poorest
of all cultural groups, they who have that real handle on
the knowledge that it’s an individual path. Is there
a reason for that?
Well, in a lot of societies money is seen as
status.
Yes.
Whereas to them, if it’s an individual
path, the status isn’t what’s important; it’s
an individual’s pathway to where they’re going.
Be sure that gets in the interview, because
that is a hugely important point. That little piece of wisdom
carved out of lifetimes of observation, which is what that
is, is the crux of a personality problem that shows up in
times of transition. It’s related to a survival mechanism.
It’s the desire to be accepted by the group
and feel secure in that.
Yes! Yes! You know that, within the leadership
of my work, I encourage working together, functioning as one,
merging, no “Lone Rangers.” But that’s totally
different from a group path, a group mastery. I think that
people don’t necessarily recognize that sort of difference,
maybe because they’ve never been told there is one, but
there is.
“You have said that financial issues are
the first and last things that a Guardian must deal with.
I understand why that is when we are first on the earth plane,
as we must learn to live here by cause and effect and social
procedures, but why is it also our last issue?”
Remember, even an unawakened Guardian has
a sense that doesn’t ever go away that says there’s
more, more than this [patting chair arm]. And no matter how
masterful and conscious and clear Guardians working at their
absolute highest and best can be, there’s always going
to be the needs of the human self that has to take a very
high priority.
The nature of a mammal is survival—an
instinctual behavior—and everything is about survival
to begin with. And very early on, everyone recognizes that
survival in any culture on this planet requires an exchange
of value, be it “I have grown this food. I will trade
it to you for this lesson,” or be it “This item
will cost you ten dollars.”
If you’re worthless, you’re kicked
out and you die.
Yes. Yes. They put it upon themselves. Even
babies know early on, “I have a value.” Can you
see the pathway that opens out of that instinctual self-statement
that can create havoc for the rest of your life? “I have
a value and it’s not being met. I’m either really
wrong, or the world is really sucky to me.” Neither one
of those is a very good attitude.
You come into this world and it’s about
value. Money is how this society translates that. That’s
why you go into the department store near the holidays and
a child so young it has to be pushed in a stroller is screaming
bloody murder because it wants that thing, and isn’t
being allowed to have it. It knows “I want this, and
it’s going to cost money, and I can’t get it, so
I’m going to try to figure out how to get it! I’m
going to do all of the tricks I know to get the attention
I need of those who can give it to me.” Bad habits start
early.
As you grow and as you change and as you
become adept at figuring out how to get what you want, you
move from the security of the physical form itself into the
security of the mental and emotional state, which is, in adulthood,
about going to work so you can buy status. Finally there comes
a point when every human realizes, “The status really
isn’t giving me what I bought. I’ve paid too much
for this. It’s not working.” That’s the place
a Guardian might start at. But it’s tied into that original
security stuff the whole way. And you’re going to have
individuals who tie their ability to spend money to their
worth in the world. That’s what a lot of these questions
are dealing with.
When you begin, it’s security of your
physical self. At the end, when you’re at that point
that it’s not about the money but it’s still about
security even at the end of mastery there is that little twitchy
part that says, “Now, I’m going to be learning about
my self-worth based on what I have done, and what I have done
has been based on the career I have been able to maintain,
and the things I have been able to do, which is based on”—hello,
we’re back at the very beginning—“the security
needs that established those beliefs, that put me on to that
track of value.”
I’ve spent all my life doing Samuel’s
work. How come I’m poor?
Yes. And one has nothing to do with the
other, and everything to do with the other.
“I can understand that if we are returning
home to Source, our attachment to and perspective about money
would change from the way we manifested through our old security
issues. It seems to me, from this new place and time of consciousness,
we should be functioning with a more fluid system of manifestation.
So why does it seem hard to manifest the money we want, not
just for our basics but especially for our spiritual needs,
like going on trips?”
I’d like to deal with this question
by breaking it down to show the traps I see in it. I’m
going to not answer it, but show you the places where the
thinking doesn’t work and, therefore, leads to such questions.
Give me the first few words of the question as it is written.
“I can understand that if we are returning
home to Source . . .”
Stop. Nothing in this world should be based
on “Ascension is tomorrow,” because you live in
today.
“ . . . our attachment to and perspective
about money would change from the way we manifested through
our old security issues.”
Why? That’s a trap right there. Why
is it you think there should be a change? Why?
“To me from this new place and time of
consciousness . . .”
Stop. It’s very good to say “to
me,” but the question is still asked like a universal
truth. “Here is something that always happens . . . to
me. It is a general statement of truth for everyone in the
whole world . . . to me.”
“ . . . we should be functioning with a
more fluid system of manifestation.”
Why should you be? Why? Do you still have
human form? Yes. Do you still have free will in this world?
Yes. So why is it you think so? Well maybe it’s because
your expectations about what it must mean when you are functioning
at a high enough level that you have an absolute knowing that
Ascension happens tomorrow are throwing you off a bit.
I guesss it’s also a judgment that
because I haven’t done it I must not be that spiritual.
Yes.
“So why does it seem hard to manifest the
money we want . . .”
Why does it seem? And the key word there
is “seem.” That’s recognizing that it’s
illusion, while the very next part of that sentence shows
that, in the spirit of recognizing the illusion, there is
a very strong trap there anyway.
“ . . . not just for our basic needs, but
especially for our spiritual needs, like going on trips?”
Especially our spiritual needs.
And one of our spiritual needs is going on the
trips. And paying the electric bill isn’t spiritual.
Exactly, and those comments should go in
too. As I’m pushing on that question, can you see what
I mean by its being filled with traps? The good news is, it’s
possible to see it; the bad news is, it’s really hard
to do that when it’s your question, your issue. This
is one of the reasons why a very profitable thing for anyone
to do with regard to their finances is keep a financial-issues
journal where you ask yourself a question, just as though
you were asking me, “Today I am going to ask Samuel about
this. I can’t go on the trip and I want to know why.
So here is question number one.” Then break it down and
look at the issues that are behind that wording, and write
about it a little. When you break it down, you will automatically
start getting, “Oh, well, of course, there’s this
and there’s this.”
You have everything you need to do everything
you’re here to do. You do not earn all of it. However,
it’s all earnable, and when you reach a point in your
spiritual life where you are able to see that you don’t
earn it all, but on the other hand, all of it is earnable—with
no judgment on either of those—you are able to ask questions
like this and start giving yourself the answers to them.
On one level, this question is sort of sad,
because it represents a hard life. On the other hand, when
you’re able to step back and take a look at it and see
the self-made traps and issues that it represents, it’s
a real gift. A financial journal could be useful for everybody,
because you’re going to learn more about yourself through
it. Theoretically. Hopefully. Even though there is a certain
amount of blindness that comes with things that have to do
with your security.
The bottom line to remember with everything
that has to do with security is that it’s meaningful
to you only. What are absolute security needs for Paula are
not necessarily so for David. And it doesn’t mean either
one of you is wrong. You both have to eat and feed the body,
and that’s an absolute security need, but the way you
do it has a lot to do with your choice. The fact that you
do it with nothing but brown rice for six weeks and you get
weaker and more emaciated does not mean that brown rice is
bad, it means the way you made use of it was going against
what is known to be realistic for the circumstance of human.
You used the word issues several times during
that, and I kept thinking belief.
There is not a time that you could not substitute
the word belief for issue. Yes, and that’s probably another
very important awareness.
“Responsibility for all aspects of our
lives seems to be a constant theme for us. We are constantly
learning to do for each aspect of ourselves—physical,
mental, spiritual—on a daily basis. The hope is that
by taking the short-term view the long term will be taken
care of. How appropriate is this attitude when considering
the effects of aging on our individual blueprints?”
The long-term view may not incorporate the
short-term view, but the short-term view always incorporates
the long-term. You cannot get away from that. “I am being
the very best I can today in this now, and it’s going
to have an effect on me tomorrow. Tomorrow, though, there’s
not one thing I can do about what I did today.” The long
term may not incorporate the short, but the short always incorporates
the long. And as is the case in so much of Fusion, as is the
case in so much of 5:3:2 as opposed to 4:3:2, you’ve
got to be careful about trying to separate those things.
If security means financial security—money—to
you, I can guarantee that you are looking at a very limited
part of your current circumstances. It involves much more
than just “how much money am I getting for what I need
tomorrow?”
It seems that you’re saying, “If for
me living in the now means I’m going to spend my money
on what I need now, and I’m not going to be able to eat
tomorrow, I’m not really living in my now.”
That’s absolutely correct.
That would also be, “If living in my now
means I need to spend my money on this, but I can foresee
that ten years from now I’m going to be starving, I’m
not living in my now either.”
Correct. The question isn’t, “Am
I supposed to save for retirement? Am I supposed to save for
next month?” The question isn’t that, even though
that’s how it’s disguised. The question is, are
you afraid that there is going to be a time in which you are
going to be destitute? What defines that? What’s the
problem with that? What’s the reality of that? Have you
ever been?
There’s so much tied up in that, and
yet if you stopped and looked at your reality, there have
been times in your life when things have been much easier
than they are now, and times in your life when things have
been a lot harder than they are now. And for a whole lot of
those nows there were pieces of fear that said, “Am I
going to be a bag lady or man? Am I going to be homeless?
What am I going to do? How am I going to make it through tomorrow?
What if something terrible happens? What if I get cancer and
have to have surgery in order to live? Should I care about
this?”
And the fact of it is, you just kept putting
one foot in front of the other. Sometimes it’s easier
to do that, and sometimes it’s harder to do that. It’s
not your attitude about money that had to do with getting
that foot out there. It had a lot more to do with the other
parts of your life and what mattered enough to you to motivate
you to put that foot out there. A single mother has a child
that she must provide for, so she will work two jobs—so
what? A farmer is used to the vagaries of politics and of
nature having a profound effect on what he can and cannot
do, what he can and cannot grow, what he can grow and get
nothing out of. It gives you a very odd sense of predestination
that leads to saying, “Well, take a risk. It’ll
work or it won’t. But make that leap, give it time.”
Sometimes you’ve got to grow the crop three years in
a row before you ever see it produce. There are very different
motivations for taking that step. It’s not about the
money; it’s about what else is going on in your life
to motivate you to take that step.
There are people within this work who live
on so much—so much—money, yet they don’t go
on trips. Then there are those who have so little money but
go on the trips, go to retreats, who even take on a second
job to be able to pay for them, even though that second job
is menial and not particularly pleasant, and certainly not
something that in any way honors the years of education they’ve
put into their specific purpose—so they think—in
life. And although they go to every event, they’re not
one bit better than the one who has very little money, doesn’t
get the extra job, isn’t motivated to do something even
menial, because doing all of that isn’t worth the effort
required. What motivates is different for everybody. If your
motivation is, “get rich, have luxurious things,”
fine. Do the best you can where you are with what you have
with it. If your motivation is “go on trips, go to retreats,
fly back and forth across the country to be able to come to
first Sundays and become a very active part of the work in
any of the cities,” fine—as long as you’re
not neglecting your other responsibilities to do it. You will
personally feel that that is or is not worth it based upon
your conscious awareness of what your motivations are, what
matters to you, what your priorities are. If you don’t
have much money but want to go to the retreat or vacation
in the Caribbean, or live a more expensive lifestyle, you’ll
do what it takes, what it’s worth to you, to make that
happen. Or you won’t. They’re both choices and both
are okay, and both are about action based on personal motivation.
And that leads into the question, “How
do we stop judging ourselves and others about that?”
You practice non-judgment constantly. And that’s yet
another reason to have a financial-issues journal, because
when you get, “Oh my gosh, I am judging that having money
makes me spiritual and not having it means I’m not, that
going on a retreat means I’ve got something I should
have and I’m doing it right, and not going to the retreat
means I’m not doing it right,” and on and on and
on, when you get that and you can write it down and you can
look at “What are other things I do in which I also recognize
this behavior? How do I control that in other areas of my
life?” you’re going to gain from it. You’re
going to grow out of the idea that money is the right means
for defining your spirituality. You have money because it’s
providing you something you want. Do you know what that is?
If you don’t have it, it’s because there is something
else you want more. What is it?
If you can say, “Well, I do everything
I can to have money, but I can’t get work in this economy,
and somebody with my kind of training . . . and I have an
obligation to myself to be happy with what I’m doing.”
Why can’t you just say, “It means a lot more to
me to be able to play with my grandkids and have a more simple
life than it does to play with my grandkids and go on trips
and be able to have a new car every year and . . . and . .
. and . . .” And I’ve gotten on a soapbox and quite
off of where the questions are. Think it’s an issue?
One of the key questions that usually comes
up in financial planning is “How much is enough?”
And when you start looking at the fact that you can’t
predict the future, that you don’t know what’s down
the road, and then you ask yourself that question, you start
seeing how insecure you really are.
Oh, yes, and that can be quite shocking.
And you see you’re afraid of being destitute.
But why would you assume that you can’t handle being
a bag lady? You might be really happy being a bag lady.
And that’s not giving you permission
to be irresponsible, because you’re supposed to be doing
the best you can.
But it’s also saying that you’re not
trusting your ability to handle whatever comes along the road.
I believe that in this country the aged
are not respected and cared for as they are in some other
cultures, where you know you will always have a home. The
idea of a future with nobody in it is what really frightens
people, and that has a lot less to do with money than with
creating relationships that are going to last. Again, ultimately
it becomes about what motivates you to take that next step.
If, for you, success is being able to doggedly
pursue one dream—“I’m going to write a book
no matter what”—to doggedly pursue “I am a
lawyer, and my life should be a reflection of that,”
if you are going to pursue something that requires money for
fulfillment, then you need to realize that everything in your
life is going to be about fear of losing that thing. As was
said, you should not make a rule that says, “I must be
at this level of financial security or this place in my career
or I’m not successful,” and then do nothing to get
yourself there. Nor can you, as I just said, spend all of
your life in focusing on getting there and then be surprised
when you find that that really wasn’t worth it.
“Length and quality of life issues remain
a concern, and income is necessary to keep us fed, clothed,
doctored, and sheltered. People in society expect to retire
and live adequately on a pension or Social Security. This
raises a number of questions: a.) Many Guardians seem to have
planned less or been less concerned than those in mass consciousness
for retirement. Why? b.) Is there something that we need to
do to change this situation for ourselves before we get any
closer to “retirement”? c.) Is it responsible or
irresponsible for us to deplete whatever retirement and/or
savings we may have had in order to pay for trips and retreats?
d.) Is there a guideline that we can use that will help us
determine where our responsibility to ourselves ends and to
do the trips begins?”
These questions are fraught with traps
because they are so general. It’s not true that in this
society right now most people have a retirement they are counting
on. In fact, think about all of the Enron people, the many,
many people who worked hard all of their lives, putting money
into pension plans that have gone flat broke. You cannot say
generally “people in society.” Generally in this
society people work until the day they die. Now, that’s
a whole other issue, but the fact of it is, there aren’t
a lot of people any more who have your parents’ social
security—the retirement nest egg—“we are going
to build a house by the ocean and grow our own vegetables
and travel around in an RV and . . .” That’s not
most people’s experience, because, within this country
as with every other country in the world, eighty percent of
the people—although now it’s more like ninety percent
of the people—are working to support the other ten or
twenty percent. These ten or twenty percent are not “most.”
And you cannot say that about Guardians either. You cannot
say that Guardians seem to work for today only, and most of
them do not have any sort of plan.
You have those who are happy to do whatever
is needed to take part in what they want, to do what they
want. You have those who are not willing. You have those who
are afraid they are not capable of dealing with whatever is
required to get where they want, so they would rather spend
a whole lot of their time kicking themselves and licking the
wounds that result from it.
You two are excellent examples of that.
You’ve had times in which it wasn’t about what you
want to do. It was all about doing what’s needed for
next week. You can look around and see many different examples
of how people approach their financial situation. I am thinking
of one person who has never in her life been in a particularly
easy financial situation. However she has had a certain amount
of security so that she did not have to work her fingers to
the bone to literally survive. But when she moved to Lexington,
her security system broke down, and ultimately she was pretty
much left out in the cold. All of those years of working at
what she loved to do suddenly wasn’t going to be enough.
She had to change her ideas about how to use her talents to
bring in an income and become willing to take on extra projects
and menial work, as well as accept being unable to go to trips
or retreats. Sometimes she couldn’t even go to tonings,
for instance, because she would come home so exhausted she
just couldn’t make it. And I believe she would tell you,
because she tells me, that her attitude has more to do with
her sense of safety and success than what she’s earned
from all that she’s done.
I’m also thinking of two people who
are together but who have really different attitudes towards
money. For one, it’s all about fear of poverty, whereas
the other approaches life with an attitude of “I’ll
do whatever I need to do to do what it is I want to do.”
The first I mentioned created havoc in the life of everybody
she was around for several years until she could have it her
way. In the meantime, the other person, who was the only one
who was working, did absolutely anything he could to earn
money. But you see, both of those people were doing what they
wanted to do, even though sometimes what they wanted to do
was toxic and not in their best interests. But in the end
it’s about what provides the motivation to get that one
foot back out there. Sometimes what you need is the “willing
to do anything” attitude because it ‘s a lot easier
to direct a rock that’s already moving than it is to
move one that is not.
One of the images that has always returned to
my mind is on some street near downtown Lexington where there
used to be a small nursing home with a very tiny yard. We
used to drive by there and see six or eight old people sitting
in this tiny yard doing nothing except letting the day go
by, at which point they’d go back into this little hovel
and spend the night, and then come out the next day. I would
think, “That’s got to be the worst existence. And
there but for the grace of God go I. Wouldn’t that be
horrible!” And I’ve worked a lot through my life
at doing what you’re talking about, saying, “Would
it be horrible? Does it have to be horrible? Could I make
that okay?” and thinking, “Well, there’s not
really any reason I couldn’t make it okay. It’s
not predestined to be terrible.”
And what that does is it takes the resistance
energy out, allowing a more pure flow of energy in. You draw
your fear to you, because of the intensity of that energy.
But when you’re able to say, “All right, what exactly
is it that’s so bad about that?” and you don’t
let that fear determine what you think, you’re opening
the door to allowing one more experience of life that you
will succeed at, bringing whatever is needed to it and knowing
it will work out okay. That’s a very lovely example.
You can be poor and be happy. You can be
poor and you can be miserable. You can be rich and you can
be happy. You can be rich and you can be miserable. You can
have money and spend it on things that you consider spiritual.
You can have money and not spend it on that. And it’s
not going to make a bit of difference if you’re not different.
It’s not about the money. It’s about security: “Am
I going to be alive tomorrow and what will I need to stay
alive?” all the way up to “I trust that I’m
a co-creator with Source and I’m going to be receiving
experiences that help me better understand that.” It’s
not the money. The money for some makes it easier, but for
a whole lot more it just makes it harder.
Samuel would like to continue this discussion
about the relationship between finances and spiritual work
by responding to more readers’ questions. If there is
an aspect of this topic you would like to see discussed, perhaps
one that has been raised by reading this interview, please
email the editors at phoenixnewsletter@windstream.net.
He is also interested in hearing about what
have you learned (so far in life) about financial giving and
saving for tomorrow. He has asked for people to send in their
stories of making peace with the commonly held views about
financial success and career versus making the best of what’s
in front of you and, surprisingly, seeing how much better
you are without that “success.”
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