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“Phoenix Rising,” Fall 2008
Samuel Responds
Samuel Responds is a regular feature in Phoenix
Rising, a free, quarterly newsletter created and distributed by
Phoenix Institute, Inc., Samuel's home base in Lexington, Kentucky.
It contains Samuel's answers to questions submitted by readers.
Please click here, or scroll
down this page, to find links to previous Samuel Responds.
- What is your bucket list?
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I believe “bucket list” is a phrase
that comes out of a film that was recently popular in which
it was the list of things you wanted to do in your life before
you “kicked the bucket.” When that question can be
clarified as to what level of bucket we’re talking about
here, then I can answer it.
Instead, I would turn that right around and
ask, “What’s on your bucket list, and what are you
doing to make those things come about?” I ask that at least
twice a year in different ways, and this is a good time to remind
readers that that’s a very important thing to regularly
look at.
Now, having said that, I will say that the
bucket list that I have in regard to the work here with Guardians,
particularly through Phoenix, is a very different bucket list
than the one for the ultimate plan for the planet, so the writer
should decide which one they are asking the question about,
and maybe next time it will be answered.
- For the past six months or so your first-Sunday meetings have
been broadcast live on the internet. Our statistics indicate that
this audience is growing, and may eventually exceed the number
of people physically present at the meetings. You always direct
your message to your audience. How much does this new cyber-audience
impact your Sunday message, and in what ways, if any, do you see
this changing?
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At this point, the cyber-audience really isn’t
large enough to have an impact. There is potential there, but
until there is a decision to get the word out in some kind of
cyber way, there is not going to be a work that comes out of
that small webcast.
When the focus is on making use of the internet
as an outreach, that question might be answered. Right now,
using the internet is an “Oh boy, let’s give this
a try,” but the potential is not truly being mined. So
at this time, while I interact with those who are watching,
what is discussed depends on the audience in the room, and that
energy goes out but doesn’t come back. Yet.
- Mass consciousness tends to see leadership in terms of having
power over others. How would you characterize leadership in your
work? What can Guardians do to bring about the kind of leadership
this world needs?
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Leadership is unity of vision and unity of
ability, meaning the full spectrum, in balance, of what is needed
to bring about change. A leader should be able to say, “You
need this skill. You don’t have that, but look, you have
this skill instead.” Or “You’re better at doing
this than that.” And with that unity—the understanding
of how an individual fits into the group while working for the
group’s underlying purpose—you get results. You must
remain your individual self within a group while being willing
to release those individual parts to function as a whole, but
it doesn’t mean you’re not an individual any more.
It’s the ability to act for the good of the group without
losing your individuality.
A leader has a plan but is not confined by
it. Leadership is about knowing yourself, knowing what you can
do and what you cannot do, and putting it into effect. Leadership
is not a pinnacle, it’s a process of constant expansion.
You don’t earn the right to be a leader, leadership grows
as a result of all you are experiencing.
What’s needed in this world right now?
People who think their human strivings are hilarious, who think
failure is just another way of moving forward, who don’t
put constant pressure on themselves by being more willing to
look at the list of what they don’t have rather than what
they do have. In this work, being a leader means being an example,
an example of moving forward, falling, getting back up, and
moving forward again. And that sounds pretty easy, but it’s
not.
- At January’s Sunday night meeting you said, “a thoroughbred
is a whole lot how this came about.” Please explain.
Ask Gwendolyn. She’ll tell you.
- For months we did the rock to sand then to light meditation.
There is still a lot of war, fighting and religious animosity
going on among humans. Please explain what effect the meditation
had on warring humans and on Guardians..
That visualization was not about war. That was
about eliminating an event that would allow destructive power
to find a means of rooting into consciousness. And yes, war is
a destructive power, and war was a definite possible, even probable,
result, but that visualization was all about closing a door of
possibility, not defining and directing it. You were visualizing
the dispersal before it ever took form. That visualization was
not about war. That was about eliminating an event that would
allow destructive power to find a means of rooting into consciousness.
And yes, war is a destructive power, and war was a definite possible,
even probable, result, but that visualization was all about closing
a door of possibility, not defining and directing it. You were
visualizing the dispersal before it ever took form.
- I have found on the internet a very revealing chart by a person
interested in population growth. I don’t know his credentials,
but what he concluded with his chart seems very real. He first
gives a picture of the expected population growth of the U.S.
from 1970 to 2020. On top of that, he adds the population growth
of immigrants coming into the U.S., and points out that at our
present rate of growth, if the U.S. continues to subsidize illegal
immigrants—many times in ways that needy U.S. citizens are
denied those same subsidies—we in the U.S., out of a desire
to be compassionate, will become as poor as those we are serving,
and we will no longer be able to serve anyone not even ourselves.
What comes to mind are two of your teachings that I associate
with this situation. One is to first love yourself, because you
cannot give what you do not have. My interpretation is that another
part of that teaching is that one must honor self by not allowing
others to take advantage. The other teaching is never interfere
with another’s issues. My interpretation is that non-interference
means we are obligated not to protect those who break the law
or have personal issues—we must honor others by giving them
the opportunity to work through their own issues.
In addition,
we take on that person’s karma by interfering. My questions
are, one, are my interpretations correct?
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No.
Two: do you see your teachings as relevant to our
illegal immigration crisis?
No more so than they are relevant to every other
aspect of your being.
Three: Will you please give us some direction in
solving this dire situation in a loving and humanitarian way?
I don’t see that you have a dire situation
in front of you. You have somebody’s opinion that should
this continue as it is this will become a dire situation, but
I disagree.
Previous Samuel Responds
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2008
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2007
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2005
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2004
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2003
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