What’s Going On? #86

ALONG THE WAY:

The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

We are putting all of Lesson Forty-Seven of the Science of Man (transcribed verbatim) in this letter.  In lieu of the recent events, we feel that those of us who are working to be conscious beings have an opportunity to radiate the Light of our being.  If each of us reading this letter is free of inner conflict, the impact on the planet could be incalculable.

SCIENCE OF MAN

LESSON FORTY-SEVEN

We all know many people who are frequently involved in lawsuits, who frequently have auto­mobile accidents, illnesses, or frequently have some other difficulty, and they seem to be people referred to as having “bad luck.”  However, in the ideas of the Teaching it is that a person attracts to themselves events that are in accord with his inner state of being.  A person who feels that people are dishonest, and who live in somewhat of a state of distrust of everyone, we might say is in a state of fear.  Frequently they have things seemingly stolen, many times only misplaced or laid aside and forgotten, but immediately there is always the accusation that someone has stolen from them.  In their business transactions they frequently see themselves as being cheated.  They go to the law for lawsuits, and they are continu­ally in courts over one thing or another, and re­gardless of the outcome of their court case, they usually feel they have been mistreated and didn’t get their just due.

In the language of the parables it says that men do not gather figs from thistles, that they do not gather pears from thorn trees, etc.  Now, the type of tree one is, refers to the inner state of that in­dividual.  Of course, one does not gather a desir­able state of being from an undesirable state of being, filled with suspicion, resentment, anger or fear.  We have considered the various states of being that are inherent in the level of conscious­ness known as the walking sleep or the waking sleep in the usual conditioned being, one of which is apathy.  A person in the inner state of apathy, which means they live in the slums of their inner world and they are down in a very low area where things are pretty miserable, and everything that seems to happen to the person in apathy is something unfortunate.  They have one illness after another, which of course, is the normal ad­aptation to their inner state.  They frequently feel that they are slighted or mistreated and to them this is what they experience.  In other words, they attract to themselves and they experience in ac­cordance with their inner state.  The person who is fearful (fearful of losing, fearful of having someone steal from them, fearful of all manner of “what if this happens” and “what if that hap­pens”), are already in a very decided miserable set of events from nothing more than being anxious and upset.

You see, a person is like every living thing.  It operates on vibrations  or we might say  wave lengths.  The universe is a universe of energy, and energy is all on various waves or wave lengths.  When a person is in a given inner state, they pro­duce these kinds of waves.  While most people do not recognize them, they are very real and they surround everything about the person.  You may know of certain people whom you dislike seeing because you usually feel depressed or are unpleasant when they are around.  You may know of certain people you have some reason to go see, but for some reason or another you find something to put it off because you always feel so uncomfortable while you are around them.  You may know of certain places of business you do not like to go into, and you notice other people do not like to go into them.  They are kind of run down by now or they are not busy by any means.  If you are around these people or if you study as a means of discovery what is going on in them, you will find that it is their inner state which radi­ates in all directions around them.  As one be­comes aware of these radiation’s, one begins to be aware of people’s inner states.  One knows the states of their inner being.  One might say one understands their thoughts, because what the mind is occupied with is generally what the per­son’s state of being is.  If the person is in a state of fear, they are constantly occupied by “what if this catastrophe happens; what if this loss should occur; or what if this doesn’t happen and I am ruined?”  We can see this go on and it brings about a decided change in everything about us.  We have seen a business operated successfully, going along making lots of money, serving lots of people in whatever field of endeavor it’s involved in, and the business is sold or a new manager comes in, and the new person has a different atti­tude.  He is constantly surrounded with “what if this happens, or what if that happens?”  All of a sudden the business begins to go down not be­cause of a change in the product or in the quality, but in a change in the vibrations that emit from the very inner state of that being because of who­ever is running it; and the business goes down seemingly with the same merchandise, the same service, the same advertising, the same location, and the same general economic situation.

If one cares to pursue, one can find someone there who is a complainer, who is belligerent, or who is constantly finding fault with people, who basically does not like people.  After all, the states of the walking sleep (except contentment) are basically of not liking people.  The apathetic person is fearful of people:  “they are going to harm me.”  It is useless to expect anything from them.  The fearful person sees everybody as a threat.  The resentful person sees them as some­one who is going to harm him or if they haven’t, they are going to, and he resents their intrusion.  He sees them as being to blame for his present situation.  The angry person sees everyone as interfering somewhat with his rights.  The bored one sees them as of no interest.

So consequently, these radiation’s go out.  Everybody picks them up.  If one is belligerent, most everyone who does business with them recognizes some way or other that they feel un­easy, are not at ease around this person.  Of course they are on guard and they make very complicated contracts with them.  These usually wind up in lawsuits and all manner of other diffi­culties.  We find that these people attract various and sundry types of disorders to themselves.  They are usually sick in one way or other.  They attract unpleasant situations because their vibra­tions irritate other conditioned people, and when the two sets of vibrations hit, there is a conflict.  When this conflict takes place, of course, it is reacted to by various words, gestures, and ac­tions.  This results in each feeling they have been mistreated, put upon, and so they are in a state of conflict.

Whenever a great number of people in any country are in a state of conflict within, (and of course, unknowingly many times these are pro­moted because it is easier for rulers to rule people in conflict than the ones who are at ease and peaceful and going on about their business), or if you get enough people in conflict, a war erupts somewhere, because of the mass vibrations inter­fering with others’ mass vibrations.  Generally speaking, as we see, man is in a state of struggle to try to change WHAT IS into the world idea of “what ought to be.”  We can understand why there are wars most of the time through recorded history.  It is the natural expression of the inner state of man.  We could have the League of Nations, the United Nations, and every other conceivable organization dedicated to peace, but as long as the greatest number of the people are in a state of conflict, wars are going to break out.

As long as people feel they are frustrated, and feel they are put upon, we will have crime.  Of course, this is the general inner state of certain people.  Now crime takes different versions.  In certain crimes of violence, when there is consid­erable violence within, and when the conflict is severe, we only see to incarcerate the person convicted of violence to his fellowman.  Putting him in prison possibly only increases his conflict.  Nobody thinks of it as being conflict.  We all still have the idea that man knows what is right, proper and justifiable (that’s the ideal), and that he has free agency (that’s the ideal).  However, as we have studied the self for these past many months and have observed, we recognize that free agency is almost a myth (except in business affairs and many times not there), that the self, the basic decisions, are in charge, and that free agency is only something one uses to keep one­self asleep.  One tells oneself one has free agency or free choice when actually it is the emotions that run us.

As one observes this, one begins to see that many of the things that man does to curb violence actually produces the violence.  He thinks that control would decrease violence, but control often increases violence as in prisons.  We see that only by self‑knowing, being aware of the contamination of the suggestions within can we evolve to understanding.  The two opposing camps:  “A” with its urge to complain, to stick up for its rights, and to blame, and the other side “B,” the pleaser, believing and doing what one is told by authorities and putting on a different front, are always going to be in conflict.  As long as this is within man, he will have the outward expression of wars, illnesses, crime and all the other things.

So as each and everyone of us work to know self, to be aware of the self, to be knowing self from moment to moment, without coming to a conclusion, without feeling that we have come to an end of any requirement of self‑knowing, we have made a little bit of a better world.  We have taken away one bit of conflict and struggle.  We have changed the vibratory rate of the nation and to the entire world that much.  If by any chance we should meet with someone else and they see the difference, they begin to see where the prob­lem really is and start to understand the problem, instead to attempting to solve the problem.  You see, man has been trying to solve problems for centuries upon centuries. He has tried to solve the problems of war, he has tried to solve the problem of disease, he has tried to solve the problem of conflict between people, he has passed laws, he has built various institutions, he has formed great organizations in some cases worldwide all with the idea of bringing this to an end, studying the problem and having a solution to the problem.  But as one looks and sees that one must understand the problem, that the self is the problem, the self is in a state of conflict, and that the self is in a state of automatic mechanical response to various stimuli according to which stimuli is up front and center at any given mo­ment.

As we begin to observe this, we cease to be bothered with the idea of having solutions to problems, and we study problems (if that’s what they are).  They are actually WHAT IS in the state of the conditioned man.  We study the condi­tioned man, bring it to awareness, and as we can share this with one person, we have done some­thing.  Any time we think we could do it on a mass scale we are obviously working at solving a problem because each problem is individual.  As long as we think we could stop wars while many many people are full of conflict, we obviously are trying to solve a problem, and creating more conflict because every attempt to solve a problem implies some use of force, either force of physical arms, force of coercion, or force of suggestion and all of these only fall on the conditioned area of man.

We sometimes see people living in slums in very unpleasant, unsanitary, unsafe situation with the housing miserable, falling down, dirty.  We think if we could only provide those people, liv­ing in that slum area, with beautiful homes, clean homes at least, and comfortable homes, that it would change their state of being.  However, if you have observed and traveled into areas where great slums have been torn down, miles and miles, having been rebuilt with adequate housing, plumbing, central heating, air‑conditioning, plenty of light, carpets on the floors, and with all manner of sanitary facilities, and you watch them for a few months, the same people are put in and their state of being will bring that new building right in accordance with their state of being.  It will be that the plumbing is broken, the glass is cracked, the carpets are spoiled, holes are knocked in the doors, and the walls have holes in them all be­cause the person’s state of being is in a state of conflict and being in a state of conflict, there is violence.  Violent people are smashers.  They constantly break things.  They have no intentions of breaking them, they just do.  They break furni­ture, they break windows, they break the walls in, and pretty soon the new area is just a new slum.  It has the same filth, the same unsanitary condi­tions and no matter even if there are outsiders who constantly try to keep up with the deteriora­tion and repair it, the deterioration is in keeping with the inner state of the people who live there.

Now we certainly are not opposed obviously to having decent housing for people, but we know that it will not work unless the inner state is changed.  The inner state of man is the real man and no matter what that inner state is, it’s going to be expressed outwardly whether it be in vio­lence, whether it be in drunkenness, whether it be in deterioration of the community, whether it be expressed as accidents, whether it be expressed as illness or some other form of violence or some other form of degradation, whatever it be, it will be there.

So our work and our effort is extended to­wards the inner state of man and if we cannot work on the inner state of man, all we can do is give moments of relief to someone who is rendered inoperative and unable to perform at all.  But there are many ways open to man, not just one, not just some formal means of the Teaching.  There are articles that can be written that are so designed by a person who is aware of the inner state of man.  Parables can be written.  Stories can be written with a point.  Possibly even some can make little movies with a point that may under some means break through some of the barriers.  Something may come along that can get one person to challenge the idea of mammon, that the whole purpose of living is to be nondis­turbed.  If one does, one has made a contribution.  One doesn’t save the world.  One doesn’t reform the world.  One doesn’t change it.  One makes a contribution to the inner world of man that it may be conscious, not that it may be good, because the conscious person will harm no one.  The un­conscious person, without intention, harms, breaks and smashes everything, people, tempers, glass, automobiles, stores, everything in sight.  So we would work and make our little contribu­tions, whatever they may be, some way aimed and designed to awaken the inner man to a ques­tioning of mammon:  IS THE WHOLE PUR­POSE OF LIVING JUST TO BE NONDIS­TURBED?  In the struggle to be nondisturbed man lives in slums, kills each other by the hun­dreds of thousands in wars, kills each other by the hundred of thousands on the highways, and de­prives a great many of them the ability to have the things they could use all, because of the struggle within.

Not only is there teaching by person to person, one to another, from lip to ear, but also there is teaching by example.  There is teaching by articles, by cartoons, there is teaching by every conceivable method.  As we mentioned last week, there is no orthodoxy in the means of teaching.  Each person can find some way to share with other beings a possibility of the Teachings.  You can’t force it on them.  You can only make it available.  It’s as though you saw someone hungry.  You maybe prepare them a beautiful plate of food.  You may serve it on a beautiful dining room table in lovely surroundings, but you can’t eat it for them.  And there is not only one way you can serve food.  It doesn’t have to be steak and potatoes.  It can be many many differ­ent things; all is food.  But we are concerned with food ‑ food that will nourish the inner man.  Pos­sibly we always start with “milk,” some very mild something, something that will entice the possibil­ity of a questioning as to the purpose of living.

When this small event has taken place, it has made it possible for the person to be a student.  Once a student is ready, a teacher in some form or other will appear to that person.  Once you are ready, you will see untold opportunities to teach, possibly never as a formal person‑to‑person teacher, possibly never to a group of people in one set group intent upon the study, but there are all kinds of opportunities for each of us.  We each have a talent.  Maybe we only have one, but let’s not bury it in the ground and say, “I am not capable as a writer; I am not capable as a speaker; I am not capable as a performer; I can’t make movies” and leave it all to the others.  Re­member, the parable of the man who was given five talents.  He worked and made five others.  He doubled the value of what he had.  Another person had two, and he made four out of them.  He doubled them in value, and he got exactly the same thing as the one who had the five.  One only had one talent and he buried it in the ground be­cause he couldn’t see it as being of value, and of course, was cast out because he lost even that which he thought he had.  It was taken from him.

So no matter what our tiny contribution is, it may be in working with people in a restaurant, it may be in being an example to other people in a shoe store, it may be in working in an office somewhere, whatever it is, there is some moment that one can get someone else somewhere or other to eat enough of it that he questions the purpose of living, which is seemingly the starting place before one is really a student.

Once the person is a student he has every opportunity to continue, material, instruction from some source or other will be with him. Because now he is a different kind of “tree” and he will attract teaching to it.

As long as no one ever questions the purpose of living he will only attract non-teaching. He will attract all manner of difficulties of one form or another. He will go through life identifying with the songwriters of some of the old southern churches, that this is a “vale of tears”. In so doing, he will see everything as a vale of tears. We can see it as a field, ripe for the harvest. We can find a way to be some small part of the reaping force, and we can work with whatever means, whether we have one talent, 2 talents, 3 talents, 4, 5 or 20 really makes no difference. Possibly some of the people who have never been recognized as even having remotely been connected with the Teaching have done more for it than the many of the formal ones that were recognized as teachers of the material.

So we’re interested in making a contribution, not in having any position, not in doing any certain thing, not teaching in a certain way, most especially in a formal way.

These discussions have gone out to over 100 people, if each of those 100 people found some way of making some contribution to the teaching, and sooner or later those that received this teaching contribution from the ones who have been studying, they, then, would make a contribution, you can imagine the difference it could make.

If you know about the progression of numbers, it’s like the man who was told that to shoe his horse, all four feet, each shoe having eight nails that the first nail would cost a penny and the next one 2 cents, the next one 4 cents, the next one 8 cents or the blacksmith would shoe his horse for 2 dollars a foot. He took the progression and of course the price is untold millions of dollars. It seems that it is fantastic.

You see the teaching spreads only from person to person but it spreads rapidly when once we do not have some preconceived idea that it must be spread by one method and one method alone. Every avenue, of whatever channel we are capable of expressing through, is open. It is hoped that each will find some means to use their one talent or their 2 talents or their 5 talents or their 10 talents because it is possibly the only thing that makes the earth evolve as a place for man to live because the real evolvement is on the inner state of man. We can have the finest highways, the finest airlines, the finest buildings, hotels and as long as the inner state of man is in a chaotic condition, in conflict, in struggle; all of that will be as nothing.