VIEWS OF GOVERNMENT AND MONEY AND PROBLEMS
By William Samuel (from Lollygog Notes 1978)
This begins as a personal letter, dear reader...
For that is what it is. Not an essay. Not a formal paper. Not
something to be struggled with to understand, but to read gently as
one reads a letter from a friend.
The comprehension of Reality--- especially the recognition that a
pure, good and perfect Reality is absolutely all in all, everywhere
present, nowhere absent and being all there is to be seen, heard,
felt or experienced--- seems seldom to come from great, grinding
effort. More often, much more often, it comes from human effort
relaxed. It comes in stillness and gentleness like a Spring blossom
opening, like a winter stream melting, like a new day breaking.
From a letter to a friend involved in governmental scandal, energy
crisis and inflation:
______, I understand your deep concern for the "shrinking dollar"
and the "embarrassing dilemma of a shocking governmental scandal."
You ask how one is to see these situations in the light of an
"absolute Good that isn't at all apparent" to you at the moment. As
you say, "The grandiose declaration that God's Government is the
only REAL Government hasn't done the trick."
Suppose we ponder along these lines:
If false value has been put into human government and its money,
what is wrong (or bad) with the appearing of false value going out
of graven images?
In human terms, doesn't the wrong way make the right increasingly
clear? Or, obversely, would the incubator chick ever become
conscious of the light he is continually bathed in if he never
peeped outside into the darkness of night?
And doesn't the darkness of the cicada's long sojourn in the earth
allow a full consciousness of sunlight and color when it emerges.
It accomplishes nothing to make the metaphysical declaration that
"liars and thieves have no place in God's government" if we still
condemn, and stand in terror of "the liars and thieves in human
government."
Why? Because that is talking one government while trying to live
two. Is God ALL, or is there a "human imperfect" beside? Is human
government illusion or is it the means by which Divine Government is
made clear?
Seen in this light, one can actually stop attempting to live two
governments, one "real" and one "unreal," and see what is labeled
"human government" as the Divine becoming known.
Dualistic nonsense! shouts the intellect of us.
But, are the Symphony and notes a dualism?--- No.--- They are ONE
SYMPHONY made Self-evident.--- The Authority is in the Light, not
the shadows.
Are "day" and "night" a dualism?--- No.---They are ONE LIGHT made
Self-evident.--- The authority is in the Light, not the shadows.
Are Spirit and matter, Good and evil, tangibility and intangibility
dualisms?--- They are not.---They are ONE, pure, perfect, fully
(infinitely) Self-evident GODHEAD.
Authority exists as this Godhead (Isness)--- and not in the
supposititious opposites the OMINISCIENT Godhead knows It is not---
and could never be.
Once, the question was asked of Jesus when all the hidden things
would be revealed. His reply, starkly simple, was to "Know what is
in they sight and what is hidden from thee will be revealed to thee.
For there is nothing hidden which will not be manifest." (THOMAS,
Till translation, Log. 5)
All the power of human government has been unable to keep its
secrets from being revealed. The Godhead stands revealed already.
"Then, when will we see it?" Jesus was asked.---"When you make the
two into a single one" He replied time and again.
How? "Know what is in thy sight". We FACE and UNDERSTAND the
situations that present themselves within awareness. We do not
disclaim the presence of the sight.
We understand, acknowledge and live the PERFECTION of the sight---
and know WHY we do! We forgive and bless the sight for the Scene it
makes clear. "We kiss the cross" and awaken. We end the attempt to
ignore, heal, bury or change it. And then, then, we see sting and
victory taken from the "cross." A new name is discovered for it,
"known only to him who overcometh."
Human government, with all its apparent shortcomings, is the curtain
going up for the Divine Government. The rising curtain appears as
value going out of the curtain into the Scene behind. All that seems
to be the painful and embarrassing termination of curtain-love is
displaced by the interminable Love of the New Scene.
Awareness "expands" to perceive the Invariable Already, consciously.
Change--- the world in turmoil---is the changelessness of the
Already (Isness) becoming evident.
We can say it another way: Change is the shedding of our former
views of variableness. Change, and the Changelessness it makes
evident, are one Changelessness.
Does authority (to frighten us, make us shake our heads in
frustration and wonder) lie in the turmoil of change? Or is
authority in the Ineffable Changelessness that change makes plain?
To which do you "yield yourself servant to obey" ? You know the
answer already.
"Well and good in theory, but the change in my dollars is making
them less valuable"
The belief that value is in dollars is Wisdom's knowledge it is NOT!
The belief that Authority is in human government is Wisdom's
knowledge it is NOT!
The belief that Energy, the functioning of Mind, is expendable and
in short supply is Wisdom's knowledge it is NOT!
WHATEVER Wisdom knows it is not, is no bother to Wisdom and does not
frighten Us.
Little good it does the mighty metaphysician to "deny the reality"
of an "energy crisis." One needs only to look at the "human
evidences" of it, understand them as the evidence of Deific
Omnipotence coming to light.
Call that evidence by its NEW NAME and, then, look on to see the
startling proofs that Omnipotence, and the evidences that make it
clear (whether positive or negative) are ONE Omnipotence! "When you
make the two into a single one".
These final days of belief's obliteration mark the conscious
emergence of Wisdom as the only Identity on the Scene.
Finiteness is ever the clarification of Infinity.
Tangibility is Intangibility (Spirit) made plain.
Human government is the tangible measure of Measureless Authority.
Unlimited Wisdom's knowledge of where Authority does not lie appears
as the human effort to put value into human affairs.
The awakening recognition that Wisdom is the Identity "we" are (and
have always been) must appear as misplaced value and authority going
out of human affairs. That dissolution, however it seems, IS NOT
BAD!
Why ISN'T it bad?
Once more, let me explain with an analogy:
To the musician who has labored long with notes, the knowledge he is
HIMSELF the SOUNDING SYMPHONY he has tried so long to play, comes
with joy, not fear. THAT one recognizes that Value was never in the
finite note yet he would have never known it infinitely had he not
made the futile attempt to give value to the notes. THAT one can
watch the humbling of the notes with no more elation or
depression--- or fear--- than one who watches darkness vanish 'pon
the birth of a new day.
Oh, but Wisdom KNOWS the disappearance of darkness and Wisdom's
Self-emergence are one event. It knows the darkness of night has
served to make the Light of Life fully known.
Perhaps these are ponderous ideas, too much for the intellect of
us--- but the Heart already knows all they strive to say. After all,
ponderousness is the means by which Simplicity is full recognized
for all it is.
The Light these words tell of so falteringly is supremely SIMPLE---
and available--- and HERE, right now!
With loving kindness from the green hills of Alabama
William Samuel (Billy) |