(01-18-2015, 07:43 PM)Enyiah Wrote:Quote:11.31What is the nature of *service* to all implied here? How does someone serve others when they are in service to self?!
QUESTIONER: I don’t know if this is a short question or not, so we can save it till next time, but my only question is why the crusaders from Orion do this. What is their ultimate objective? This is probably too long to answer.
RA: I am Ra. This is not too long to answer. To serve the self is to serve all. The service of the self, when seen in this perspective, requires an ever-expanding use of the energies of others for manipulation to the benefit of the self with distortion towards power.
"To serve the self is to serve all." Since we are all "selves" then it is true that to serve the "self" is to serve "all" because the gift to one is a gift to the whole.
So let's make the statement practical. We have jobs. We go to work for pay. In the most basic practical understanding of the transaction, we "serve" the boss/employer to have the money to benefit our "selves." There is a magical creation here, taught in basic Economics courses, that this exchange can create "money." Banks are involved, and credit and interest rates, yadda yadda, but the basic exchange is still STS.
It is a matter of perspective. I work so I can feed/clothe/house myself. Attract a mate. Have kids. These are "selfish" things and yet they are also common and not inherently evil in-and-of-themselves. The desire to acquire things, to acquire money (which is POWER in our culture) is the basic common nature of capitalism. We live in a STS society. The bedrock and foundation of good ol' America is STS. And there is nothing inherently wrong with that. As we get "richer" as we raise the level of wealth, all boats rise with the tide. RA links "manipulation" with this concept, but most all of us would not think we are being manipulative to have jobs, to pay rent, buy food, raise families, go on vacation. But these things do create a *tendency* toward manipulation. We see it with the ultra rich. At some point the need for things becomes a desire for more, and there is a line that is crossed into manipulation to obtain even more. Morality plays, movies. We know this story of corruption and glory.
But the seeds of all of that is born out of the way we Americans live day by day. The very act of getting a job creates an imbalance between worker and boss. The exchange of service for *money* is the heart and soul of STS. Because if it was pure STO in action, there would be no exchange at all. We would serve *for free.*
There is a tendency to think of STS as "evil" and STO as "good." But Ra was careful not to denigrate the STS path, because it would really hit too close to home here, and would be an unjustified judgement of the other path which is, in all ways, equal to the STO path.
The Orion group are like super capitalists (not literally, but energetically) in that everyone in that society sees that the way to "get ahead" is to be better at playing the game than anyone else (try to get the highest paying job, create a new "must have" entertainment, own the most scarce resource, etc.) And with monetary wealth comes power. And with power comes the *tendency* to manipulate for the benefit of self. This is just a tendency. We heave really rich people who will give away their wealth for the greater good (Bill Gates, Warren Buffet) and we have really rich people who use their wealth to generate more wealth for themselves and for more power (Koch bothers).
The point is that the very economic environment we live in here and now, one that probably all of us are active and willing participants in, is STS capitalism and it is STS.
And that's ok because the STS path is ok.
It is an *equal* path to STO.
We need to remember that and not get too up in our hoity toity about it, "The service of the self, when seen in this perspective, requires an ever-expanding use of the energies of others for manipulation to the benefit of the self with distortion towards power."
Every item that I buy for myself from my salary, is another item that I am not giving to a fellow human being on this planet who has less than me. It does not matter that I "earned it." Cosmically, spiritually, the act of keeping my money for myself is STS. And as I work for raises, as I change jobs for greater pay, move up the "corporate ladder" I am fundamentally, inherently, "ever-expanding" my personal energies in exchange for the energies of others (job title and power gifted by boss/employer/corporation) to my personal benefit. It is the way of things, to "advance" in our careers. This is the Orion Group's way too. And those of us that get too caught up in it, go overboard with the distortion to power.
I suspect there is pyramid scheme in it all. As we advance up the societal ladder, it comes at the expense of the lower rungs of the economic classes --- as we see now in America. To reach the upper middle class, or to become rich, is only possible by the subjugation of others. Not literal subjugation like slavery (though that is the ultimate example) but the subtle subjugation that we don't even really see anymore. But to be rich, so many others MUST BE POOR.
It's something to think about.