Incentive
God explains ...
The incentive to succeed, to make the most of one's life, should not be economic or materialistic reward. It is misplaced there. This misplaced priority is what has created all of the problems we have discussed here.
When the incentive for greatness is not economic - when economic security and basic materialistic needs are guaranteed to all - then incentive will not disappear, but be of a different sort, increasing in strength and determination, producing true greatness, not the kind of transparent, transient 'greatness' which present incentives produce.
'Living a better life' is a proper incentive. Create a 'better life' for your children is a good incentive. But the question is, what makes a 'better life'?
How do you define 'better'? How do you define 'life'?
If you define 'better' as bigger, better, more money, power, sex, and stuff (houses, cars, clothes, CD collections - whatever) ... and if you define 'life' as the period elapsing between birth and death in your present existence, then you're doing nothing to get out of the trap that has created your planet's predicament.
Yet if you define 'better' as a larger experience and a greater expression of your grandest State of Being, and 'life' as an eternal, ongoing, never-ending process of Being, you may yet find your way.
A 'better life' is not created by the accumulation of things. Most of you know this, all of you say you understand it, yet your lives - and the decisions you make which drive your lives - have as much to do with 'things' as anything else, and usually more.
You strive for things, you work for things, and when you get some of the things you want, you never let them go.
The incentive of most of humankind is to achieve, acquire, obtain things. Those who do not care about things let them go easily.
Because your present incentive for greatness has to do with accumulation of all the world has to offer, all of the world is in various stages of struggle. Enormous portions of the population are still struggling for simple physical survival. Each day is filled with anxious moments, desperate measures. The mind is concerned with basic, vital questions. Will there be enough food? Is shelter available? Will we be warm? Enormous numbers of people are still concerned with these matters daily. Thousands die each month for the lack of food alone.
Smaller numbers of people are able to reasonably rely on the basic survival appearing in their lives, but struggle to provide something more - a modicum of security, a modest but decent home, a better tomorrow. They work hard, they fret about how and whether they'll ever 'get ahead'. The mind is concerned with urgent, worrisome questions.
By far the smallest number of people have all they could ever ask for - indeed, everything the other two groups are asking for - but, interestingly, many in this last group are still asking for more.
Their minds are concerned with holding on to all that they have acquired and increasing their holdings.
Now, in addition to these three groups, there is the fourth. It is the smallest group of all. In fact, it is tiny.
This group has detached itself for the need for material things. It is concerned with spiritual truth, spiritual reality, and spiritual experience.
The people in this group see life as a spiritual encounter - a journey of the soul. They respond to all human events within that context. They hold all human experience within that paradigm. Their struggle has to do with the search for God, the fulfillment of the Self, the expression of truth.
As they evolve, this struggle becomes not a struggle at all, but a process. It is a process of Self-definition (not self-discovery), of Growth (not learning), of Being (not doing).
The reason for seeking, striving, searching, stretching, and succeeding becomes completely different. The reason for doing anything is changed, and with it, the doer is likewise changed. The reason becomes the process, and the doer becomes the be-er.
Whereas, before, the reason for reaching, for striving, for working hard all of one's life was to provide worldly things, now the reason is to experience heavenly things.
Whereas, before, the concerns were largely the concerns of the body, now the concerns are largely the concerns of the soul.
Everything has moved, everything has shifted. The purpose of life has changed, and so has life itself.
The 'incentive for greatness' has shifted, and with it the need for coveting, acquiring, protecting, and increasing worldly possessions has disappeared.
Greatness will no longer be measured by how much one has accumulated. The world's resources will rightly be seen as belonging to all the world's people. In a world blessed with sufficient abundance to meet the basic needs of all, the basic needs of all will be met.
Everyone will want it that way. There will no longer be a need to subject anyone to an involuntary tax. You will all volunteer to send 10% of your harvest and your abundance to programs supporting those whose harvest is less. It will no longer be possible for thousands to stand by watching thousands of others starve - not for lack of food, but for lack of sufficient human will to create a simple political mechanism by which people can get the food.
Such moral obscenities - now commonplace among your primitive society - will be erased forever the day you change your incentive for greatness and your definition of it.
Your new incentive: to become what I created you to be - the physical out-picturing of Deity itself.
When you choose to be Who You Really Are - God made manifest - you will never again act in an ungodly manner.
The incentive to succeed, to make the most of one's life, should not be economic or materialistic reward. It is misplaced there. This misplaced priority is what has created all of the problems we have discussed here.
When the incentive for greatness is not economic - when economic security and basic materialistic needs are guaranteed to all - then incentive will not disappear, but be of a different sort, increasing in strength and determination, producing true greatness, not the kind of transparent, transient 'greatness' which present incentives produce.
'Living a better life' is a proper incentive. Create a 'better life' for your children is a good incentive. But the question is, what makes a 'better life'?
How do you define 'better'? How do you define 'life'?
If you define 'better' as bigger, better, more money, power, sex, and stuff (houses, cars, clothes, CD collections - whatever) ... and if you define 'life' as the period elapsing between birth and death in your present existence, then you're doing nothing to get out of the trap that has created your planet's predicament.
Yet if you define 'better' as a larger experience and a greater expression of your grandest State of Being, and 'life' as an eternal, ongoing, never-ending process of Being, you may yet find your way.
A 'better life' is not created by the accumulation of things. Most of you know this, all of you say you understand it, yet your lives - and the decisions you make which drive your lives - have as much to do with 'things' as anything else, and usually more.
You strive for things, you work for things, and when you get some of the things you want, you never let them go.
The incentive of most of humankind is to achieve, acquire, obtain things. Those who do not care about things let them go easily.
Because your present incentive for greatness has to do with accumulation of all the world has to offer, all of the world is in various stages of struggle. Enormous portions of the population are still struggling for simple physical survival. Each day is filled with anxious moments, desperate measures. The mind is concerned with basic, vital questions. Will there be enough food? Is shelter available? Will we be warm? Enormous numbers of people are still concerned with these matters daily. Thousands die each month for the lack of food alone.
Smaller numbers of people are able to reasonably rely on the basic survival appearing in their lives, but struggle to provide something more - a modicum of security, a modest but decent home, a better tomorrow. They work hard, they fret about how and whether they'll ever 'get ahead'. The mind is concerned with urgent, worrisome questions.
By far the smallest number of people have all they could ever ask for - indeed, everything the other two groups are asking for - but, interestingly, many in this last group are still asking for more.
Their minds are concerned with holding on to all that they have acquired and increasing their holdings.
Now, in addition to these three groups, there is the fourth. It is the smallest group of all. In fact, it is tiny.
This group has detached itself for the need for material things. It is concerned with spiritual truth, spiritual reality, and spiritual experience.
The people in this group see life as a spiritual encounter - a journey of the soul. They respond to all human events within that context. They hold all human experience within that paradigm. Their struggle has to do with the search for God, the fulfillment of the Self, the expression of truth.
As they evolve, this struggle becomes not a struggle at all, but a process. It is a process of Self-definition (not self-discovery), of Growth (not learning), of Being (not doing).
The reason for seeking, striving, searching, stretching, and succeeding becomes completely different. The reason for doing anything is changed, and with it, the doer is likewise changed. The reason becomes the process, and the doer becomes the be-er.
Whereas, before, the reason for reaching, for striving, for working hard all of one's life was to provide worldly things, now the reason is to experience heavenly things.
Whereas, before, the concerns were largely the concerns of the body, now the concerns are largely the concerns of the soul.
Everything has moved, everything has shifted. The purpose of life has changed, and so has life itself.
The 'incentive for greatness' has shifted, and with it the need for coveting, acquiring, protecting, and increasing worldly possessions has disappeared.
Greatness will no longer be measured by how much one has accumulated. The world's resources will rightly be seen as belonging to all the world's people. In a world blessed with sufficient abundance to meet the basic needs of all, the basic needs of all will be met.
Everyone will want it that way. There will no longer be a need to subject anyone to an involuntary tax. You will all volunteer to send 10% of your harvest and your abundance to programs supporting those whose harvest is less. It will no longer be possible for thousands to stand by watching thousands of others starve - not for lack of food, but for lack of sufficient human will to create a simple political mechanism by which people can get the food.
Such moral obscenities - now commonplace among your primitive society - will be erased forever the day you change your incentive for greatness and your definition of it.
Your new incentive: to become what I created you to be - the physical out-picturing of Deity itself.
When you choose to be Who You Really Are - God made manifest - you will never again act in an ungodly manner.
posted by Trang Vuong at 10:21 AM
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