A Small Medium at Large – Galen Chadwick
Oct 11 2018 Galen Chadwick
“The love of money is the root of all evil” 2nd Timothy 6:10
“Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it all back again. However, take it away from them, and all great fortunes like mine disappear, and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But if you wish to remain slaves of Bankers and pay for your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits.”
This second quote is from Sir Josiah Stamp, President of the Bank of England in the 1920’a, the second richest man in Britain. Previous columns, (the Law in Interesting times- Aug. 16- Oct. 4th Douglas County Herald), have ended with the system of usury, the danger to justice, and its grip upon the essential good of the law. The sinister and anti-social features, (of debt credit fraud), is a big topic, so for those who want to dig deeper, check out these key words for a google search: “the evil of usury.” One of many good sites for the three faiths of the Bible is: http//www.biblebelivers.org.au/usury.htm
If human existence has a purpose it would be the purpose of its Source, not the individual person. If the planet has a purpose for the human species it is to live in symbiotic harmony with the planet; to faithfully care-take its treasure of life. The purpose of the individual, as an agent of such harmony, is to awaken to his own spiritual nature. All the saints and sages tell us, “Man is that he might know joy.”
This awakening begins when self-awareness and self-responsibility rise together in the service of creation for its own sake. Universal love can then expand as feelings of separation fall away from both heart and mind. In full maturity one takes command of all things both good and bad within his or her province. The end of separation culminates in a moment of stupendous self-realization: the Creator and I are One. All stages of this awakening from temporal, mental, and egotistic bondage unfold within the transcendent mercy and love of the Creator.
The obvious solution to usury (that is magnificently ignored by all politicians) is inherent in the ancient Hebrew word “Jubilee,” literally meaning Joy, Celebration. The Jubilee is the year at the end of seven cycles of shmita (Sabbatical years), and according to Leviticus 25-26, slaves and prisoners were to be freed, debts would be forgiven, and the mercies of God would be particularly manifested. This widely ignored text calls for a periodic and complete overhaul of the economy.
Leviticus 25 never explicitly mentions debt, but the Jubilee is all about debt cancellation, restored community vitality, and freedom from debt bondage. The Jubilee cycle and release builds upon the Sabbath Year debt release cycle, as outlined in Deuteronomy 15 and Exodus 21:2 and 23:10-11, building from an every seventh year rest to culminate in a super-release in the fiftieth year.
It was no accident that American rebels against the Crown chose a line from Lev. 25:10: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof ” as the inscription for their liberty bell. Since 1776, the struggle for the soul of America has been between the rights of the individual against the money usurers and tyrants, a.k.a., “the divine right of kings.” For more quotes from Tim Atwater: http://www.jubileeusa.org/faith/faith-and-worship-resource/debt-cancellation-a-biblical-norm.html
The Biblical mandate reorders the whole human economy around the personal need for periodic cancellation of debt, for the restoration of harmony with the community, and for the regeneration of the land itself. “Redeem the land if you would also be redeemed” said the prophets. The threefold relationship of the social organism, as recognized in the Hebrew Jubilee, is directly represented in the threefold approach of the Farm Resettlement Congress’ 20 Year Plan. The Plan institutes the restoration of personal, communal and environmental responsibility through economic instead of theological or political, processes. Since those approaches have failed, the question is, “What do we have to lose?”
Though bankers will still create Federal debt money, the FRC Plans’ inclusion of parallel currency as community scrip, is not interest based. It doesn’t belong to them. Wealth generation will accrue as the holdings of a Charitable Foundation as gathered from Transfer of Wealth donations by members of the community. As such, the plan restores a non-debt basis for the kind of local cultural resilience that has all but vanished from modern America. The Foundation, as a locally constituted and self-governed charity, exists to prosper present and future generations. The Plan monetizes moral law and our Prime Directive: The obligation to love and serve in symbiotic harmony with the planet.
Regardless of faith, or lack altogether, the norms and spirit of debt cancellation can be incorporated into the transactional matters of a community. We can determine who we are, and what we stand for through a superior way of reinvesting our money, through an ethos of respect for future generations. Through our TOW donations we have a way to locally bypass the gridlock and tragedy of a rigged system.
This discussion has evolved from the philosophy of law and economics, to altruism, and then to usury. We might as well proceed to a broader question “What is evil?” and, “How does it arise?” The ancient Mystery Schools of Light, and subsequent philosophical sources of wisdom, including the theologies of the East and of the Bible- all peoples in fact- have tried in their own way to draw parameters around the problem of evil. Every belief system has its own story. How does evil relate to the specific context of our lives; what determines it?
This question is every bit as alive in the psychiatric, scientific, political, and behavioral sciences as it is to religion. But if we confine evil to human deeds and personal interpretations, we profoundly muddy our perception. Evil plays out in the communal and environmental spheres of other life forms as well. No doubt we could say that it is a universal reality. I think it is also a mistake to take a reductionist view of evil, thinking it a basic or even “necessary” aggressive drive or entity that stands in eternal opposition to God, or to Reason, or to Logic.
Evil exists. We can’t deny it, and somehow we come across wicked people from time to time. So what should be our attitude? When the full light of self-realization begins to characterize a person’s relationship to the Divine, the mind becomes tranquil and steady. Worldly colorations of ignorance, in its forms of egotism, anger, lust, greed and hatred cannot disturb that peace. The mutable line between the inner and outer Mind dissolves and the entire cosmos is seen as the play, or joyful dance, of the One.
To such a person, for whom the entire universe is revealed as Self-Aware, all of the so-called “outside world” is found to be based upon thoughts, feelings and mental attitudes. In the experience of unity with Source, the entire world becomes our projection. If we remember this, we won’t put so much stress on outward things. When a saint says “Thy will be done,” it’s not coming from a place of resignation, helplessness, or ironic detachment. The saint or sage does not much bother about changing the outside world. To such a mind, things outside can no longer bind or liberate us. There is an old Sanskrit street saying: “Mana eva manushyanam karanam bandha mokshayoho.” As the mind, so the man: “Bondage or liberation exists in your own mind.”
We can learn to have more control over our thought forms, and thereby change them as we want. When we have good control over the mind and senses will we find that there’s nothing wrong with the world. We are making it a heaven or a hell according to our approach. If we can control the mind we have controlled everything. When the mind ceases to create thought forms it becomes as clear as a still lake and we see the true Self. “Be still and know that I AM,” says scripture. What is still? The mind.
Hearing this analogy, you might turn around and ask me, “Does that mean the presence of evil means that God misunderstands Itself or has forgotten Itself?” No. God, the Indwelling Witness, never misunderstands nor forgets Itself. But we are talking on the level of reflection, the little “i-am” bubble of the separate mind, as the image we are created in, an image of the Great “I AM.” The reflection is distorted so the “I AM” appears distorted. The true self- as Witness- is always the same but we appear to be distorted or mixed up with the contents of the mind. By making the mind clean and pure, one feels to have gone back, or appears to have gone back to our original state: One with Source.
