2019-01-24-Critical Transparency
Lightline #541
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: Critical Transparency
o 1.2 Group: Lightline TeaM
• 2 Facilitators
o 2.1 Teacher: Michael
o 2.2 TR: JL
• 3 Session
o 3.1 Opening
o 3.2 Lesson
o 3.3 Dialogue
o 3.4 Closing
Topic: Critical Transparency
Group: Lightline TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Michael
TR: JL
Session
Opening
Dear Michael and Mother Spirit—Welcome; welcome once again. This is such a delight to be able to contact you and actually have a living conversation with you. Michael, tonight one of your longest and most faithful students asked me if I would have you address a problem she sees. This is the polarization that seems to be so extreme now in both our social discourse and especially reflected in our politics. It seems many of our social media are becoming so extreme that a lot of common sense and respect is being lost as everyone is getting polarized to the point where we no longer have valid positions and policies being represented, but just ridiculous characterizations of each other. She asked if you would address this problem and maybe give us a way out. Thank you.
Lesson
MICHAEL: Good evening, this is Michael. Yes, I would be happy to do what I can to help you understand this situation on your world today. I have to agree that your modern media in just the last few decades have exaggerated what has been a pretty much a common political phenomenon for the last several hundred years once you had written books and newspapers where larger and larger groups of people could discuss political philosophy and policy. Then this is even more extreme, as I say, in these last few decades with your modern electronics.
(Critical Transparency)
One thing Mother Spirit and I have called for over and over again is an ever increasing transparency in your government with all their different policies and who they represent, both their constituents who elect them to government, and then all the different lobbyists and influences that weigh upon them once they are in office. This transparency is absolutely necessary for the average citizen to understand all the influences that are brought to bear on their policy decisions.
It is this transparency that is getting erased more recently without any way of your getting to the genuine facts of a situation. Even basic facts are being disputed to the point you are losing any middle ground of understanding and agreement. As you know, your different television networks and internet websites are themselves so polarized that you get up to a 90-to-10%, a 9-to-1 bias on social and political issues. This being the case, the only way out for you is to be open-minded and entertain as broad a spectrum of opinion as you can of all the information coming to you and available now.
That is the only “cure” when you think about it. Right within yourself you’re recognizing the problem of this polarization and so, entertaining to the best of your ability at least that which seems reasonable on both sides of any argument that comes up.
Right off the bat this would eliminate, in your own judgment, so much of a hysterical nature and pure propaganda, the name-calling and the silly motivational types of argument being used to sway you one way or another. You can get rid of all that and get down to the situation on the ground and what is actually happening in people’s lives as individuals. This is why Mother Spirit and I have cautioned you about falling into what we call “galloping generalities” even though I must now approach this problem in a very general way. There is no way Mother Spirit or I can weigh in on one side or another of these arguments.
(Meditate & reflect for a calm mind)
As you try to keep a calm mind within yourself, this is where your meditation comes in so very dearly. It’s way of keeping up with events day to day by taking some time out of your own personal life to come up with whatever wants to in your mind about a lot of these social, political problems.
In other words, my dear, keep a kind of transparency right within yourself by trying to sense your own prejudice. If you find yourself agreeing whole heartedly and totally with one position or another, and not really understanding the counterpoint to it–the other social or political argument, be aware of this. It’s this awareness right within yourself that can help you keep a calm balance.
(A sense of proportion, not simple-minded extremes)
The one statement in your Urantia Book that Mother Spirit and I love to repeat is, “A hallmark of wisdom is a sense of proportion.” So if you find a source of information, whether it is a television network or some internet website that is 90% all one way–say ten people on a panel all of one opinion, shop around and see if you can’t find a source for yourself that is more balanced, that gives both sides equally of the issue.
For it all starts with you. As to the question is how do you keep other people calm about this? Well, you really can’t. There are so many folks who are deriving such an emotional thrill out of being very biased, all you can do is avoid being this way yourself. Don’t worry about them. There is no way you can cure them because of the kinds of lives they are living.
(Social networks providing anonymity)
Also now, with very broad what you call “social networks” involving hundreds of millions of people, again you have a lack of transparency. Their content almost gets to the point of those obscene scribbles on the walls of some public restroom. The most obscene things can be put out this way because there is no transparency. You don’t have two people standing nose to nose and discussing things as was the case throughout most of human history. These enormous social networks have such anonymity that for you yourself it is best to disregard them. Let their followers fight it out amongst themselves, and also be aware that these networks often have a bias within themselves.
This is the situation. This is the present day, electronic situation with its marvel of world-wide telecommunications that Mother Spirit and I have pointed out have done so much to connect the world together with all its different peoples, and nations, and cultures. But this also is a side-effect, this kind of anonymity that it provides.
And so in your own face-to-face company with all the folks you know, with your friends and acquaintances throughout your day, this is where you get the inner calmness to be open-minded and really listen and give credit to what they are saying, especially if they come out with an opinion that is contrary to your own notions of simply what is.
Listen to them. Be very polite and open-minded yourself. Be non-reactive. There is an old term “reactionary” which means folks with a simple-minded knee-jerk reaction to something, that is the very opposite of being creative. For it takes enormous spiritual creativity on your part to be and remain open-minded and take in everything fearlessly.
(Have and trust your own unique understanding)
Then in your meditations let your whole being sort things out. Let them come up for review. Weigh things back and forth. This is the main thing you have to give to this whole social/political discourse going on. Let those who enjoy a kind of invalid emotional response to everything go their own way. Don’t worry about them. But for you yourself, right inside, to keep your own balance and sense of proportion, fearlessly look at everything, and then sort it out for yourself. This will become what you have to give, and not only to your own life and your own friends and acquaintances. This is how you do your own enormous part in getting things back to a calm and rational discourse.
Fear not because a certain amount of polarization will always come about as different ideas come up and different people see them in different ways. Although a lot of this polarization is a very cynical kind of manipulation on the part of pundits and politicians, also keep in mind a lot of this is pure subjectivity. It is simply how people with a certain prejudice actually see and experience things.
We’ve talked about how this applies to racism. Some people are so unconsciously racist, this is really how they see and experience others. For them it is an objective reality. So on your own part it takes such moral and spiritual courage to recognize your own prejudices and then see how they might be influencing your perceptions.
(To have a free, open, and calm mind)
The reward is to have your own free mind and inner calmness in the face of all this uproar going on all around you. There is a famous poem of yours that says, “If you can keep your head when all those about you are losing theirs–and blaming it on you, then you will be a Man, my son.” I can do no more than echo Kipling on this point.
So carry on, my dear ones. Don’t be too disturbed by all that out there. Just do your best to weather the storm. Keep your own sure, calm footing and enjoy it. Open yourself fearlessly to all of that out there, and then let your whole being sort it out in your deep meditation where Mother Spirit, and myself, and your Thought Adjuster–the presence of God himself–can help you in that sorting process. Now if you have any questions or comments, let’s do those.
Dialogue
Student: I would just like to thank Michael for his wisdom. It is so appreciated.
(The enormous worldwide spiritual evolution)
MICHAEL: : Well yes, my dear. As you go through life you have your own inside, and an outside. You have all that going on outside of you in what I tried to point out tonight is this increasing polarization being magnified by your mass media. Yet at the same time all these social phenomena are very experimental. Keep this in mind. Nothing is settled in all of this and, for the most part, one of the hardest things that Mother Spirit and I have to portray to you is how there is an enormous evolution happening on your world right now.
A very spiritual progression is happening insofar as more and more of the world is even becoming literate and able to contact and enjoy each other and the whole history of your race, represented in all the different people and cultures of your world. So keep that in mind too. And be in my love.
Were there anymore questions or comments this evening?
Student #2: Recently in our group, Michael, you spoke of the increasing frequency of changes on our world, a revolution that is happening in a spiritual dimension. You said this increased frequency would change all life on our world. Michael, could you elaborate a little more on how this change would manifest itself?
MICHAEL: : Yes, my dear. It is mainly through what I was just saying. So much of the really terrible things that have happened all through history are because of a lack of social and political transparency. Whether on a tribal level—tribal leaders declaring war on each other–clear up to, in the last century, two enormous World Wars. But even in the case of these conflicts with an ever greater amount of suffering–not only outright murder but the control of the media and everything else, the amount of damage done by governments to their own peoples completely outweighs all of the other kinds of war you have had.
(Past and present governments killing their own people)
These wars were largely promulgated because large populations of these countries were–number one—illiterate, and number two, being controlled and manipulated by the state through propaganda. Especially in the totalitarian countries before the Second World War, you are very familiar how this mass propaganda got whole nation states against each other with the amount of nationalism and racism being promulgated right within their own countries. Think of the Bolshevik/Communist revolution, then the Nazis with their internal “cleansing” as they called. They themselves actually killed more millions of their own people than the open warfare.
This is what I mean by transparency. As people become more and more aware of what is happening, you have a greater genuine democracy taking place where larger numbers of the people can have some way of holding their governments responsible. It’s simply because they have a greater ability to know what their governments are doing, and why. This is the benefit of world-wide telecommunications along with even the bad side-effect in your social communications with their anonymity that allows a kind of emotional self-indulgence.
But that is very minor. The idea of a “one world” electronically coming into existence is something Mother Spirit and I have talked about because it actually parallels a spiritual unity that has always been here. The Urantia Book talks about all the orders of angels that have been here since the beginning of mankind, and which, without their beneficial effect, mankind would not have advanced as well as it has. But of course the Lucifer Rebellion two hundred thousand years ago deprived you of having a high spiritual being right on the planet with his whole staff, that exists on almost all other worlds in our Local Universe.
(One world of instantaneous international telecommunications)
So this is what is happening. There is a one world more and more consciously coming into existence because the spiritual ban has been lifted and you have things like the Teaching Mission more and more on a very fundamental physical level. You have international telecommunications and the promulgation of several basic languages coming throughout the whole world, tying the world together. Now what happens in one part is tied with all the others. So far–keep your fingers crossed–so far this has prevented some further major world wars from happening. Does this all make sense?
Student #2: Yes, yes it does. Thank you.
MICHAEL: : Yes–the day to day way of nations reacting instantaneously with each other, and the people of these different nations being aware of this, gives them even a greater and greater say as more and more democratic institutions are promulgated everywhere. You still have some terrible dictatorships and authoritarian governments around the world, but they are finding out they simply can’t compete with the more dynamic democracies.
It is having this faith, my dear, in democratic institutions. It’s not only in their political life, but in their economic life where there’s a decentralization of power and more and more individuals, with all their individual creativity, are having some say in their economic life. You can have faith this is the best situation that is simply growing through competition. So we both have much to be very hopeful for. Thank you for the question, my dear. Be in my love.
Student #2: Thank you.
Closing
(Positive consequences of increasing political interest)
MICHAEL: : In closing, let me add one more hopeful note that was addressed tonight, about the social and political polarization that is taking place. This is not all negative insofar as some long overdue social corrections like racism and sexism—a greater and greater equality among the sexes–is only brought to light through the polarization of different viewpoints. Then at least they become more widely conscious. Even political polarization, insofar as it brings more people into a political awareness, is a positive thing because in some of the major democracies of the world you have only half the people voting.
This increasing interest in political affairs is to be welcomed. Obviously, as you bring more and more neophytes of all ages into the political discourse, you are going to have some overly emotional reactions from these newcomers. But you have to welcome them. You have to have more and more people being aware of just what their representatives, way off there in Washington in the case of the United States, are doing that affects their own lives; and holding them responsible.
(Demand ever greater transparency)
MICHAEL: This is the way. The only way of getting more and greater transparency of government is when the people themselves demand it, because it is always in the best interests of the politicians to remain opaque in their machinations.
So keep up your interest, my dear ones. Open your minds. Take in all viewpoints and enjoy them. Enjoy this variety of all the people out there with all their subjective viewpoints in the way they see things, from one person to another. This is the way Mother Spirit and I are blessed to see you all–as unique individuals right from God. Mother Spirit sends you her love, and I bid you, Be in my peace. Good night.
