2016-8-22, NET #002, Machiventa
New Era Transition #002 – Transitions; Democracy; Trauma – Aug. 22, 2016
Machiventa Melchizedek, Planetary Manager
Topics:
Change does not always mean evolution
How the light within you is seen by others
This New Era of Transition
Maturity of cultures in our world
Using the 6 core values in life
Transition Era will start slowly
Collapse from the inside out
Democratic nations must be flexible and adaptable
Social justice, peace and social stability
Backwards countries
Chemical imbalances of the brain
Framing questions
Dealing with the traumatic effects of catastrophes
More on framing questions
Mental health issues
Raising spiritual consciousness
Control over non-natural cataclysms
The good of the individual vs. the good of the whole
Thinking outside the box
Closing remarks by Machiventa
TR: Daniel Raphael
Team members: Roxanne Andrews, Michael Lanier, Michael McCray, and a Student
Invocation
August 22, 2016
MACHIVENTA: Good morning, this is Machiventa Melchizedek, and welcome to a new day. We know that for many of you who follow these sessions that it seems like just another television episode that rolls over to another and another and continues to develop and evolve. There are subtle changes but the plot remains the same and that you can, in some ways for many of you do, drop in and see that it is not changed much in the space of a year or two. But on the other hand, the developments that are occurring are many of which you do not see, which we have said before.
For you, who are mortals of a lifetime of approximately 80 years more or less, there is a certain tedium to this sameness that you get tired of. We are quite aware of that. You will become morontial someday, and eventually spiritual, and you will look back at the developments in your life, and in your society, and you will see the rush of details that unfolded so rapidly, much like watching a flower in a movie that takes a frame every hour and so you see the flower come out of the ground from its seed or bulb and mature within less than 60 seconds into a fully mature flower. This is how we are seeing your world today.
Change does not always mean evolution
The social, political, economic changes are immense, and at the same time, while these changes are immense, that does not necessarily mean that they are evolving. Some of the changes are devolutionary, going backwards, and that we see a rush of social maturity as being stopped and halted, and that your family structures are deteriorating and becoming debilitating to new generations, which is totally contrary to the other 9 out of 10 planets in the Local Universe. Your experimental decimal planet provides much challenge to the administration of any Creator Son throughout the Grand Universe. With 37 planets, there is even more of a challenge. However, the uniformity of the goal of each planet is the same for each and for all, and that is for the evolutionary, spiritual growth and development of each mortal individual, and to provide the best circumstances and opportunities for individual growth.
How the light within you is seen by others
You can put yourself directly into that equation, even though this is a strategic, developmental plan for the planets that were in quarantine, nonetheless you have a special place for yourself in it, and those plans, those strategic goals are also individually tailored to you. You are not alone. You are not abandoned. You are not forgotten. You are remembered intimately and completely. You, however, make the difference in how we relate to you. When you are a bright and shinning beacon of consciousness on your planet, we see you; we literally “see you,” as a bright and shinning beacon of that light that emanates from within you. It says that you are akin to the light of the universe of the First Source and Center Creator, and that you are similar in ways to Nebadonia and the Creator Son, Christ Michael, and that there is an affinity within you to grow that light into greater brilliance and in breadth, and you will achieve it, my friends, in the ultimate destiny of time, even in Nebadon when you are greeted and embraced by your Creator Son, Christ Michael.
This New Era of Transition
As we have said in past sessions, the New Era will continue, however, there is now occurring a parenthesis, so to speak, opening a Transition time that will also have a closing parenthesis in the New Era. This is a transition from the early phase of the New Era to a later phase of the New Era. We have said that we have provided to you the Urantia Book from the 1930s and its publication in the mid-1950s. The Teaching Mission came along and provided you with the fundamentals of that course, that structure to your syllabus of classes and developments for you as individuals, and for your families and your communities. The Magisterial Mission has come along to collectively develop socially and spiritually mature individuals into working groups to provide your world with the transition it needs from the primitive nature of its societies into much more mobile, flexible, and facile communities and societies that can grow and socially evolve into their eventuality as spiritual communities, while here on this material planet.
This transition time is a period where individual plans are developed into social plans so that organizations begin to take on the qualities of mature social organizations that are safe emotional and social environments for their employees, for their workers and for those individuals who constitute the organization. This is a period of time that will last perhaps decades, and give way to the New Era as it is expresses itself in societies that are much more settled and peaceful and more fully democratic, where individuals are more responsible for their individual and social behavior than ever before, where the individual sees him or herself as co-responsible with other individuals and their communities for the care of themselves and for the improvement of their whole society.
Maturity of cultures in our world
This is not the case now with most individuals in your society, and particularly in less mature and evolved societies as well. We are not saying that the United States culture is the perfect culture, for far from it; there are more mature cultures in the world than this, my friends, and it is worthy to look about in the world to cultures within nations that are more mature and more peaceful and more thoughtful in the care of individuals, and the individual’s thoughtful care of their community and society. It is all a very mixed bag of developments on your world, and we work with the most developed and the least developed. For the least developed, we try to provide an environment of growth, peace, and stability so that they can become settled. When you see the wars and genocide, and the militancy of various groups in Africa and the Middle East, these seem to be worst case scenarios for any society, any culture, any ethnic group, nation or individual. These are fully debilitating events and calamitous situations that lead to great personal chaos in the intra-social, and the inter-social parameters of a person’s life.
When one has not been raised in a peaceful situation, and chaos, war and conflict reign in their minds, to those timid individuals it means that they are at a loss and eventually will become a victim of those events. Even those who are perpetrators of violence are victims as well, victims of a larger scope of the intention of their socio-religious cultural groups, which can be very defaming to the individual and destructive to the inner structures of personalities, to families and to communities. These groups are most difficult for us to work with, as the social structure around them does not lend itself to the improvement of the individual and to the peaceful nature of good family structures.
Using the 6 core values in life
These are not forgotten, surely they are not, for the Most Highs work in the administrations and leadership groups of organizations around the world, whether they are non-profit, whether they are governmental, corporate—or otherwise—that the Most Highs work within those organizations for the development of right circumstances for those communities, which are in such distress. When you take the sum total of what I have been saying this morning into consideration on a personal basis, then you have the perspective of a Planetary Manager. Much of our training has been to assist you to become Planetary Managers, where your consideration for others is as great or greater than for yourself. We know that you will strive to take care of yourself, which is a part of your very nature. Where you seek the improvement of your quality of life means that you will continue to seek to improve your circumstances; your equal consideration of others is a tremendous boon to your compassion and your empathy, which is of great assistance to yourself as an evolving spiritual being and to yourself as a social person among others. This is how you become great in the eyes of others, and in the esteem of yourself that is realistic and not narcissistic.
Transition Era will start slowly
This Transition Era is going to be a slow engine to start. We have likened this motion to that of an old steam engine locomotive, where the fire is made greater and greater that boils the water and the steam rising far past the level of boiling into the super-heated levels of 600-800 degrees steam, which then becomes explosively expansive. This is our efforts in your world to expand the explosive nature of good works, where the compassion of individuals reaches out to assist others. Organizations that are ossified, calcified, and crystallized into a lattice work of staid stability will have great difficulty in the future. Those organizations that are intrinsically immobilized in their ability to adapt to changing circumstances will be crushed in the near future.
Collapse from the inside out
You will see whole societies, whole organizations collapse suddenly from the inside out, that they cannot withstand the dynamic of changing organizations and social structures and social change among individuals and groups of individuals. It is in the interests of the Days of Light and Life that governments become adaptable and flexible, to take into consideration the organic nature of social change within individuals as they interpret those core values into their own personal hierarchy of needs. When these are far distant and different from those of their government, then there will be change that will soon follow.
Democratic nations must be flexible and adaptable
As we have said before, democracy is the most developed form of government for your Urantian planet and civilization. Revolt and revolution within a democratic society is anathema and totally destructive and will take your societies backwards rapidly in time to martial law and to dictatorships and military triumvirates, and so on. It is essential that your democratic nations evolve to become more flexible and adaptable, and that this begins by adopting a new value structure for making decisions. We have emphasized this in the past through the 6 core values of social sustainability so that those decisions are humane, as well as being just and necessary. Only through those groups within a democratic society that see these needs in a wide spectrum of the population can they become actors to accelerate social change that is progressive and evolutionary, rather than receding into past modes of social structures.
Social justice, peace, and social stability
You in this nation of the United States have a very broad and wide populace who fit that generality, even those to the near far-right and near far-left see the need for change and are in many ways amenable to reasonable and rational change. When your forms of governments become organic extensions of the organic values and needs of individuals and whole groups of individuals, then they will become more responsive in a responsible way to match the needs of your society, while also adhering to the necessity of social justice, peace, and social stability. Democracy must not die; it must mature. It is much like that plant that we showed you through time-lapsed photography that there is a time of beginning, a middle stage before germination, then germination and new seeds being sprouted around the world, while it matures in itself. Just because a society says it is democratic does not mean that it is advanced. It means that it provides the opportunity for adaptability in the future of necessity in order to match the needs of individuals and whole communities for rational governance. It allows for growth of individuals and the development of more integral communities, whether they are ethnic, cultural, or homogeneous.
Thank you for this time to give you this short discourse. You will see changes in your own nation before too long. You have seen the difficulties of evolving and developing democratic nations in the world in the East, as they move from old monarchial forms to early democratic processes. You are now also seeing developed and maturing democracies that need the same kind of adaptability so that individuals become more responsible in their own governance along with their public executives. Thank you.
Roxie: Thank you very much for giving us more in-depth perspective on this “New Era Transition.” That will be very helpful when we form questions.
Does anyone have questions on Machiventa’s opening statements?
Student: Machiventa, you talked about some countries are more exact in their democracies, or are more advanced in their approaches to social sustainability. Could you talk a little bit more about that, please, and how much more advanced they are than we are?
MACHIVENTA: Your question is most difficult to answer, as there is no qualitative or quantitative way to measure that. It is simply that there are countries that are more mature in their evolution of democracy. Speaking more about it is too general to answer your question, or to make a reasonable answer.
Student: Sir, could I ask, are they using the 6 core values?
MACHIVENTA: Yes, many of these more developed democracies are unconsciously using the 6 core values in their administration and their policy development. This allows them to become more stable socially, politically, and economically.
Student: So this is just something they evolved into; it’s not something that has been brought to their attention?
MACHIVENTA: That is correct.
Backwards countries
Student: Another question that came up during your talk, when you were talking about countries that are going backwards, sort of like some countries are having more difficulties, for instance Africa and the Middle East. It affects everybody, Sir, and when you talk like that, I just feel very guilty, because of the fact that we are all trying, and there are a lot of places that are not functioning in the way that they are supposed to, but what do we do?
MACHIVENTA: Well, [pause], you attend these meetings every 2 weeks, and we talk with each other and we assist you to work in your communities. You are doing that. You continue to belittle yourself for what you are doing, but what you are doing is magnanimous to the 9th degree compared to others around the world.
Student: No, it’s never enough, Sir; it’s never enough. And the other thing you talked about too was the age group at the beginning of your conversation, people in their 80s and that. To my way of thinking, people that are in their 80s, 90s or 70s, or whatever, with their experience of life you would think that they would be more open to receiving these different changes—their values, social sustainability and accept them willingly—and this isn’t happening, I gather?
MACHIVENTA: By the use of this phrase, a span of 80 years of a lifetime as a general age or years of a person’s life, rather than speaking to an age group. Do you see what I mean? (Student: Yes, Sir.) It was not addressing to those 80 year old people.
Student: No, Sir, but it was just the generality of that. I was thinking that the age group would have more insight and understanding. Thank you.
Machiventa: You are welcome.
Student: I don’t have any more questions on this subject, but I have other questions; I will leave them unless others have questions on what you talked about.
MMc: As you say, Machiventa, I think this transition is going to be slow and a very difficult one for some.
MACHIVENTA: Yes, you are correct.
Chemical imbalances of the brain
Student: This question is to do with a previous question sent by a reader about schizophrenia and drugs. He now sends another question, and his question relates to Machiventa’s answer. “Are the chemical imbalances spoken of previously, which caused this deleterious development of the brain organ in late youth and beyond, affecting the development inevitable, or are they a pre-disposition that perhaps could have been prevented from manifesting under favorable conditions? If the latter, are there warning signs a parent might look for and an action they might take, in regard to schizophrenia? Do you want me to break it down?
MACHIVENTA: Please.
Student: One of the questions is on the chemical imbalance: The previous question he asked was, “Is there any advisable way a person might end the taking of drugs without reverting back to their symptoms of schizophrenia? And your answer was on the chemical imbalances. This question is: Is there any way this can be prevented? Are there signs that the parents might be able to look for before the person manifests any outward symptoms of schizophrenia?
MACHIVENTA: Individuals who are pre-disposed by genetics, meaning that there has been prior evidence in their families on either one or both sides that have demonstrated some mental health issues. Sometimes, the trauma of separation from the family of origin at age 17 through their early 20s is traumatic enough to cause an individual enough distress to begin the imbalance in their thinking, and those are latent and potential into the future. There are some individuals who have a pre-disposition for mental health issues that never manifest, simply because they have always had a very supportive personal and social environment to care for them and support them. There are those occasions, however, in adulthood when there may be some traumatic situation which would then bring this latent mental health problem into manifestation. It is not necessary that one follows the other, however.
As far as families observing their children at the early stages, it is important that parents review their own personal family history for evidences of some mental health problems and issues that were manifest in former generations, or in current generations. Their best course of action is to counsel, or have the child counseled with the parents about the potential of these developments and what it means when those symptoms begin to manifest. It is important that the child, becoming an adult, not be overwhelmed by their increasing disability.
Much can be done within the interior of the intra-personal relationship between an individual and their mind and the functioning of their brain. This has not been well developed in your culture and in your psychiatric professional realms. [The individual] can observe the early manifestations of this and can help their mind work against or work with these symptoms for their own better adjustment. There are many in your populations around the world who are mentally ill, but who are adequately able to conduct themselves in a “normal” manner, so that their behavior allows them to function in their society. I have gone on past the necessity of the answers to your questions. I would be glad to entertain the next portion of your question.
Student: Thank you, Sir. But the next portion of my question refers to the thing we talked before about emergencies, concerning drugs used for psychiatric purposes and for health purposes, and to find out what local plans were for these emergencies. I did check into it. I asked about what is the preparation, or what rules do they have regarding emergencies for psych drugs, and things like that, and I was told that where we are, there are no drugs, psychiatric or medical for heart or anything like that, that they be stockpiled for any emergencies, because it is up to the individual to make sure they have their own 72 hour supply, and then after that, it is dependent upon the government to supply the drugs.
The reason given to me was about liability. Prescription drugs they just won’t deal with in emergencies like that unless the Federal Government steps in. So, I think it’s important that other people should know this and they should search in their communities to find out what their rules and regulations are. I don’t know how to go about changing it right now, except to make everybody aware.
MACHIVENTA: One of the purposes of our sessions is to make people aware.
Student: Yes, Sir. We have a responsibility for every person to look out for their own selves, prescriptions and everything else for the first 72 hours, and then after that, well . . . hopefully the government will step in. Sir, do you have any further suggestions?
MACHIVENTA: No, we have made them already.
Roxie: Since our student brought up the subject of mental health and drugs, Colorado and several other states are now legalizing the use of marijuana for recreational and medical purposes, and a few more states allow just medicinal purposes. Can you tell us how this particular drug affects the brain, because so many people believe that it is completely harmless and others do not?
MACHIVENTA: Your medical journals are most replete concerning the affects of marijuana and the active psychogenic/psycho-active ingredients in marijuana that affects the mind and the brain.
Roxie: Are these permanent-type changes?
MACHIVENTA: This too, has been considered in those journals.
[This is Daniel: I think our audience here is making a mistake in thinking that Machiventa is your personal Wikipedia. This just doesn’t work, and that’s my opinion as I feel the Celestials withdraw from a question. That isn’t apparent to you, but they just aren’t our own encyclopedia. They are concerned with Planetary Management. That doesn’t minimize your concerns for this problem, but how does it affect the general welfare of the world?
Roxie: It’s just that we get so many conflicting opinions in our own sources. That was my reason for asking. But you are right.
Student: What you just said is true because there are so many personal opinions and conflicting opinions about different important subjects, that I think the reason we ask Machiventa some of these questions is because we are looking for some truth to deal with the subject because we don’t really know about a lot of these things, and we are still grasping for the truth of them. There are just so many opinions.
Daniel: Will you wait just a minute for Machiventa’s response to that?]
Framing questions
MACHIVENTA: It would be more purposeful and useful if your questions were framed in a less specific manner. If your questions were more generally as this: Is marijuana detrimental to the health of an individual and to a society? This takes into the moral parameters of decision-making and of slow, creeping social debilitation due to widespread drug use. Those kinds of questions are within our venue to address more specifically, more generally. We are concerned about populations being enhanced in their capability for making decisions and also in the slow, gradual debilitation of society.
Dealing with the traumatic effects of catastrophes
Student: Thank you, Sir; you are right. I have a question and I hope I have worded it the right way. My question is on trauma and how it affects people, especially with the changing times coming now, the traumas are going to escalate and also the types of traumas that people are going to experience. Could you talk about that, please?
MACHIVENTA: In what regard?
Student: In regard to if there is a cataclysm—and there is going to be—people are not going to be able to get the things they are used to, not necessarily just drugs and things like that, but for everyday living, and the traumas are going to affect a lot of people who never, ever dealt with trauma in their lives. How do we positively deal with this type of trauma? Is that too general a question?
MACHIVENTA: Thank you for your question. The first and best way to address trauma is to realize that trauma is coming, and to know that there will be trauma, and that there will be confusion. There will be social confusion, economic confusion, and political confusion; and that there will be confusion in peoples’ thinking and that they will be incapable of making decisions at that time. You have seen instances where people have been in trauma, where their house caught on fire and the only thing they took out of the house was their cosmetics. Or they took out something that was irrelevant to the total situation. It will be cataclysmic on the personal community spectrum of living.
Your best preparation for engaging trauma is to know that trauma is coming, and that it will be much like sitting on the top of a hill where you see the tsunami come across the western side of your island and raise the level of water in the bay, and as you sit on the hill there is nothing you can do about it, but you see the water engulf businesses and houses, and so on. And then as the water recedes, you see many individuals being washed out to sea along with their cars and houses and other materials that will eventually drown and sink into the ocean. You are then helpless with that situation. This is trauma of a very heightened nature, seen as an observer.
However, if you were sitting on the dock of the pier when the water rose suddenly within less than 1 minute, then ten feet, it would be a cataclysm for your own personal life. You would be engulfed in the process of trying to stay above water and to survive by grabbing onto something that was floating. Yes, the trauma of those situations will be horrendous, and it will be something that some individuals can endure and live through in relative ease, where others are totally crushed psychologically by what they see going on around them. How will you react when this occurs? You are an elder person and so you have had a full life already. Will you easily succumb to your mortal passage, or will you resist it in trying to save others as well?
This becomes personal when you see trauma on a wide scale basis. It always eventually becomes personal and how you make decisions about that. And what decisions will you make? Those [decisions] are the most important things to consider now: “Who are you?” “What are you made of?” “Do you have empathy for others?” “Will you reach out in compassion to help them,” and you will probably even see many who will sacrifice their life to save that of others, and these are worthy things to do and [are] never forgotten. The question is very poignant and very timely. Within the next 10 years your countryside’s and your world will have much trauma that they will engage on a personal, local and national basis.
It will come in many forms; it is not specific, it is general, but you will have trauma in your lives as you are seeing among those people in the Gulf States of the United States where there are tremendous floods, as well as the incredible flooding and fires in other nations across the world. Monjoronson has spoken of this in years past, and has tried to help prepare you for these traumas now that they have become closer to your life. You are going to, and you are even now living through them. There are those in our audience today who are now undergoing this kind of trauma through the great dis-ease of themselves and their families.
Student: Thank you, Machiventa, and thank you for generating so many questions like that. With these traumas and as we deal with them, Sir, could you please talk about the spiritual energies that we are going to really be working on to deal with all this?
MACHIVENTA: Your question is too general to answer, Dear.
Student: Oh, okay. I’m trying to figure out what is meant by the words “spiritual energies?” (Long pause.) I don’t have any more questions.
More on framing questions
ML: My question is this: Is it correct to assume that if Machiventa is withdrawing from a question, that issue or question is not relevant to the Management of Responsibilities that we are being look to, to provide?
MACHIVENTA: Thank you for your question; it is a very appropriate question to be asked. Oftentimes, as you might have witnessed just immediately before you asked your question, you heard that I did not respond to the statement of the Student. And this was because it was not addressed as a question. First of all, we, whether it is myself or a member of our team, strive not to respond to comments as that can cause confusion and ambiguity in the individual who made the statement. It “assumes” that we understand that there is a question, or some question in mind by that individual.
When we demur from answering a question, it is because of several reasons:
1) It may be a curiosity question and not be relevant to our work, or to the lives of the individuals to make a moral, ethical, or evolving decision.
2) Another reason for demurring is that it is a probing question, but is not relevant to what we are doing.
3) We prefer to engage questions which require a large scale perspective to your world, and then to your nations and cultures and the communities, families and individuals, and that we strive to avoid providing answers to individuals, which may be used erroneously in the future to make a decision.
We have devised our own protocols for answering questions, which never have been discussed with you in such a specific way as your question has asked for. It is good to do so. We do know that there is a desire by individuals to take the macro perspective to the micro perspective, and then apply that to themselves or to their local situation. What we strive to do in answering these is not to provide information which provides an excuse or a reason for the individual not to take rational, spiritual evolving action and decisions in their life. We do not want our words be used as: “Well, Machiventa told us . . .”, and so on, and then to prove or disprove the validity of what Machiventa said. This would be the height of folly in having these sessions occur. We strive not to allow that ambiguity and those difficult situations to develop. That is why in many ways our answers and responses are so generalized for you.
Mental health issues
When you come to a case of mental health issues, you realize that, yes, it is a species specific difficulty for Homo sapiens and that, yes, it is specific to your family genetic heritage and that perhaps even you as an individual has a specific difficulty with some psychiatric problem. Therefore, the general problem of mental health in the human species becomes very specific to the individual. How to ask a question that addresses both the general and the specific is one that we would encourage you ask.
Raising spiritual consciousness
ML: Thank you. I have another question. Is there an effect occurring on the future cataclysms by way of the rising spiritual consciousness?
MACHIVENTA: Yes, there definitely is. As you know, the Power Directors for this solar system and particularly for your planet can suppress energetic developments in specific areas and otherwise. They can also have an effect upon the weather in some general ways that can be postponed or delay the difficulties that will occur. If you, as an individual or corporate manager of a situation, knew that you had an unavoidable development that was occurring, [and] you had the capability of delaying that detrimental action, you would perhaps wish to do so, to allow it to release itself at the most opportune time in the future for the welfare of your corporation or company. It may have to do with going public or to the sale of stocks, or to acquiring another company, and so on. You have issues that can be delayed, but will have to be engaged in eventually.
Planetary Management is not much different. In this case, the general spiritual evolution of your world is increasing generally, though you know as well as we do that specifically and in specific areas it is highly detrimental and almost non-existent. Therefore, we want to assist those areas that are growing spiritually to become models and exemplars of mature social and spiritual development. It has been our action so far to protect those areas as much as we can. Eventually, however, those geophysical aspects of your world that have been delayed will eventually express themselves in a rather much more detrimental way. In that regard, as we have said, we do know that there will be events in the future that are not of a geophysical nature that will be incredibly tumultuous and cataclysmic to your world, and it is perhaps at that time that great change can take place after these cataclysms have passed.
Control over non-natural cataclysms
MMc: Does the spiritual world have some control over these cataclysms that are not natural in nature?
MACHIVENTA: Only to a limited extent. When you consider social, political and economic realms as having the capacity to express cataclysmic developments, those are in many ways, cultural, they are sometimes isolated to specific organizations, but most of the time they are developmental and develop to a point where the social structure, political structure, economic structures can no longer suppress those actions. As we have said before, there will be a cataclysmic economic development that [will] occur on your world that will affect all economies.
The spiritual realm can assist in deferring these as much as possible, by having individuals come forward with those Nobel Prize Winning inclusions in their research and in their actions that provide excellent examples or insights into better social, political, or economic management. This has been very advantageous to us, as there are many people who have open psyches that are open to the new ideas and who are not constrained or confined to the old cultural boxes of ideology.
Roxie: I’ll go on with some other questions our readers have sent in: “Given that many planets in our system did not go into rebellion, what are the benefits of the Planetary Prince’s staff leaving behind their Thought Adjusters when embarking on this service?
MACHIVENTA: Let us defer that question until the next session, thank you.
The good of the individual vs. the good of the whole
Roxie: Okay. The next one: “As we know from the Urantia Book, our Paradise Father follows the principle of maintaining the unity and integrity in the Management of the Universe. In this work, the private interests are sacrificed for the good of the whole. Eco-villages must learn to choose priorities to make hard decisions in difficult conditions of survival to preserve its existence and even make development possible. Therefore, there is an inevitable conflict of interests, private interests versus the interests of the whole. What could you say about the management of eco-settlements which are in difficult circumstances like these?
MACHIVENTA: The question begs for a much broader perspective of private interests versus public or community or societal interests. The first perspective is to change this from adversarial to cooperative and complemental. This decision-making has not been given deep thought as to the priorities of sustainability. There must be, first of all, a sorting out between the priorities of material sustainability within that general area. Secondly, there must be a prioritization of decision-making within the social sustainable area of consideration. What is most important to the sustainability of a society? Of course it is the sustainability of individuals and individual families so that the community can reproduce and maintain itself and sustain itself. However, when the interests of individuals, the private side of this equation, become dominant and selfish to the extent that it compromises the integrity and sustainability of the whole of society or community, then there will be social decline and destruction of the whole community or society.
What we have given you through This One, is an illustration of the hierarchy of decision-making for societies and for individuals.
Priorities of Decision-Making
To Create a Socially Sustainable Society
Species
Individual/Family
Community/Society
| ORGANIZATIONS
Social-Societal |
ORGANIZATIONS
Political-Governmental |
ORGANIZATIONS
Economic-Financial |
In text, it is that the sustainability of the species always comes first. Every species on your world is constructive, rather than self-destructive. It seeks to replicate itself in dominating its environment. Of course, as you know from these studies that when the species becomes too dominant and too pervasive, then it dominates its environment and it kills itself off due to too many numbers.
You must reconsider the social contract between the individual and your society. This is an important facet of thinking in the priorities of your societies and the obligatory symbiotic relationship between individuals and the society. Individuals have a moral obligation to do all they can to save and sustain their society without overwhelming that society by their sheer numbers. Society, on the other hand, has an obligation in this relationship to do all it can to unlock and develop the potential within each individual without expending so many resources that it becomes debilitated and unable to participate effectively in this relationship. This is an area of consideration that is far past philosophical, but lands “smack dab” in your lap as a practical matter for individuals and for your communities.
You see, then, in the democracy of the United States and those in Europe, and so on, that this relationship, this conversation of this obligatory symbiotic relationship has been held at arm’s distance as a philosophical matter of those individuals who think about things like that. However, this is an essential aspect of discussion and enculturation for every generation, without missing any generation in this enculturation. Your societies in general have been dismissive of enculturation’s performance to assist society to survive, let alone [assist] its citizens as individuals.
Thinking outside the box
Roxie: His next question is: “Thinking outside the box does not help where it is necessary to stick to routine things. On the other hand, routine thinking does not give the ability to create innovative solutions. How does one balance these two opposite abilities without any loss to think creatively?”
MACHIVENTA: I am chuckling because you give evidence to having the answer already.
Roxie: I guess that’s all the questions I have for this session.
Closing remarks by Machiventa
MACHIVENTA: In closing, we thank you for being here today to ask these questions, which are rarely asked or supposed in the minds of individuals, let alone large groups of individuals. This is your “thinking outside the box of your culture” by thinking of other planets and civilizations, as well as thinking of how you can reinvent your own culture, your own society, socially, politically and economically. When you have this openness to do this, you actually have the capacity to see problems as opportunities to create solutions to old problems that cause those difficulties. Think about these things deeply and you will find it is not so much the fact that problems arise, but how you deal with those problems, how you view them. Will you see them as problems and difficulties, or will you see these problems as opportunities to create solutions that have never come about before?
These words that I am sharing with you are nothing new to your philosophers or to the thinkers of your societies. This is old wisdom that is something that is very important to be engendered in each individual, in each generation. We hope you will think long and hard about those aspects of wisdom that are as applicable to this generation as they were to 5 generations before, and to 5 generations in the future. Thank you very much and have a good day.
