ON SOCIAL PROBLEMS

　　　　　　Chapter Six

　　　ON SOCIAL PROBLEMS

I AM in favour of people being permissive as long as they permit themselves to do the right thing. You are all endowed with a divine monitor. You call it conscience. It tells you when you are right or wrong.

　There can be no more fitting quotation with which to begin this chapter which examines some of today's moral, ethical and social problems. The last decade or so has seen a revolution in society's ideas which its inhabitants either applaud or abhor.

　Silver Birch was asked this two-part question by a circle member: "There are a lot of people who are worried and troubled about what is happening in our society at the moment. How should a Spiritualist conduct himself or herself in these times?" The guide replied:

　Those with knowledge should never allow fear to effect any lodgement within them. Your world has had many troubles. It will have troubles until spiritual principles are the foundation on which orders of society are built. To try and erect these on a materialistic basis is equivalent to building on quicksand. You cannot have peace without while there is war within. How can there be co-operation when hatred, violence, enmity, greed and sloth are the expressions of too many people?

　Love is the fulfilling of the law. You must love one another because you recognise that every individual in your world is your spiritual brother or sister, and that the whole human family consists of spiritual kith and kin. This is what the Great Spirit has done by implanting into every being a portion of its own divinity so that the chain of the spirit in which you are all links girdles the whole of your world.

　At present there is no recognition of this eternal fact that primarily you are spiritual beings none of whom can live in

isolation from others, that your evolution is bound up with one another, that you advance or retreat collectively.

　This is your responsibility. I have always said that knowledge brings responsibility as to how it is to be employed. Once you are aware of spiritual truths, once you are familiar with the workings of the power of the spirit, you should have no fear of today or the morrow.

　No harm will befall your spirit. If you live according to what you know and what has been revealed to you, you will come through unsinged no matter what the fire. You cannot be spiritually hurt or crushed by whatever happens in your world. You have all had evidence in your own lives of what the power of the spirit can do when the conditions are right.

　Unfortunately those who are aware of these vital truths are the few and not the many. The majority think that power resides in matter, in force, in domination, in tyranny, in slavery. But all the children of the Great Spirit are born to be free in body, mind and spirit.

　Gradually as these truths infiltrate and permeate every-where, the children of earth will live in greater liberty and a brighter lustre will be their everyday existence. You have not come to the end of the story in this land or in any other lands. The divine power of evolution will slowly and gradually reveal itself. People on earth may block, impede and delay, but they cannot alter the divine will.

　If they could overcome the will of the Great Spirit then the earth would have crumbled a long time ago. Spirit is superior to matter. The divine spirit is the overruling power. I always say, lift up your hearts, hold your heads high, there is nothing to fear in your world, or in ours for that matter. You will come through.

　Should we not encourage our speakers to concentrate more on attacking what is known to be wrong, such as the colour bar, encouraging hate of various nations, cruelty to animals and children?

　Yes, as long as you stress that the reason why you attack these cruelties, misunderstandings and discriminations is because they are spiritually wrong apart from being physically wrong. You have a unique attitude towards these problems because you are aware of spiritual realities.

　Because man is a spirit he must have a body fit enough to be its temple. Therefore his mind must have the education that is essential to equip that temple. His body must have the right conditions, the right home, the right clothing, the right food, because it is spiritually necessary for this to be so.

　It is spiritually wrong to be cruel to animals. It is spiritually wrong to have race or colour discrimination. The soul has no colour. It is not yellow, red, black or white. If you stress the spiritual aspect, then you are emphasising the most important contribution you can make.

　My point is that we should protect ourselves against brain-washing attempted by all the media that teach us nothing but hate.

　If you have spiritual awareness you cannot hate your spiritual brother.

　I think we who know more have to help.

　Yes, the greater the knowledge, the greater the respon-sibility

　And when we're aware, to be tolerant.

　Tolerance is the essence of spirituality. If there is bigotry, there is no spirituality.

　It's all very well saying be tolerant, I agree, but one must define what one means by tolerance in relation to a concrete world. We certainly shouldn't be tolerant of cruelty or evil in any form.

　You must also define evil. The whole purpose of earthly life is to develop your spiritual nature so that you are ready for the next stage beyond what is called death. You will have an increasing degree of awareness. As your spiritual nature unfolds and advances, so automatically you will become more tolerant and more compassionate to others. That does not mean to say you must be tolerant towards evil, cruelty, or wickedness of any kind. It is a tolerance towards others because you realise they are less informed than you are. Often they are doing things through sheer

ignorance because they are unaware of the implications of their actions.

　That is where your tolerance is necessary. But it is not a tolerance that should accept evil and disregard it. That is not toleration, but ignoring the obvious. Tolerance involves awareness,

and a readiness to serve wherever you can.

　Toleration comes from love and loving kindness. When you love individuals you tolerate their faults. I think toleration, which means love, is what the world lacks now. And if we could combine the two, we would have more elevation.

　I agree with you. Your Bible says that love is the fulfilling of the law. Love is the law, the law of the Great Spirit, because the Great Spirit is love. And when you reflect the Great Spirit you are expressing love. By love I mean compassion, the desire to serve, to sacrifice, to help, to do all within your power for those who are less fortunate than you are. This is the love that ignores self and wants to do what it can for someone who needs the service you can give.

　Some people maintain that society today has never been more immoral. Is that the view of the spirit world? They instance what happened 50 to 100 years ago when children were sent to work, cleaning chimneys, etc. Silver Birch said:

　What is meant by immoral? Some things you regard as moral we would regard as highly immoral. It depends on your outlook. To me morality is that ideal which infuses you with the idea of acting always according to the highest principles of which you are aware. This is to be kind, helpful, compassionate.

　It is not to inflict hurt or injury on another; not in any way to impede the progress of another; to do nothing that have causes you shame or a later knowledge that you behaved in a fashion that is inconsistent with the truths you

have received.

　That is the morality I understand, that I would teach to others. As to whether your world is more or less moral must depend on your interpretation of morality. In some respects it is essentially economically and spiritually better; in others it is not so because evolution does not move in a straight line.

　We are told we live in a world that is materialistic. Surely in today's society one has to be materialistic to a degree to provide security for one's family. If one is too Spiritualistic it could lead to financial hardship for one's family. Where does one draw the line?

　Seek ye first the kingdom of God and heaven, and all these other things will be added unto you.

　"Surely one can do both," it was suggested.

　Of course. But if you have your priorities right, and are spiritually aware, you will not neglect those dependent on you. We have never taught you should avoid your respon-sibilities in the physical world. You must have your priorities right and be aware of your spiritual responsibilities as well as your physical ones. Do not neglect the spirit, the mind or the body or seek to cast away that for which you are responsible.

　Before examining the implications of abortion, here are the guide's views on contraception. A guest explained it was a frank but very important question. Silver Birch had, he said, taught that "birth is a natural law. In that case is it wrong for people to practise birth control because they are interfering with the natural law?" Here is the spirit reply:

　No, they are not. It is right for them to practise the physical control of birth if they decide to do so for reasons which they regard as good, be they economic, for health and various other factors. Motive decides these questions. If the motive is right then everything will fall into its proper place. There is nothing wrong with the practice of birth control when the motive is right. But there are millions who welcome the opportunities of coming together so that they can provide the beginning of a physical body for a life to function on earth.

　When the subject of abortion was raised, the questioner wanted to know "at what point is it wrong?"

　From the very moment it is done.

　Even at the earliest?

　The answer is from the very moment it is done it is wrong. Listen, you have no power to create life. You have power to transfer life. You have no right to destroy its expression. Abortion is akin to murder. From the moment of conception the spirit has incarnated into the woman's womb. When it is aborted it will continue to be a spiritual body, however immature, and grow and develop. You may have destroyed the means of physical expression, but you have not destroyed the spirit that was there. Abortion is interference with the embryonic spirit which is developing according to its natural growth. There are qualifications when the motive is righ. That will always be taken into account.

　I do not know of any evolved being in my world who favours abortion. But always there is the qualification that the motive must be taken into consideration. The act itself is condemned.

　You do not create life. You should not therefore end the means by which it expresses itself. If those who practise abortion realised they were not merely getting rid of matter, but a living entity with whom one day they will be con-fronted, I think there would be fewer abortions. From the moment of conception, there is the beginning of an individual, who will never die and continue to grow in my world.

　"It is a terrifying thought bearing in mind what is happening on earth," the guide was told.

　It is a fact.

　Will they incarnate when the time comes?

　Yes, responsibility cannot be evaded. If the purpose of incarnation is for them to fulfil themselves and this is denied, they will return not once but many times if necessary.

　A different visitor asked about people with complete brain damage who, though compared with cabbages, are kept alive by machines in hospitals. "Is keeping them alive altering the plan of the Great Spirit? What happens to their spirits? Are these still linked with the physical bodies? Are they asleep? Should they be released?" The guide answered:

　The purpose of the earthly existence is that the spirit should equip itself for the greater life that awaits it afte physical death. The fulfilment of that purpose should be achieved if lives are lived in harmony with the natural law, so that when the time is ripe and the body has served its purpose, the spirit separates itself. As I have often said, the spirit should leave the body as the apple leaves the tree when it is ripe.

　In the case of those you mention who have experienced brain damage, it must always be the motive of doctors to do all that lies in their power to maintain the life of their patient. In olden days the doctors took an oath that this would be the purpose of all their professional activity. It is never right spiritually for anyone in your world to interfere in that process of the operation of natural law, that the spirit should quit the body when the time is ripe. There is a qualification that when doctors accelerate that process, and their motive is unquestionably a good one, then you cannot blame them for what they do.

　The patient suffering from the damage can be compared with a machine where the transmission is faulty because something has gone wrong with the dynamo or the motor. It can work only at a fraction of what should be its usual efficiency.

　Because the brain is damaged, the mind, which you can call the brain of the spirit, is unable to express itself as it should. There is no damage to the mind because there is damage to the brain. If you have a typewriter and the keys are not working, it only means that the typist cannot use the machine. It does not mean that the typist has in any way been damaged.

　The mind is handicapped. It lacks the development which it should have attained had there been a normal existence. So that when passing comes, the passing to our world, that soul is at a stage where it has to make up for what it has lost, almost like a child who comes to our life. But there is no damage spiritually as far as the individual is concerned.

　As long as the spirit animates the body that link will be maintained. When the cord that connects the spirit to the body, just as there is a cord connecting the mother to the baby, is cut, this life is released. It is the spiritual life for the one who has died physically and the physical life for the one who has been born into your world.

　The questioner commented, "We hear of people who are just passing on and they are kept alive by machines." Silver Birch told him:

　When the time comes for the spirit to leave the body there is no machine in your world that can make it stay. It is not in the power of anyone in your world to compel the spirit to stay once the cord has been cut because then physical death has occurred.

　This raises the question of euthanasia. One visitor wanted to know the spirit world's attitude. The guest said: 

　"We read reports of people involved in a car accident. They are taken to hospital. If they do not pass on they are left to live as cabbages, unable to do anything for themselves. Why are they left on earth when they cannot develop spiritually in such a condition? Why cannot euthanasia be put into practice?"

　The guide replied:

　It says somewhere in your Bible, "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord." I quote these words because they are true. Life comes from the Great Spirit. You cannot create life, neither can you destroy it. You can provide the mechanism in which life will function. You can destroy that mechanism, but the gift of life is not yours. Life is the responsibility which is entrusted to you.

　When it comes to judgement, beware of making assess-ments based only on physical measurement. You cannot measure the spirit with a physical yardstick. Your natural pity, sympathy, mercy and compassion are aroused when you see an individual reduced to what you call a cabbage. But the cabbage has a life and a purpose to serve in your world otherwise it would not be there.

　A person is injured in an accident. His body is so mutilated that its machinery is incapable of giving the spirit the fulness of its expression. Do you regard this problem as physical or spiritual? Spiritually there is a purpose to be served, a lesson to be learned, an experience to be undergone. Physically it may all seem motiveless. But until you can see with the eye of the spirit, until you can understand eternal scales of

values, your judgement must of necessity be based on fallacies.

　I am completely and utterly opposed to killing these individuals, though the act is qualified by the motive in doing so. This, however, is not the answer. Once you entrust to others the decision as to when they shall kill, you are giving them a power which they are all not capable of having. Nor should they have the responsibility of this decision.

　A circle member asked, "If a person is suffering, have not we some responsibility to relieve him of further suffering?"

　If you are referring to illness, disease or infirmity, it is possible that conventional medicines cannot cure or improve the condition. But there are other forms of treatment which can and do produce beneficial results. The criterion must not be what the medical verdict is. We must establish that first of all. We are all familiar with many cases wher medical verdicts have been disproved and other healing forces have produced cures or betterment.

　Suffering has its purpose. Suffering is essential because it is a means of touching the soul and calling into being the hidden forces that will or should enable the individual to be stronger in spirit and sometimes in body as a result. Suffering for many people is the catalyst that enables them to view the whole of life from a totally different standpoint.

　Do not write off anybody as impossible of improvement. This is the wrong attitude. I know it is an adage in your world that where there is life there is hope. This is true. As long as the spirit inhabits that frame it is possible that it can stimulate recovery, reinvigorate, recharge and enable the body to function with some degree of efficiency. The natural law, if allowed to operate, will ensure that when the time is ripe the body will drop away because the spirit is ready for its departure.

　The questioner said: "I have been in touch with a case of cancer. The pain is just beginning and it does seem wrong."

　But pain can be alleviated. There are medical means of doing so. If pain is the problem, it can be dealt with. Even when conditions are intolerable I must insist this is not the final verdict so far as we are concerned. I would be false to everything I teach if I said that the final verdict is to be given by those whose minds are restricted to one set scale of discipline.

　Another circle member pointed out, "In our experience we have many cases of inoperable cancer where the pain has been taken away by spirit healing."

　"Yes, I would agree," said the previous speaker, "but there are many where it is not."

　"Perhaps the answer is that we should have a greater knowledge of spirit power, put more into operation so that there are reservoirs of it when these things happen."ー"But this does not help the person."

　The guide told him:

　You can always give healing. You can always pray and help in that direction because the thought has great potency

that can produce results. Never accept the pessimistic view of those who, intelligent though they may be, are earth-bound in their outlook.

　"It has very often been said that suffering ennobles a person," interposed the second circle member. "Often it does not happen." Silver Birch said:

　I never say it automatically ennobles the individual, but it can do so because suffering is one of the inevitable experiences of earthly life that you must endure on earth. As you have often heard me say, sunshine and rain, storm

and peace, you cannot have one without the other.

　If your entire earthly existence is unalloyed happiness, then it would cease to be happiness because you would not realise it. You know it is happiness because have had sorrow. Suffering is often the means to enable you to appreciate what your life is all about. It is through suffering, sorrow,

illness, crisis and bereavement that spiritual eyes can be opened. To many people, these are the means by which they come to an understanding of eternal realities.

　Unfortunately many people when they suffer become unhappy, bitter and narrow.

　This is because they have no enduring foundation for their existence. If your philosophy, religion and outlook are founded on a rock of knowledge, then, come what may when the winds of adversity blow, you will not be disturbed.

You will recognise them as part of the pattern, not the whole, but only a part.

　The corollary would seem that suffering should go only to those people who have reached that stage of development where they can appreciate it.

　You must take that up with the Great Spirit. All I can say is that having viewed life on many planes of being, the natural laws operate with exactitude and do not err.

　Another member joined the discussion with: "There must be a number of people who do not want to die. If doctors were given the power to kill them, some of these people would be the last who would want it." 

　This is not a decision that they or the doctors should be called on to make. Let us face certain facts. The majority of doctors are materialistic in outlook. Their knowledge of medicines is founded on a materialism which has not recognised that man is a body, mind and a spirit. So far as the medical world is concerned, man is a body with a brain and perhaps a mind, but no recognition comes to the spirit. How can you therefore entrust the responsibility of such vital decisions to people who are completely ignorant of the most important matters in life?

　Sometimes people sign a form saying if they are rendered incapable physically after an accident, they would wish to pass on.

　That is a decision which they make of their free will.

　What is the position if the doctor acts on this request?

　There is no blame.

　Does the law of cause and effect come into operation when a person passes of his own free will?

　The law of cause and effect always comes into operation. Your birth is due to the operation of natural law. Your death should be due to the operation of natural law. If you choose to short-circuit, to interfere, then obviously you are breaking what should be a natural sequence and a price must be paid for it.

　You have heard me say many times that death should come when the spirit is ready, just as the apple drops from the tree when it is ripe. If you pull the apple from the tree before it is ready, the fruit is not palatable. If the spirit is forced out of the body when it is not ready, then a penalty has to be paid. That is the law of cause and effect.

　Your judgement is based purely on physical observation. The purpose of life is spiritual. It is not right for you to remove people from your world. You cannot see the whole picture. You can look only on the physical side. There is a time to be born and a time to die. It is all part of a natural law. You do not give life, you should not take it away. Life belongs to the Great Spirit.

　With infinite wisdom the Great Spirit has devised the natural laws that ensure justice is meted out to every individual. If you try to judge eternity by this earthly fraction you will not succeed because you have no means of measuring the spirit or the reactions to it.  Some suffering is good for the soul. It tests its calibre. It calls into being latent strength. Steel can be forged only in the flame. Gold emerges only after crushing and refining.

　There is a purpose in all that happens in your world. I understand your sympathies, but nothing happens by chance in your world. Besides, who is to decide these matters? Your doctors can be wrong, as they have been many times.

　We often see things in reverse from you. Physical senility can be spiritual birth. Your disorders we can often see as advances and your advances as disasters. To measure eternity with a physical yardstick will not give you any satisfactory answers.

　Why does anybody suffer? Why do children suffer? Why do you have pain, illness, trouble and crisis? It is all part of the long story of your evolution. In some cases you know before you come into earth that this is what you have accepted.

　There would be no growth unless you were subjected to all the variety of experiences that provide the lessons you learn for your spiritual equipment. This in brief is the whole purpose of being.

　I have said it before. It is only in darkness that find the light. If there were no darkness you would never know what light is. There are the principles of compensation and retribution. The Great Spirit is the perfect judge. The balance is always struck. The pages of the ledger show the right balance when the accounts have to be prepared. Continue to have sympathy, but try to realise there is an underlying purpose in all the seemingly sad and troublesome experiences.

　In eternity a few hours or days are of little import. It is the effect on the soul that is important. As you probably know, very often you are suffering more than the patient, who is getting only a mechanical reflex reaction and not feeling what you think is being felt.

　What happens to the soul is the most important. I do not mean by that that you have to be impervious as to what happens to the body. The body is the means by which the soul expresses itself on earth. There is a constant reaction. The body affects the spirit and the spirit affects the body. But the superior is the spirit. The spirit is king and the body is the subject.

　Drugs poured into a body will not hurt the spirit. They may for a while delay the final severance, but they cannot alter the law which determines that the spirit must be freed by death. You cannot, for example, by any drug or medica-tion achieve physical immortality because that is controlled by the natural law.

　Man-made death of a different type, suicide, arose after a questioner said: "You naturally, and quite rightly, condemn shortening of life by using external physical means. But it is possible for persons without using any external means to will themselves to die. Would you consider it a form of suicide?"

　Nothing can change personal responsibility. The law of cause and effect is inexorable. Effect will always follow cause.

　It may be that the individual welcomes Drugs poured into a body will not hurt the spirit. They may for a while delay the final severance, but they cannot alter the law which determines that the spirit must be freed by death. You cannot, for example, by any drug or medica-tion achieve physical immortality because that is controlled by the natural law.

　Man-made death of a different type, suicide, arose after a questioner said: "You naturally, and quite rightly, condemn shortening of life by using external physical means. But it is

possible for persons without using any external means to will themselves to die. Would you consider it a form of suicide?"

　Nothing can change personal responsibility. The law of cause and effect is inexorable. Effect will always follow cause.

　It may be that the individual welcomes the fact of passing because he believes in life after death. The body has become cumbersome. He so welcomes death that he would not endeavour to sustain the body by medical means when it becomes cumbersome.

　Then the motive is the only important consideration. The motive will qualify the action.

　Reports we receive of the condition of suicides in your world is that they are unhappy, disorientated and miserable. But of course they were in that condition before they committed suicide. There-fore it is natural they will be in the same condition when they pass from this world. What if a person committed suicide out of sheer joy and happiness?

　Then the motive is selfish. You can't cheat the natural law. There are no exceptions. What you sow you must reap. There cannot be any other way. Your motive decides. Your conscience tells you what is right or wrong at the time. If you choose to equivocate, that is your responsibility.

　An unusual aspect came when a guest said: "We are told by doctors that if people eat, drink and smoke to excess they are liable to kill themeslves. Are they committing a form of suicide or are deaths preordained?"

　The answer is implicit in the question. If it is ordained, then whether it is suicide or not means it is predestined. So if it is ordained it would have to take place. It could be the soul is aware that it is ordained.

　I can never make up my mind if deaths are already known when we are born, or whether we change them by our own actions.

　Known to whom? 

　Possibly to ourselves or those we left behind on the Other Side.

　It is known, but all cannot be revealed. The fraction of earth life over infinity is infinitesimal. What is above that line in the fraction, whatever the figure may be, is micro-scopic compared with what is below it. The smaller cannot include the larger; the larger can include the smaller. Whatever awareness there may be embodied in the recesses of the soul it cannot be expressed until it is ready for it to be done.

　You have free will within relative conditions. You can change part of the tapestry, but not the pattern on which it is based. You have to work that out for yourselves. Every soul in your world is given the opportunity to put himself or herself right with the overriding power. None is con-demned to a darkness unless it chooses to refuse the light. Motive is the paramount consideration for all actions. Motive decides whether the action is right or wrong. You cannot cheat the law.  

　Lastly, here are the guide's views on an ever-present social, moral and spiritual problem, capital punishment:

　I have never hesitated to say what I regard is spirit teaching that one murder does not justify another. The people of your world must distinguish between justice and revenge. To send any soul unprepared into our world may justify the lowest passions of humans in your world, but it accomplishes nothing. Justice should be done. By your world performing murder it has not increased by one iota its spiritual upward evolution. Instead it has descended and indulged in "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." When passion usurps reason what follows cannot be right.

　We must adhere to principles which we know are true because they are founded on the indisputable fact that life continues after physical death. You create more and more troubles by sending into our world people who are un-prepared for it. In some cases the execution is performed on the wrong individual and justice is not done.

　Life is sacred and is not yours to give or take away. Life is your responsibility. Life is not created by matter. Matte is created and sustained by life. Life is of the spirit; life emanates from the Great Spirit; life is divine. When you deal with life and its expressions you should always adopt the highest standards of mercy, compassion and sympathy. Make sure that your motive is right in whatever you do.

シルバーバーチの霊訓　八

五章　質問に答える （三）　　　

──倫理・道徳・社会問題──　　　 　　

　「私は、自分で正しいと信じて行動するかぎりそれは許されるという考えに賛成です。人間には例外なく神の監視装置（モニター）が組み込まれております。道義心（良心）と呼んでおられるのがそれです。それがあなたの行動が正しいか間違っているかを教えてくれます」

　本章では今日の倫理、道徳ならびに社会問題を扱うが、上の引用文がその冒頭を飾るのに最も適切であろう。過去十年あまりのうちに社会的通念が大きく変革しており、それに対して例によって賛否両論がある。まずそのことに関連して質問が出された。