Envisioning a New World Without Control, Inc.

Our focus today returns to creating a new world. The first step is to decide what we want it to look like.

Here are just a few of the good things I want it to bring. Peace. Prosperity. Health. Freedom. Opportunity. Good relations. Joy. Happiness. I suspect they're on your list, too.

The question is, how will we get there without taking along the aspects of our system that too often keep us from them?

I call them Control, Inc., an alliance of often well-intentioned forces that combine and conspire to keep us under their thumb.

These are the institutional underpinnings of our systems of belief, governance and commerce that evolved from dark periods of human history where people didn't treat each other very well (not to suggest that we do now, either). We know them well, for they are infused into almost all aspects of our lives.

Religion. Government. Big Money/Big Business.

Each has its own dogma that it indoctrinates into succeeding generations. Religion's is to make us believe and act in the way they say. And if we don't, we risk non-existence after this life is over.

Government says follow our rules and regulations and give us a chunk of your earnings or suffer consequences like incarceration or even death. In return, it promises perks like its social safety nets, educational assistance, defense of our safety (even at the expense of our “rights” or wars against trumped-up enemies), and more.

Big Money/Business says if we dutifully work at whatever task we're given to help them make more money, we'll be given some for ourselves. Maybe it will be enough to pay our bills and provide us a reasonable lifestyle. Maybe not. But for many it's the only game in town, so it often feels like forced labor. No wonder a friend of mine calls himself a slave. And that's without even considering how they induce us to enslave ourselves with massive debt borrowed to buy their products or sometimes just to survive.

These three elements of Control, Inc. are far from monolithic. Each has many variations that compete with each other for followers and control over their different realms.

Our civilization has structured itself into a system of checks and balances among the Big Three. Each sort of acts as a moderating effect upon the other so that none gets absolute control over the people and our lives.

But they have learned to play the game well. For the Big Three use their money, power and influence to extend their reach, in one moment opposing the efforts of another of their “partners in crime,” and in another recruiting the assistance of their competitors, if not outright direct their efforts -- at least, until the deck is shuffled and a new alliance is formed.

And lest we forget, entire cottage industries have sprung up around them, both to support and oppose each of the major categories.

Always, it is the support of the masses that allows them to play their games and gain the benefits that they do. We are carefully manipulated by restricted or distorted information. And when that works, they tweak our fears and dangle carrots of desire before us through the media, economy, police and other tools at their disposal. Each wields its extensive powers to vie for enough of our support to get their way.

Is it any wonder we find it so hard to have peace in our lives? With these outer winds blowing so fiercely from the battles within Control, Inc., we're lucky to carve out a little space where we can find a semblance of what we want out of life without their wars upsetting our apple carts and leaving us to pick up the mess.

I hope the new world you crave is therefore one where the forces of Control, Inc. no longer drag us into their wars, much less assert dominion over our affairs.

If so, the question for us all is, how do we get there?

The problem is that Control, Inc. was not created in a vacuum. Each of its branches formed in direct response to aspects of human nature and the human condition that were harmful to our ability to live together. In short, because we humans were greedy, self-centered, and didn't treat each other very well, these systems evolved to protect us from ourselves.

Some, like the American system of representative democracy, supposedly developed based upon certain inalienable rights endowed by our Creator, like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But the powers that be soon realized that it wasn't in their interests for us to believe we could direct our own lives without their help, much less realize that we have far greater abilities than those to manifest in this world.

So they went about the process of dis-empowering us. Or more particularly, turning a blind eye to the underpinnings of our nation and retaining practices like slavery that reinforced their ability to tell us we only had whatever rights and powers they'd allow us to have. And to make sure that there was no question who was in charge, they never hesitated to use force to impose their will when people resisted, even to the point of provoking a civil war to crush a rebellion against their rule.

They told us we had to be protected against ourselves and the harshness of life in this world. But they conveniently neglected to say that a lot of that harshness resulted from their practices against us. And while their tactics may change form, the result was always the same – more control for one (or more) of them, and less for the people.

Of course, in some ways they were right. There are many elements within the human family that are not particularly sociable, like those who take from others or do harm in other ways. So we the people go along with the controls in an effort to shield ourselves from its impact, or at least restrain those who continue to do it.

Funny, though, such efforts haven't really stopped the excesses of human self-interest. It's only caused them to change form into more acceptable practices like predatory lending, political horse-trading, selective enforcement, environmental insensitivity, religious conflicts, and such. And of course, we still have murders, child molesters, spouse beaters, con men, and the like.

Historically our response has always been to combat whatever ills we see by giving the powers greater control, in hopes that if they have enough they can keep people from hurting us. But it hasn't worked that way, has it? It's like sticking our fingers in a leaky dike; as soon as we fill one another crack forms to take its place.

That's why I hope to leave the control behind in the new world. It doesn't solve anything. But then, advanced souls know that control is an illusion anyway.

So if we're to do anything about it, we've got to change human nature – at least, the demonstrations of self-centered activity that are at the heart of our egoic battles – to be right, to have our way, to protect ourselves from harm, to do harm to advance or defend our own interests, or to keep others from doing it to us.

For us to move beyond control, we can't pick sides in their battles nor try to use what influence we have to get our way. If the past teaches us anything, it's that more of the same doesn't work.

Rather, we've got to try another approach – helping people evolve to a new place so that such efforts at control are not only useless, but fruitless. And when we get there, those they try to control will just look at them and laugh, then turn their backs and go another way because they know they can do so without consequence.

This is why I so strongly speak of looking at our spiritual teachings in a new light, and using them not to follow the dogma of control of any religion. Rather, to use them for the purpose they were given, to hone our rough edges so we can align more with our souls and draw upon the spiritual powers at our core. Doing so will allow us not only to better pursue the lives we came to experience; it will also provide us with the means to create them without having conflict with the efforts of others to live them.

There is precious little hope of creating a world of all the positive attributes we want unless we do. For until we learn to be all that we can be, we'll simply perpetuate the battles in pursuit of self-interest that now mar the human experience. And Control, Inc. will tighten their hold around our throats.

Of course, we'll have to address many other issues to move beyond their efforts of control -- like how to create lives that serve us and provide for our needs. But so long as that control is vested in others, the power of direction is not our own, and the lives we get may not be the ones we need.

You're free to envision the future world you want. I've stated my case for the one I hope we'll create and manifest into this reality.

I hope you'll join me to make it so.

God bless you indeed. I am

john