From: jdonovan@is.net (Jackson Donovan)
groups: alt.paranet.ufo,alt.alien.visitors
Subject: Way - 9B
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 1994 19:49:01 -0500

The first step on the path of The Way is to find all the
knowledge of what is right. In order to determine what is right
and what is wrong, you need to have Knowledge of it. Learn about
a thing, all you can. Then apply to it what you know about the
difference of right and wrong. Inside of you is a little voice.
We call it the conscience. It is the little part of God in each
of us.

"Con_science (kZn_shens) noun

1.    a. The awareness of a moral or ethical aspect to one's conduct
together with the urge to prefer right over wrong: Let your conscience  be
your guide.
   b. A source of moral or ethical judgment or pronouncement: a document
that serves as the nation's conscience.
   c. Conformity to one's own sense of right conduct: a person of
unflagging  conscience.
2.    The part of the superego in psychoanalysis that judges the ethical
nature of one's actions and thoughts and then transmits such
determinations to the ego for consideration."

Once you have established in your mind the basic difference
between right and wrong, learn to trust that little voice. It
will usually give you that first, brief flash of insight. The
more you use it, the stronger it will become, and the more
accurate. These then, are the basic principals of right
knowledge. Learn all you can. Determine what knowledge will help
you search for truth and what is right. Use these truths to guide
yourself in all your thoughts and actions. You must use this
knowledge as a balance in which to judge all that you do or
learn.

Think of each idea of right and wrong as weights you put in the
balance. Let's do a quick example. You learn there is a thing
called "stealing." This is knowledge of an action. But is this
action right (in accordance with God's Law and Word) or is it
wrong? Let's weight the thing called stealing in our balances.
The very first two weights are these. Does the action of stealing
produce pleasure or pain in another? It causes pain, because of
the loss. This weight goes onto the wrong side of the balance. Is
stealing fair? It was obtained not as a reward for creative acts,
but through deception. The person who acquired it as a result of
their efforts no longer has it to show for the work they did.
Therefore, it is not fair to them. It is unfair. Another weight
goes on the wrong side. Is theft something that you yourself
would desire? No. You would not wish to be stolen from. Another
weight on the wrong side. I think you get the general idea. You
can use this simple technique to judge all things in life, from
the simplest to the most complex. As you do, your knowledge of
right and wrong will grow. Gather that which is right to you, and
keep that which is wrong from your life.

There is one last thing we need to discuss before leaving the
first path of right knowledge. What happens when you weight
something and there is a balance between right and wrong? Let's
look at one of these situations now. Imagine the following scene.
You are standing in an open field. Your family is behind you. You
have a gun in your hand. In front of you there is another person,
they also have a gun. They tell you they are going to kill you
and your family. What do you do? Do you kill this person? If you
do, have you not committed the very same act that your actions
are trying to prevent? In this situation, no matter which choice
you make, the result is the same. An act of killing will take
place, and a life will be permanently destroyed. Is there a right
or wrong action to take? Let's put it in the balance and find
out.

We will assume that you have chosen to shoot this person, in
order to save your own life and that of your family. Is the act
of killing right or wrong? Have you preserved life or have you
destroyed life? You have done both. Killed a person to save a
person. Some would argue that you saved more than you killed.
While this may act to direct your actions, it does not change the
type of action. The fact remains you have killed. A weight must
be placed on both sides. Right for saving a life, wrong for
taking life. Did this cause pleasure or pain? To the person you
killed, it brought the ultimate pain. To the person you saved, it
preserved their God-given right to experience the pleasure we
call life. Again, put a weight on each side. The scales remain
balanced. This is what we call a no-win scenario. You have been
forced to destroy, in order to preserve, creation. Although these
situations are rare, they will arise and you must be prepared to
do two things. Make the correct choice, and then live with that
choice afterwards.

In a previous Way message, I described the journey of the soul
upwards through the ocean of life. When a situation like this
occurs, no matter what good your actions have accomplished, the
fact remains that you have also acquired weights that are wrong.
This is the internal balance of your soul. You are all that you
think and do. This is what is called Karma. Karma is the state in
which your internal balances are recorded. If in your life you
have done wrong, the balance, or Karma, leans toward evil. If you
do good, the balances are tipped toward good. In our last
example, the Karma incurred was both good and bad. Since it is
your goal to be a being of only good karma, you have incurred a
karmic debt, which must be repaid. You must put more good weights
on your balance to counteract the weights added by your wrong
actions. A general rule for doing so is this. For every bad
karmic action, do two good karmic actions. One to restore the
balance and one to push the balance to the side of good. These
actions must also be of the same caliber or power, as that which
you seek to outweigh. All of what I have just told you,
encompasses not only the first path, right knowledge, but also
the next three. They are interrelated and intricately tied into
each other.

2) Right Aspiration

This is realizing that you want to be a being of good.

3) Right Speech

This involves weighting everything you say in the balances. You
wish to say only that which is truth or good. It also means that
you must think very carefully, and say exactly what you mean. If
you tell someone something and it makes them think something
else, or has hidden meanings, it is bad karma. Then, there is ...

4) Right Behavior

This involves taking your knowledge of right and wrong, and doing
only those actions or that behavior associated with good. Right
behavior seeks to reduce karmic debt by doing only good things.
We, as a people, must discover through knowledge what is a right
action, and what is not. We must then agree that an action is
either right or wrong. When there is agreement as to an action's
character, we may then say we have found a truth. We call these
truths of behavior, Laws.

The DOMA gave humans the basic Laws of God, through the prophets.
They did this to help them live a better life, and to give them
examples to judge other situations against. The Buddha taught
five basic truths, or Laws of God. These are, Do Not: KILL,
STEAL, LIE, TAKE STRONG INTOXICANTS, DO UNNATURAL SEXUAL ACTS.
Now with what you have learned, weight each of these things in
your balance, and see if they are truth. Remember to be truthful
to yourself. The greatest lies, the most evil deceptions, are
those against the self. You may notice that the first three are
fairly easy. The fourth requires more thought, more aspects to be
weighted. The last is a proverbial brain teaser. This is exactly
what they were intended to do. They are not only truths, but they
are individual lessons on judging truth. They represent very
distinct and differing aspects of human behavior and conduct.
Once you know how to weight these, you can use the knowledge
gained to judge other things. Isn't that a beautiful set of
lessons and concepts rolled into one nice clean package? Thank
the Buddha for telling you this. Praise the DOMA for sending him
to you and the fact that they cared enough to do so. But worship
only and hold in your hearts the ultimate thanks for GOD.

The others are but the messengers; GOD IS THE MESSAGE. GOD is the
source of all truth; GOD is TRUTH. There is only one God; God is
RIGHT EVERYTHING. If you hold truth above all things, if you do
only right, if you seek them both, then you are already
worshipping God. God is found in the heart and soul and actions
of a person. That is where God lives and grows, and makes itself
manifest. Not in books, or rituals. These are the tools of
idolatry. God does not need priests or priestesses or any other
person, to bring you to God. God is in and around, everyone. You,
and you alone, can find God, and in so doing find yourself, and
in the end realize the true meaning of ONE.

5) Right Livelihood, is fairly straightforward. It is a course of
action based on what you have learned thus far. I will be talking
about this subject in a Way message in the future. Let's save it
for then.

6,7) Are both different sides of the same coin. These are Right
Effort and Right Mindfulness. They also tie back in to 4) Right
Behavior. The real sequence they follow is this: Right
Mindfulness, Right Behavior, Right Effort, Right Behavior, and
then Right Mindfulness again.

What's it all mean? The answer to that is really quite simple,
it's the implementation of these principals that is so hard.
Realize right here and now that they cannot be achieved in one
lifetime. They are continually refined over the course of an
entire race's existence. Their ultimate purpose is to rid every
being on the planet of wrong - everything. Once this is achieved,
and only then, do you merge with God and become ONE. Now think
very hard about what I am about to say. Weight it, ponder it,
argue about it, and when you finish, do it again. And again.

God is The One. All things are One in God. There is no wrong, or
darkness or evil in God. These things cannot exist in God. If you
tried to join God with even the smallest amount of darkness in
your soul, you would cease to exist. God chooses to not rid the
darkness for you. Instead, God gives you free will to do either
Right or Wrong. God gives you everything necessary to rid
yourself of darkness, to become a being of light, and to find The
Way back to were you came - The One. It is the greatest gift God
has ever bestowed on the universe. It is called LIFE.

It is up to you to find the truth in what I have told you. Ponder
it, question it, argue about it, seek it out with all your heart.
I promise you this. On the day you find the truth in what I have
said, and understand what I have really said, you will be there,
and it will be finished. This is the ultimate truth, and every
person on this planet and on all the other planets strive toward
its realization. It's just God's Way, my friends, Just God's Way.

8) Achieving Right Concentration (a small glimpse)

To be a being of concentrated and pure light. 6,7) are the
contemplation you give to the success or progress you have made
toward this goal. Right Mindfulness involves the honest
introspection of who and what you really are. Remember what I
told you was the first Golden Rule. You are all that you have
thought and done. In order to change something, you must first
know what that something is. In the case of you, only you, can
really know what goes on inside you. Only the self can know the
self. You must look very hard and honestly at your life and
actions. Do not lie to yourself or try to justify that which you
knew to be wrong. Examine all of the Right behaviors, and the
Wrong Behaviors. This is the first step in Right Mindfulness, to
know all your actions.

The next step is to identify and isolate all the wrong things,
and then determine what caused them. What made you think that.
What made you do that. What made you say that. Here's an example.
You went to a party last night and became very drunk. You seemed
to change, becoming almost another person. You were angry,
argumentative and even fought with and hurt someone. But now it's
morning. Let's look back on the day before and all your actions.
You identify first all the actions which you did. For brevity I
will only mention a few. 1) You helped someone move some
furniture and did not accept payment. 2) You fought with and
injured someone at the party. 3) You yelled at a person and said
things that hurt them emotionally. Now take what you have learned
and weight your actions in the balances. Did you have a good
karmic day? No, you did but one right action. You did one wrong
action, and one wrong speech. You incurred a karmic debt. This is
the process of achieving Right mindfulness: Review, Identify,
Weight. I need to express in as strong a way as I can, the
importance of this first step. The first step in eliminating evil
from your life is to identify it. The simple act of admitting to
yourself, "That thing I did was wrong," is one of your most
powerful tools. It is necessary to know what it is, before you
can change it, and this is your tool for doing so. But more
subtle and more important is this. As you begin to consciously
acknowledge your actions, you begin to train what we call the
subconscious. Your mind begins to identify wrong actions for you.
The little voice starts to get louder and talk to you more often.
It will gain enough strength to warn you as you do it, and
eventually before you do wrong things.

Now that you know what it is that you did, it is time to take the
next step. What is it that made you do it in the first place?
Remember - be honest in this; you only lie to yourself if you
don't. No matter what it is you have done, and there is nothing
you can do that many before you have not already done, God allows
you the chance to change, and right the wrong. It is also just as
important to identify your good actions and their cause as it is
the wrong ones.

Let's look at the day again. 1) You help a friend. What was the
cause of this action? There are a couple of things involved with
this. First, you did it out of friendship. Friendship is a
positive, or right, thought. Second, you experience pleasure in
making someone else's burden lighter. Third, you did not take any
reward, but did a right thing and that in itself, was reward
enough. These then are the right thoughts and actions found in
this deed. Now lets look at the other two. 2) You got drunk and
hurt someone. Part of this one is obvious - drinking can effect
your behavior. This also applies to other intoxicants or drugs.
Anger also played a key part in this one. Anger is a negative
emotion. Notice that I did not say "wrong." There is a difference
between wrong, and negative, emotions. Anger usually leads to
destruction of one form or another, and destruction is negative,
therefore creation is positive. If you are angry at something
that means you no intentional harm, then this is wrong.

What happens when your anger is directed at another destructive
action, though? You are allowed to get mad at injustice, cruelty,
and things of this nature. Still, the emotion you feel is one of
destruction. It is negative in its effect. You must use extreme
caution when dealing with these negative emotions, even when they
are intended for use in a positive outcome. This type of anger is
sometimes referred to as "Righteous Anger" and although it can
have its place, it has been the justification of much tragedy in
this world. Religious fundamentalism is but one example. We will
be discussing this more in future Way messages.

So, the above steps are part of Right Mindfulness. The next step
is to use the Right Knowledge gained from Right Mindfulness and
apply it to Right Effort. Simply put, learn what causes you to do
bad things, and then make an effort to either eliminate the
causes from your life, or change your responses to them. It is
easy to say that, even easy to see the logic in it. It is not
easy to do. The Buddha said that many of the Wrongs in one's life
are caused by selfish or destructive desires. Drinking to
destruction. Obsession with owning or possessing things to
misery. And so on. These scenarios are certainly valid. Some of
these behaviors have either a dual nature, or are only wrong if
taken to extremes, however. The answer is not to eliminate all
desires and wants, for that would extinguish the very fires that
drive us in our search for God and Truth. The key is to pick a
middle path between total apathy and total fanaticism. It is
called "Balance" and it is one of the keys to making everything
else in your life work.

A person's soul is like their body. In order for it to function
properly, there needs to be a balance of certain basic systems.
Your heart should beat in relation to your oxygen intake. Your
oxygen intake should meet the requirements of a particular
effort. Chemicals are balanced in our bodies so that processes go
smoothly. Too much stomach acid and we get heartburn. Not enough
insulin and our metabolism goes wrong. All these things exist in
balance with one another. So too, should your life be.

Right Effort seeks to not only steer your life toward good, but
also to create balance in it. Let's take an example. Desires make
up a good portion of the emotions you feel. People with too
little desire are said to be apathetic, or lazy. People who have
too much desire are said to be zealots, or perhaps greedy.
Somewhere in between these too extremes lies the middle point of
desire. Perhaps you want to have a boat. You think of sailing and
fishing all day long. You work as many hours as you can. You
spend your off-hours studying boat-related subjects. You really
want a boat; your life would be so much better with a boat. You
have to have a boat. You will do anything to get the boat. What
started as a simple desire for something which could give you
pleasure, has now turned into a destructive obsession.
Destructive to not only you, but also to those around you. You
take time away from your family. Perhaps you spend money that
would better be used for other family-related needs.

Knowing the difference between a simple desire and an obsession
is crucial. Obsessions destroy all the balance in your life.
Obsessions come in many forms but their effects are always the
same. What we are looking at now, are the specifics of emotions.
Much more of this topic is the subject of the next two Way
messages, particularly the Jesus message. What you have hopefully
learned here of the teachings of the Buddha, are the spiritual
tools necessary to change your actions, behavior, and in the end,
your soul. These eight basic tools will help you implement the
examples that are provided in the Christian and Islamic faiths.
They are yours to do with as you will. Remember though, only you
can choose to use them. Only you can choose to change your
thoughts and actions.

In order to use them you must have the desire in your heart to be
a better person, to make a better world, and to find the your Way
back to God. It is the one desire in this universe that you can
never be too extreme about. When you have this desire in your
heart, you have it within you to accomplish all things. That you
should be happy and the world should be made a better place is
the will of God. If these are your desires as well, then you have
already surrendered your will for God's own. It is the only time
that a surrender can mean total victory.

Peace,

Ma-Di

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