Power and Control

September 14, 1986

...those destructive elements always come around when there is a very creative force.

Don't you think that the world is under high anxiety right now? Don't you think that everybody is running around with a lot more anxiety than they did in the past? People did not used to be this stressed out. Terrorism is getting to them, they are afraid to travel, raising medical costs; people are just getting more and more stressed out. People in general are just really stressed out. What are they so stressed out about?

Do you guys think you are running with a really stressful crowd? Do you think everything on the West side of State Street is stressed out? And the people on the East bend do they have stress? How about the workers on the dock, do they have stress?

Do you think that the religious people are less stressed or more stressed than the non-religious people? I would say that generally there is a resonation of stress moving throughout the Western world.

It is like the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi said, that if everyone started meditating in the world, the world would be a better place. It is true. There have been studies done on groups of people to document their stress levels over time while meditating regularly in their lives. It really does help. It would be nice if everybody meditated every day.

That is what went on in the past. In past civilizations, where they had peaceful societies, they had a lot more time devoted to religion or spirituality in their day. Their spirituality was integrated within their lives. Right now, spirituality is separated from our daily life where we go do our work and materialism and we gather all the necessities for life, and then we go to church on Sunday for an hour or a couple of hours or drop into some church meetings during the week and try some spirituality, and then we go back to work and do the business thing the rest of the time. But we are told in the church meetings to keep a religious life with the business thing, but there is no real integration between the two. Do you see integration or do you see judgment in the business of your lives? People judge other people because of their religion. This person is not part of a religion, so they are not worth my time.

So, belonging to a church or a religion, it does not matter which kind, does not seem to take away the stress in life. So belonging to a particular religion does not really do it. Have any of you noticed how the meditation really does take the edge of that stress off? It would really be neat if everybody could meditate every day and integrate that spirituality into their lives. I see a really difficult problem in the West to the extent that the nature of business and the nature of capitalism do not seem to allow for this type of integration. Our society is not set up for it.

When we were up at Rashneesh's place, the majority of people were doing their meditations. The ones that were not integrating their spirituality into their lives wanted to begin controlling and taking over the commune. It is very interesting, that happened here recently too. There were people that had ideas and they wanted to take control of Summum. People come around here and try to make it a business. Isn't that the same thing that happened at Rajneesh's commune but on a much smaller scale? Their objection was they did not like the way it was being run, and they wanted to elect officers and turn it into a stock holders group, except they did not have any stock, and then take over managing the assets.

The same thing happened with the Maharishi's group. They had a meeting of all the board of governors, they all got together in Arizona and they were going to take the Maharishi and do away with him because he was bad for publicity because the way he was going, it was not selling the program as well as they thought they could do it, to make the cash flow. There was a big split in the board of governors and the Maharishi was able to pull out of it, reorganize the governors and reorganize everything. At one point the smaller group voted to do away with the Maharishi. They were actually going to bump him off. He is back in India now, and the head guys were going to bump him off, assassinate him, because they said he was bad for the movement.

They were going to do the same thing with Rajshneesh. They were going to kill him. They hit his doctor in the tooth with a poison dart on stage, and it was meant for Rashneesh. There is a really interesting phenomenon that happens around groups like this. It is like I have always said; on that far end of the pyramid there must be a negative charge for there to be a positive charge up here. Whenever you create a very creative thing, automatically there is balance that comes in, and a very destructive element comes around also. I have tried to point out the destructive elements to people when it comes around or when it is happening so that people will be aware of it, so that they will see the destructive element.

So you have to be very deliberate and slow acting, because the growth of something has to be really slow in order for it to last, or it goes away quickly. If you look at things in nature that grow really fast, for example like a fly that grows up in a couple of days, it dies in two weeks. A tree will grow a year to full height and it dies in 20 years. Soft wood trees grow really fast, and they do not live very long. Oak trees take a couple hundred years to grow full size and they live a couple thousand years. Redwood trees take two thousand years to reach full size and they live six to ten thousand years. It is a rule within nature. Things that grow really slowly and build upon a solid foundation always last longer. So you have to watch for very explosive growth patterns. You do not want anything to grow too big, too fast. You want it to grow strong over a period of time.

Christianity grew really slowly. There were twelve apostles and about 30 people for the first 50 years in Christianity, and then about 100 years after the death of Christ, it started growing larger until it is where it is today. It just keeps on getting bigger and bigger. It is a very interesting thing.

So, those destructive elements always come around when there is a very creative force. There is automatically a very negative element attracted to it, to come do its thing on it, come around and cling to it, take it off and do something to it, get it to go to its house. It is a negative force that is attracted to a very creative thing. It is a very natural thing that happens in nature. That is just the way it is.

I wanted to point that out because when I see that happening around here I just had to laugh because I saw that coming years back. It will happen again probably. In each growth stage there will be a new negative element that comes around to try to disrupt it, take it over or whatever to mess with it.

Many people still carry resentment, because they got caught up in wanting to do their own thing to it, and it did not happen. Anyway, very interesting story. We are probably going to get back into some of the intense energies again, but if we do, you will notice the negative things will also be very attracted here, as well as very positive energies. We will have people saying how great it is, and then let's reorganize it and make it something else. So keep a close eye on that over the years. It is a very interesting thing to watch.

This is a theocracy, the way it is organized. It is very difficult to change it from a theocracy because that is the way it is organized. And it should not be changed. That is the way it should work, because you cannot vote on the way you think creation should go. But that does not make sense to most people. It would be like saying let's take a vote that the sun doesn't come up tomorrow. Or let's vote that we don't have high tides and low tides. Let's take a vote that we no longer have full moons. We don't really like that so let's change it. That just does not work.

A theocracy gets in harmony with the way that nature and creation is and goes along with it. It tries to make it better for all those involved in it, help make the path smoother and bring people in closer to the harmonies and workings of nature, and the way evolution goes. A theocracy says I have surrendered to this thing of creation, and if you guys feel like surrendering to it also, perhaps all of us could look at this together, maybe looking with new eyes because I surrendered just a little bit sooner, and can see things coming down, but I can assist you in getting closer to it, and making your life easier. Rather than all you guys getting together and voting for the way you think creation is going to be. It is not a democracy, although, it has to have some form of democracy in it, which we do.

Another really interesting topic that I wanted to talk about is this tithing thing, and how it is a very critical thing. It is a sign of surrender. Because if it were a 1%, or a 1/10th of a percent, it still takes some kind of surrender within you to make you give that money to some organization to do what they are going to do with it. That you lose control of it and you earned it. It is a very weird thing, it is very bizarre. Whether it's 1/10th of a percent, or 50% of your income, 10% or 7% or whatever, it is a really interesting thing. What it does is it ferrets out those who are doing a submission, and those who are not, who refuse to. It is a display of whether you are going to go along with the program and surrender to it and become part of it, the flow of the river, or if you are going to stand on the edge and try to row your own boat along the side of it. It takes the same amount, the 7% to row it on the side as it does in the river. It is so corny it is unbelievable. You will take that 7%, or your 10%, or your 50% or whatever it is, to do your own thing in your life to get to where you are going with peace within yourself and you are doing it over in the dirt, rowing your boat over there. So, you wear the bottom off of the boat, but you are rowing it where you want to row it, and you have got your 7% over there! And you have to lacquer the bottom of the boat, and grease it all up with wax to make it slide smoother, and you have to do all these things for maintenance on that boat. You have to go the doctor to get pain pills for your body because boy, that rowing in the dirt is hard work, and you have to do all this stuff because you do not want to surrender to it. Rather than sitting your boat into the river and giving your 7% and going along with it and letting it flow with you and being a part of it. And it is ridiculous, it is so corny.

It is the difference between those on the shore, and those in the river. It does not matter how much the money is. If it were 1/10th of a percent, it would be the same story. Or 7, 10, 50 or 100% it would be the same exact story. It is very interesting when we ask people to do that. It tears them up inside because they want to row their boat in the dirt. If you are paying 7% over in the dirt, you are probably actually paying 14% in stress and anxiety in life worrying about "How am I going to get it and still not pay?" You know what I am saying? It is so corny, so bizarre. How am I still going to get it, and not pay? We see it in all the different members of Summum, in different stages of their involvement here. This is about all of us.

One thing that is amazing is what it feels like when people are able to give to Creation with their effort and their monetary gains. There are negotiations and struggles and a whole lot of other things going on, and many times people really put their butt on the line. Peace arrives after putting the work and effort in. It is a surrender. You finally feel like you are in the stream inside of yourself, a self satisfaction, personal just to you. It has nothing to do with anybody else.