Is a slave a machine? |
We all follow the same common path. First, we each develop mechanically. Second, all people are given the opportunity to obey to break our mechanical cycle. Third, we divide into those of us who are created to find our obedience internally, and slaves who find it externally. Finally, the slaves consciously accept being mechanical, while inheriting their destinies from their Owners. We go, in sequence, through the following consciousness and processes:
Humanists have long argued that we are all human machines. Let’s look closer at the implications of that, particularly regarding the development of the ego, and how it prepares us for our authentic lives. The argument is strongly made, by the humanists, that if you took any individual, had them born to the same parents, at the same point in time, and exposed them to all the same environmental circumstances throughout life, each would make the same choices, react the same way and become identically the same “human machine”. Each resulting machine would be indistinguishable from any other that had been formed by the same genetics, the same parental influence, the same teachers, the same religious background, the same betrayals, and the same bosses, relationships and experiences. The result has to be the same if all the contributing factors are the same. Yet, we observe that no two people are alike. The differences between people are only the result of the impossibility of providing identical life circumstances. Since no two sets of influences are exactly the same, there are no two identical people. The ego’s mistake is to falsely use these differences as proof of free will. We develop pride in what we think is the clever, skillful use of egotistic choice, while no choice has actually been exercised at all. What we credit to the ego is activity that any machine produced by the same circumstances would perform. This mechanical activity can last a lifetime. Particularly, if we don’t accept a Universal intelligence greater than us, being a machine is as good as it can get during our lives. The humanists are conscious that they are performing mechanically, and don’t expect the human machine to “outgrow” itself. For the vast majority of us, however, we are unconscious of this mechanical aspect of our lives. We would even argue against our being unconscious, in defense of the ego. The ego takes credit for everything that happens, that works! The ego is the hero of the successful exercise of every principle, every hard and fast rule, every decision, every stand ever taken throughout life. The ego pretends that the egotistic self has done something very special while actually functioning as predictably as pressing the brake would be to slowing a car. From a very early age we begin to think we ARE our ego, and grow more and more proud and defensive about WHO we’ve become! Who we are is so important to ourselves that we will do or say anything to make sure we are not threatened nor shaken from our prestigious aggrandizement developed and strengthened through the years, while actually never having been anything more than mechanical. All of this defensiveness, possession, and honoring of our ego is also mechanical. All of the influences that have made us the machine we are instills in us the deep need we have to protect the ego and remain associated with the ego as the exclusive identifier of who we are. There is little motivation to escape. The better things are in life and the more accomplished and successful we feel, the less willing we are to risk changing anything. The ego is always right there discouraging anything new, anything different, anything that weakens its premier position in our lives. The ego continues year after year to convince us that to threaten it is to threaten the very core of who we are. The ego sees its job as being one of stopping any change or, at a minimum, managing the rate of change to be so slow that the ego can manage to mentally manipulate everything positive that happens into being a direct result of its own efforts. When something goes wrong, according to the ego, then a story, an understanding, or an interpretation must be formed to show how the ego was a victim of someone else’s efforts or of something which happened over which the ego had no control. The ego thinks it must remain in a position to take credit for everything good that happens and in a position to show that it had nothing to do with anything wrong that occurs. Anything else shows a poor, weak, or undesirable ego, and since we think we ARE our ego, that reflects badly on us. The Humanists are right, but they are right only about most people, and only for most of our lives. The part of our lives that is omitted from their discussion is the conclusion. All of this mechanical development has a purpose. I’ve discussed with many, since the mid 1990's, the contracted nature of our lives. The first part of the contract, through which we incarnate for a given lifetime, is when we develop, exactly as contracted. The second part of the contract is where we work to implement the Universal plan, as promised under that same contract, using the personal resources developed during the first part of the contract. Every human is a machine during this developmental phase, contract part one. For the “lucky,” obedience is discovered, and the mechanical cycle ends.
Our mechanical lives continue if nothing changes to encourage finding our obedience. None of us, however, was designed to remain an unconscious machine. Obedience is the alternative influencing force that interrupts the mechanical cycle. Obedience provides the opportunity to make a choice that is not the predictable result of all that has happened before. Obedience is the critical, single factor capable of motivating us from being automatic, predictable and average. Obedience can be experienced as a voice, a feeling, an intuition, a sign, an interpretation, or any variety of communicating influences. What makes obedience different from everything mechanical is that it comes from “outside” ourselves. If we egotistically generate the communication it is NOT obedience. A “source” of commands must be found. When we do more than agree to these non-egotistic commands, and provide a commitment to implement each command, then we ARE obedient. Things remain the same unless we discover a reason to change. Occasionally, we each experience moments of something missing from our lives. Often our fetishes remind us that we’re not fulfilled. The deep hole in our “soul” nudges us into wondering about what it is that we don’t have. Intellectually, everything looks OK and things seem to be going well, but something’s not right so we all struggle with figuring out what it is. These feelings and questions, however, are usually the first movement toward changing our lives’ mechanical egotistic pattern by encouraging obedience that will eventually lead to our destiny. The ego will object. Every legitimate spirituality speaks to getting rid of the ego as an essential part of spiritual evolution. The ego is the enemy of growth. The ego is the death knell to becoming authentic. The ego is the pessimistic passion that works at keeping everything the same. Yet, we place the ego at the top of our list of valued possessions. We sacrifice friends, family, work, happiness, or anything else that threatens the ego, to both keep and honor that which is objectively the most destructive single element in our lives. The ego is the mortal enemy of destiny. Still, we’re willing to defend the ego with our very lives. It is in everyone’s nature to find their destiny. To find destiny, however, some event or motivating force has to take us off the course forcefully maintained by the egotistic machine we think we are. A dramatic moment or circumstance has to shake us from the inevitable mechanical path that our lives will take unless a powerful motivating force intervenes. Meanwhile, our egos persistently resist. Only the often unidentifiable gnawing feelings provide motivation to upset the path everyone else seems to be taking without questioning. Further, everything and most everyone else in our lives are discouraging any change. They present us with an argument either about how good we have things, or how much we risk losing by changing anything. When we accurately identify the ego as the culprit in our lives (and it always is) we can’t work only at removing the ego. Nature abhors a vacuum, so it is necessary to first replace the egotistic control of our lives with our obedience before we try to demote the ego. Most everyone initially tries to affect change only by eliminating what we don’t want despite the impossibility of getting out from under the ego’s control without first implementing the real solution. Exchanging obedience for ego allows a graceful replacement. Eliminating the ego without an alternative is impossible. When we find our obedience, destiny begins. Regardless of the nature of our destiny, the starting point is when we get the first inkling that there are orders “out there” over which we have no control. We are presented with a choice, which is actually our first real exercise of free will. The choice presented is “Will we continue to live pretending we are the egotistic machine we have always been or will we accept the orders that we have been presented with and become authentically who we were created to be?” For the first time in our lives we have a real decision to make that isn’t an automatic product of the human machine produced by a collection of life’s total accumulative influences. Eventually, if we allow and encourage the obedience we have discovered, obedience takes control of the subconscious egotistic machine, replaces the ego’s selfish control, and we are allowed to begin our destiny. However, the route is different based on who we were created to be.
Once awakened, conscious and ready to receive the commands that our obedience allows, our destiny begins to unfold. Destiny is not a single event. Destiny is the process through which we combine all of our talents and interests, all the resources we have, into accomplishing some singular or multiple achievement that could never have been done before we were here, and will never be possible once we are gone. Masters and Owners, like all others who find and accept their destiny, are obedient through an internal connection . There is no outside enforcement. Only individual and personal integrity motivate us to continue the path that our obedience demands. There is no one else who can interpret or confirm the orders given us. It is the fruits of our obedience that alone confirm the legitimacy and integrity of our obedience. Act artificially, or from personal agenda, and slaves will not properly develop. When slaves’ lives result in slavery, they confirm we were obeying. In the absence of obedience there is no legitimate connection made to a slave’s slavery. The alternative result to real obedience is, at best, a good human relationship with another, but it is not the basis for destiny. Obedience constantly describes the path of our destinies. By definition, destiny is where no one has gone before, so it can be expected that no one will be waiting for us, cheering us on, and confirming our choices. We must travel through life along paths that have never been taken, and that invites criticism. Only the strong of heart and conviction can complete the path. The weak will soon eliminate themselves from the pursuit.
Until obedience replaces the unconscious mechanical nature of the “human”, a slave remains a lost creature for whom little or nothing in life fits. Everything that seems to work for others never seems to work for a slave. Conscious recognition and acceptance of being a machine changes a slave’s feeling that it doesn’t belong into discovering a legitimate place in a world that previously remained foreign. Acceptance of being a machine forces a slave to recognize there is no self apart from its Owner. A slave’s self is a part of what is referred to when an Owner says “Myself”. Like any machine there is no right to personal wants or needs. Such selfish thoughts were only used to artificially define the egotistic self. Definitions of a slave “self” different from the Owner are no longer appropriate. A slave’s job is to think, feel and do for the Owner. That becomes an easy task when a slave has the frame of mind that it is an owned machine, functioning as a machine, and functioning only as its Owner/operator wants it to function. Without a separate personal self there can be no self-consciousness. Self-consciousness is an egotistic trap. The trap holds us back, forces us to look at our selves and worry about what others think about us. Tremendous freedom results from abandoning any right to a self. A slave, freed from the burden and responsibility of a self, becomes free to be spontaneous. Obedience permits acting without regard to results. The order giver is responsible for all results of an order. A slave is exclusively responsible for obeying. When a machine, without a self, charged only with obeying, every order is an act of love, it is a recognition of worth and purpose, and each order provides a guiding sense of security. Freed from being an unconscious, artificially human machine, a slave can consciously embrace being the pure obedient machine it is. Once we accept the Truth about ourselves we become authentic. Our authentic lives are easy to live. Our false lives are the ones that challenge us. Slavery is a real and legitimate destiny. Slavery follows the same rules of life that all destinies follow. Slavery is a destiny that is neither better nor worse, neither superior nor inferior, but absolutely equal to all other destinies. Slavery is, however, clearly a different destiny. Slavery is unique in that a slave finds its obedience through an Owner. The obedience which creates the alternative to the ego and defines its authentic path comes from someone else. Others, with a non-slave destiny, must find a direct and personal connection to their obedience. For them the “different drummer” that is heard is internal and private. A slave, however, hears that sound only from the One who can issue it direct orders. The One issuing the orders must have previously found His internal and private obedience. Until an Owner’s obedience has been established, He isn’t qualified to issue orders to His slaves whose lives depend on them. A slave’s destiny is also different because someone else consciously accepts as a responsibility “forcing” and disciplining the slave’s unique destiny that its obedience allows. An Owner has to commit to act in a manner that will support the slave’s destiny. All non-slave destinies must be self imposed and self enforced. Another difference is having someone who can personally issue and clarify any order that has been given. By comparison, those with more common destinies have a constant obligation to personal discernment of every order to remain in integrity. A slave begins life being conditioned to believe it is human.
Slaves are forced to live inauthentically, being expected to be like
everyone else. Slaves’ subconscious humanistic conditioning, instead
of being satisfying the way it is for most, is frustrating. Encouraged
and forced to make choices, decisions, identify personal wants and needs,
slaves feel more and more isolated. The reason for the discontent is
not always conscious. The new life is experienced as an animal. Not a dog, a cat, a wolf, a pony or an eagle, but a slave animal. A slave animal can have the characteristics of many in the animal kingdom, but is unique and not a duplicate of any one animal. That animal that exists inside IS the Owner who has both the right and the responsibility to bring that animal to life and make it a fully functioning part of Himself, housed by the machine He owns. What motivates an Owner to make the investment of time and resource to form and shape a slave into a slave is the need to become connected to that slave part of Himself. Any failure to awaken and grow the Owner’s animal properly, results in failure. To an Owner, a failure to bring a slave to life is like having a dead limb, a part that won’t function and can’t be used. There is a dramatic difference between obedience and agreement. If the slave ego still knows how it feels, separately from the Owner, it is then only comparing the reaction of the original false egotistic human against the outside order that comes from the Owner. The only reason for a slave to identify any difference between what an Owner commands and what it feels is to maintain the right not to follow any given order. That right prevents the growth of the authentic animal and neutralizes any effort put forth to empower the slave and its slavery. An order is issued, and obedience implements it. If the command goes through the ego, it isn’t obedience. If the ego asks, “Do i trust enough?”, “ Is this something i agree with?”, “Is He informed enough to make this decision?”, “Do i like this?” or tolerates any other question, there is no obedience at all. The resulting action might have value, but it isn’t obedience. Only agreement is being expressed IF the slave asks these questions and then agrees to perform what is ordered. Immediately obeying, accepting commands as exclusive and rightful, allows the new “you” inside the slave, the authentic self, to come to life and begin to experience in the authentic world into which it will be BORN. Agreement simply continues the old: the old selfishness, the old control, the old outcome, the old frustrations, and the old “something missing” feeling. A machine has no function without its Operator. A slave similarly is without significant meaning without its Operator who creates that significance by identifying and empowering the new and authentic self. When the slave self image is one of being a machine, then it rightfully recognizes it has no right to anything but obedience, the right to accept commands. When a slave is mentally in such a place, it becomes a clean slate onto which the Owner can bring to life that part of Himself that each slave is, and was created to be. A machine is switched on and off by its Operator. A machine gets its purpose and function and is given its usefulness through the commands that move it, by the Commander that uses it. A machine has no right to its own agenda, no right to its own wants or needs, and no right to agree or disagree. A machine’s only right is to obey, and it is measured exclusively by how well that is accomplished. For a slave to develop it must know the Owner to be its one ultimate authority. Accepting as legitimate any authority greater than the Owner provides an escape for the false egotistic slave machine to reclaim its selfishness. The instinctive need to worship found within most slaves is an intuitive recognition of the Truth of its nature and needs. It is a recognition that a slave must give its obedience at levels of quality and quantity that reach worship to be effective and useful in developing into a slave. Holding onto a right to anything that stops its chance of becoming authentic is not a right worth having. Slaves are born without their own Divine purpose given to them, because that purpose was given to a rightful Owner. Slaves are born without their own will, because they are meant to inherit their Owner’s will. They have to develop a selfish egotistic will to first qualify themselves to become slave but that selfish will is then replaced with the authentic will inherited from its Owner. Slaves are born to feel love and caring through the commands that empower them, release them, control them, and set them free. Slaves feel abused and abandoned when forced to exercise choice. Slaves are born to love to obey, and it is through obedience that they can finally feel their joy, pride, honor and self esteem. A slave is the Owner’s machine. The Owner lives inside, is experienced as the animal and is what provides a slave’s human characteristics. When there is no need for the slave to pretend to be human, a slave can release the artificial personalities that have consumed its energy and life’s resources without having given satisfying results. When a slave recognizes that it IS a machine, owned and operated exclusively by its Owner, it is free to release the burden of being human. A slave needs only let The Owner develop Himself inside. A slave can celebrate being a machine when unbound by convention. Free of trying to live by what is only true for others, a slave will begin to live with the joy and pleasure of obeying as only a machine could obey. A slave’s bliss comes from being filled with the live animal of the One that controls it. A slave machine can share in the joy and pride, the pleasure and satisfaction of its Operator, because its Operator lives inside it. Likewise, everything that the slave experiences is rightfully only the Operator’s. Every emotion, every feeling, every body sensation and every thought is recognized as something that already belongs to, and has always belonged to its rightful inhabitant. Every emotion, feeling, body sensation or thought is invited because the machine has no right to discern what it should experience. Neither pain nor pleasure is rejected. Neither pride nor concern is invited more than the other. Whatever is given is accepted and everything given is celebrated, gratefully, gracefully, enthusiastically, and consistently. A slave celebrates with and shares only in what The Operator accomplishes, taking no credit for itself.
Slaves ARE normal. Slaves are not average. Slaves are special
creatures, unlike any other on earth. They are made differently, with
different life patterns, responsibilities, frustrations, satisfactions,
needs and characteristics. Long live the differences! Let us celebrate
the precious, irreplaceable machines they are. Let us celebrate by giving
them Our lives, and making them Ours.
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