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Saturday, December 24, 2011

I Married Santa Claus - Sandra's poem 2011

He is not a gardner.
He leaves that space for me,
the most beautiful space on the property.
Instead, he lifts boards, shovels gravel into the right places,
mows the lawn, and plants trees.

He is not a cook.
He allows me the creative work of making our food
just the way I want it.
Instead, he cleans the kitchen after I have littered it with pots, spoons, cutting boards, and vegetable peels
from end to end.

He is not a handyman.
He allows me to hire help to build my projects
with hardly a question about the cost.
Instead, he drives me to my parents’ graves
to place Christmas flowers, to the mall
to search for presents, and to doctors’ appointments
that both of us prefer to avoid.

I said that he had never decorated our house for Christmas.
He disappeared to bring home poinsettas
and a Christmas wreath, which he installed
on the mantle.
Did I say he maintains the car and truck
and arranges vacations?

When I married him twenty-five years ago
I fell into a pot of honey.
Instead of a belly of jelly, my husband has a heart
as large as his enormous spirit.
He is my Santa Claus.

Merry Christmas from your loving wife,
Sandra

Holiday Letter - 2011

In closing out 2011 we celebrate the life we have as a married couple of soon-to-be twenty-five years, amid an ever-expanding circle of family & friends. It can be said 2011 has been the best one yet, our seventh year into retirement, and the first without caregiver duties. Sandra has added to her ‘farmer’ identity by having a greenhouse and toolshed built. She also declared herself a writer, a talent most of us already knew. Nate has cast himself a poet and philosopher, in support for the drifting ways of his spirit.
We moved many pieces of furniture from Sandra’s mother’s house to our house, which upgraded our quarters. We sold and gave away everything else and had the house remodeled. It is now being rented, a big accomplishment.
Although Sandra still misses her mother, we have more freedom to travel and ‘go with the flow.’ Activities have slowed a little and we have more time to connect with each other--and ourselves. We have taken classes in genealogy and photography and gone on day-long local sightseeing trips through Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI). Sandra edits the OLLI newsletter. We enjoy Westminster Presbyterian Church, which has added a music academy to it’s many musical events.
We visited Nate’s old haunts in Los Angeles, where Nate “came of age.” There we attended a spectacular wedding of the daughter of Nate’s close friend during his college and grad school days.
Good friends, Nancy and Ross Stevenson joined us on Georgia’s St. Simon’s Island for a week of relaxation, nature, history and conversation.
Each of us attended our 50th high school reunions, Nate’s in Iowa, and Sandra’s right here in Petal, often struggling to recognized people, as our memories have changed over the years.

On Our 25th Wedding Anniversary 1/1/2012 - poem

Holy cow, 25 years have passed!
We’ve achieved an important mark upon which to take note.
Having weathered the challenges & storms of blending a family,
Amidst managing careers, holding periods of economic uncertainty,
Along with geographic relocation, disease, care giving duties, and deaths,
We hold dear the continued unfolding and recreation of our relationship,
Marked by authentic encounters, allowing safety to fully self-express,
And freedom to discover our individual passions and callings.
Through it all, we just might be role models of possibility to family and friends,
Further complementing the meaning and value of our union.
While twenty five more years fits into the realm of possibility,
Let it be known far and wide, the past twenty five have been the best ever!
Happy anniversary, my dear Sandra, and bring on the rest!


Nathan J. Bender, himself

Friday, December 23, 2011

Merry Christmas 2011 to Sandra - Poem

Marking the 27th Christmas over the years we have known each other,
This one holds a special place, worthy of poetic composition!

During this season of acknowledging joy and thanksgiving,
Clearly, we have much to celebrate, in this our 8th retirement-phase Christmas.

Let’s celebrate the freedom and security resident in our everyday lives,
Allowing new ventures and adventures in support of our individual spirits.

Let’s revel in next generation family expansion, now in full bloom,
Calling forth new challenges and opportunities as parents and grandparents.

Around the corner, another benchmark awaits,
So let’s gather up our travel gear and presents and head to D.C.!

Your devoted Hubby Dear

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

August Bender’s 3rd Birthday 11/27/2011 - Poem

How can it be, August is now three?
As tall as a tree he is not,
Taller than when he was two it is for sure!

Ever growing in mind, body and spirit,
Leaving behind some of those old toddler ways,
While showing signs of nearing pre-schooler status.

With a will of his strong-minded anscestry,
And a facility to physically engage his world,
He’s laying stepping stones that define his future.

With blond curly hair, like mom and dad once had,
August marks a presence both unique and alluring,
While entering the 4th year of his evolving life.

What’s on the horizon?
A sibling in the making it appears to be,
Further enriching August’s developmental path.

Happy Birthday August!

Grandpa Bender

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Steve Jobs Quote

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything---all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure---these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving what is truly important. Remembering you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

Steven Jobs...part of his Stanford commencement speech in 2005

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Claude Williams - Poem


















More than fifty years have elapsed since Claude and I first met,
During those innocent times at Ellsworth Junior College.

Standing 6’ 6” in all, the most gifted athlete I ever played with
or competed against on the basketball court.

As an elementary school teacher,
He became one of the most exceptional in the Los Angeles system.

A seeker he was, evidenced by venturing into owning a trucking rig,
And developing his interests in owning and breeding horses.

Through the years, he’s held a special place in my life and soul,
Cementing a brotherly bond, unmatched by my own blood brothers.

Opening his home and family for support and comfort,
During the darkest periods of my life.

Now in the throes of physical and mental decline,
Heightened by a stroke, and relegated to a nursing home.

In the doings of his daughter Jennifer’s wedding,
A current day reunion took place in Dana Point, California.

Reminiscing held special appeal, though lacking some clarity,
Yet validating his special place in my life journey,

Thank you Claude for the love and support you have bestowed on me,
I am forever grateful and humbled by you and your family.

“Odie”

11/12/2011

Friday, October 28, 2011

Happy 14th Birthday Samantha (Poem)

Girl, it’s hard to believe you’ve come this far, so quickly!
An adolescent, through and through, it can be said of you,
With signs of the next stage very much in view.

Leaving behind those formative years of yore,
You continue a life-long journey of growth and development,
Leaving friends and family awestruck and pleasured.

So strike up the band, we’ll dance a jig,
For celebrating another bench mark is a worthy cause,
Knowing Papa Nate is leading with a waltz no less!

Happy Birthday Samantha, with supportive joy from Petal, MS!



11/4/2011

Friday, October 14, 2011

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

On Sandra’s 67th Birthday - Poem

Marking the passage of time and its ties to the evolving web of life,
Your 67th remains worthy of noting your station in this ongoing process.

More than one year into a retirement era, sans Mother Gray,
Your transition to a more balanced life style is most apparent.

Your spirit has become lighter and your vitality advanced to a higher level,
Offering expanded opportunities to knock off bucket-list junkets!

While you may never find value in living without projects,
You evidence signs of being able to ‘drift,’ modeled by Hubby’s flare for such!

You keep distinguishing yourself among friends, family and classmates,
Validating your humanity, interests and continuing accomplishments.

So let your recently crowned status of ‘most-successful’ inspire you
To keep up the good work and reach for the stars!

With loving feelings from your cohort and cheer-leader, Nate

10/12/2011

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Happy 13th Birthday, Max - Poem

10/7/2011

Hard to believe Max has entered teen-hood,
That important milestone in his march toward adult-hood!
So let’s dispense with the ado,
And get on with eating some celebratory goo,
While toasting the child Max was, along with the young man he is becoming.

Above all else, here’s to toasting the special person he’s been from day-one!

Max, you da man, and know I’m the president of your fan club,
So keep on keeping on, while we all live in awe.


Papa Nate

Autumn in Mississippi - Poem

10/4/2011

Lured by weather so cool and pure,
Seasonal callings to drift and envelop the sensations therein,
Only to be enriched by biking on the Long Leaf Trace.

Testing the effect of recently begun spinning classes
While letting internal musings flow to and fro,
Zeroing in on future plans and undertakings.

Fellow trekkers predictably friendly,
Naturally acknowledging each other’s shared presence in the bosom of nature,
Heightening feelings of connectivity with fellow travelers, young and old.

Noting increased strength and endurance,
Extending the effort beyond 20 miles became tempting,
Knowing ‘everything in moderation’ is best for living long and well!

Invigorated by the morning journey,
Realizing my newly formed exercise regimen
Will likely prevent knee replacement in the near run.

So blessed it is to have time and health to savor life,
A life held in retirement, where ‘bucket-lists’ can be fulfilled,
And the aging process augmented by expanding community of friends and family.

Nate Bender

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Rappin' Duke lyrics

Rappin Duke

So you think you're bad, with your rap
Well I'll tell ya pilgrim I started the crap
When you were in diapers and wetting the sheets
I was at the Ponderosa rapping to the beat

Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh

Sure I rustled some cattle and tended the sheep
But my main concern was rapping to the beat
I don't bother nobody I'm a real nice guy, kinda
laid back like a, dead fly

Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh

I'm talkin, here and now
Later for the cattle and rustlin the cow
If I had a chance to do a repeat
You can bet your sweet dippy I'd be rappin to the beat

Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh

Que pasa amigos? Not a *pasa* I see
Two hundred punks well what ya gonna do?
I got two six shooters that'll see me through
That's, twelve dead...
and a hundred and eighty-eight pallbearers

Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh

What I do on your grave won't pass for flowers either

Now Kurtis Blow, Run-D.M.C.
You haven't heard of rap, til ya heard it from me
I'm the baddest rapper in history
And there'll be no more, after me

Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh

Meanwhile, back at the ranch
Santa Barbera that is
Swimmin pools, and movie stars
Well the first thing ya know ol' Ron's the President
The kinfolk said, "Ron move away from there"
Said, "In The White House is where you wanna be"
So he loaded up the Lincoln and he moved to D.C.

Washington, that is
Politicians taking a sip
Foreign dignitaries taking a trip
High tax and plenty Cadillacs

Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh

Now ya see me in my movies, doin my thing
But deep in my heart, I've wanted to sing
"Wayyyy dowwwn, upon the swannnny riverrrrrr
Farrrr, farrr awayyy
Titwillow, titwillow, titwillow"
I don't think, that's your style
But I'll tell ya pilgrim, I'm versatile
Aretha Franklin, Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin let me rock ya let me rock ya Aretha Franklin
Let me rock ya Aretha Franklin that's all I wanna do
Aretha Franklinnnnnn

Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh

I'm feeelin the groove now pilgrim
Party, over here
Party, over there
There's nothin to it, the way we do it
Woop woop!
East coast, West coast
Texas

Every time I put on pants
I tell ya pilgrim I wanna dance
I put a quarter, in the juke'
Then I commence, to doin the Duke

Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh

It's pretty easy, if you can see
Just move your arms kinda freely
Do a pause, and take a step
And just make sure the beat is kept

Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh

I was at the Ponderosa rappin to the beat
Tryin to cool off from the desert heat
I discovered somethin, really neat
The Duke has moves, with his feet

Da haahh... da haahh
Da haahh... da haahh

I won plenty of ladies, with my charms
But they like me the most for the moves of my arms

Woahhh... woahhh

I'm gonna rap, in the East
Gonna rap, in the West
I'll show ya pilgrim, who's the best
Nothin to it, the way we do it
Skiddely-be-bop, we-bop, Scooby Doo
Guess what America we love you

Da hahhhh, da hahhhh, da hahhhh
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh

Everybody

Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh...

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Recount of 50th High School Reunion - Poem

Though fifty years have passed
So much residue still remains
Of a time and place
Seemingly long forgotten
Only to be rekindled
In the gathering of so many ‘strangers’
Most holding no current-day connection
Resulting in regression to a long-ago memory bank
Complete with old patterns of communication
Evoking memories and sensations of alienation
Memories of ‘I don’t fit here’
In a region no longer tied to Home
Infused with customs most secular
Leaving religious doings quite separate
GMO Industrial Farming replacing sustainable methods
Corrupting the purity of by-gone days
Departing for Home in Mississippi
Became a relief
Embracing more suitable ties.

Nate Bender 7/9/2011

Monday, June 20, 2011

"To Be A Father" - from Jonathan

'To be a Father is to promise to open yourself up to the power of love and all the strength and growth that comes with it.

It is a promise to teach right from wrong by leading from example.

A promise to see the wonder and joys of the world through a child's eyes.

To be a father is to savor all the precious, little moments that add up to a lifetime of joy.......

And to know how incredibly special you are to someone who loves you very much.'

Happy Father's Day, Jonathan

Sunday, June 19, 2011

'To Nate, the Father of my Children' - Poem from SGB

You had one child biologically related to you.
The other two children were spiritual births.
You fought hard for the three of them
To attain their maturity and wisdom.

Your reward has been pure gold--
The joy of witnessing the convergence of their families
And welcoming the babies. With them
Your fathering moved to a new level.

Wisdom is an evolving process
That trickles down through generations.
Our children look to you for the judgement
Won by your years and sterling intuition.

We do not know the future
But our children know their foundation
Resides in a father as strong as a tree
With unshakable faith that the universe is good.

By Sandra
Father’s Day 2011

Monday, May 16, 2011

Memorial Poem to Deceased HS Classmates

In Memory of our Departed Classmates
(Ron Stewart, Ron McLaury, Bill Arthur, Bob Stohr, Pat Potratz, Richard Decker,
Mardelle Parkinson, Jane Nus, Linda Whiteford)

Nine classmates have been deleted from our original roster,
Five male, four female, representing the tri-cities of the school district,
Felled by accidents and disease alike,
Some with advanced warning,
Some taken suddenly and in relative anonymity.

Ronnie Stewart, the first to go, a rebellious sort and my football cohort;
Ron McClaury, with his wily nature and mischievous spirit;
Bill Arthur, morphed into a vital member of the Westgate community;
Bob Stohr, whose gentle nature, tied to his family’s turkey farm status;
Pat Potratz, my soft-spoken neighbor and dear classmate K thru 12;
Richard Decker, with whom I shared the ‘Westgate experience’ K thru 12;
Mardelle Parkinson, held in high regard as a classy lass with a purposeful drive;
Linda Whiteford, who projected mystery and a resolute will;
Jane Nus, my ‘first love,’ only to be taken by another Bender!

Also, Mr. K, our beloved Principal and role model extraordinaire.

May we all extract the best held in each of their lives, as well as in their passing,
Holding our memories and their spirits as we all traverse the ‘autumn of our lives.’


Nate Bender – 5/2011

Thursday, May 12, 2011

To West Central’s Class of 1961 (Poem)

Gathering again after fifty years, WC’s Class of ’61,
Celebrating with a core group, invested in making this reunion special.
Honoring those resistant or unable to reconnect,
Honoring those yet unaccounted for,
Honoring those who have passed to the far beyond.

Marking the cycle of lives so dispersed, while noting the common bond,
Held in our individual adaptability to life’s changing events.
Marking achievements often found outside the expected,
Marking joys and sorrows, all lending to creating character so strong.
Supporting potential needs for healing old wounds,
All the while, we celebrate the basic fact, we made it thus far!

Happy 50th All Y’all……….Nate Bender

Friday, April 15, 2011

Principles of Personal Transformation by WingMakers

Each individual on Earth is exploring in a physical body new ways of experiencing life. Through this process of discovery, each of us is developing a deeper level of understanding of life and a greater ability to express our divine essence. This divine essence is the fullest expression of each individual's soul, and most closely exemplifies the Divine's capabilities therein.

Divine essence is a level of divine awareness that was "seeded" within each soul when it was initially conceived by the Divine. It is also the natural state of the soul that has removed itself from the controlling aspects of hierarchical belief systems through the complete awakening of its sacred intentions. All souls are in various stages of transformation, and all people are destined to attain a level of conscious awareness of divine essence as their sacred intentions are fully awakened.

Profound personal transformation is initiated by the realization that you are capable of direct access to the Divine. This is the realization that the wisdom of the Divine can be discovered deep within your own soul. In other words, your body, complete with its physical, mental, and emotional capabilities, is not the repository of your sacred intentions. Nor is your mind able to reach out and access this divine inner calling which tirelessly beckons, inviting you towards the glorious joy of ever deeper connection with All That Is.

It is the soul that is the harbor of your divine essence. And it is the soul that is the vehicle of access to the awakening of your sacred intentions, which opens the door to profound transformation through the integration of your body, mind, heart, and soul.

Through opening to meaningful connection not only with your own divine essence, but with that of all living beings, the experience of profound personal transformation eventually triggers the realization that perceived reality is the Divine personified in the form of individual preferences. Thus when your sacred intentions are fully awakened, divine reality and your perception of reality become inseparable as the wind and the air. This confluence is only completely realized through the full transformation experience, which is unlike anything known within human experience.

There have been those upon Earth who have ventured into the shallows of this boundless ocean. Some have called it ascension; others have attributed names like illumination, enlightenment, nirvana, and cosmic consciousness. While these experiences are profound by human standards, they are only the initial stirrings of divine essence as it becomes increasingly adept at touching and awakening the remote edges of its existence.

What most would define as the ultimate bliss is merely an impression of their divine essence whispering to its outposts of form and nudging them to look within to the roots of existence, and to unite with the formless and limitless divine intelligence that pervades all.

The full transformation experience is far beyond the scope of the human drama, much like the stars in the sky are beyond the touch of Earth. We can see the stars with our human eyes, but we will never touch them with our human hands. Similarly, we can dimly foresee the full transformation experience as humans, but we cannot experience it through being human. It is accessed through the wholeness of the soul, for it is only in wholeness that the soul's sacred intentions and their catalytic effect of divine perception can be fully experienced.

This level of wholeness is attained only when the individual consciousness has separated from time and is able to view its existence in timelessness. Nevertheless, the human stage of existence is essential in facilitating personal transformation and causing it to trigger – like a metamorphosis – the integration of your formful identities into divine essence.

Self-mastery through personal transformation is the next stage of perception and expression for your soul. It is initiated when you choose to design your life based upon principles that are symbolic of the Divine. As you become increasingly responsive to the Divine, you naturally gravitate towards life principles that symbolically express the formative principles of divine creation.

The below principles are divine templates of creation. They are designed to help you experience life from the perspective of divine essence. They are principles that construct opportunities for the integration of your formless and formful identities. They are bridges through which you can access the experience of wholeness by perceiving with your divine essence.

There is a wide range of means that can facilitate self-mastery through personal transformation and disengage the soul from external controls. Inasmuch as the means may vary, the intent behind the means is quite narrowly defined as the intent to expand into a state of integration whereby all aspects of your conscious self become increasingly aligned with your divine essence.

There are three particular life principles that help to align your perspective with the perspective of divine essence and thus inspire profound transformation.

They are:

1) Seeing the Divine in all
2) Nurturance of life
3) Gratitude

When you apply these principles, a deeper meaning will be revealed to the seemingly random events of your life experience – both in the personal and universal contexts.

Seeing the Divine in All

This is the principle that the Divine is present and can be seen everywhere and in all manifestations of life. It is interwoven in all things like an intricate mosaic whose pieces adhere to the same wall, and are thus unified. However, it is not the picture that unifies the mosaic, but the underlying wall upon which its pieces adhere. Similarly, the Divine paints a picture so diverse and seemingly unrelated that there appears to be no unification. Yet it is not the outward manifestations that unify. It is the inward center of divine energy upon which the pieces of diversity are layered that unifies all life.

This centerpiece of divine energy is the collective storehouse of all life within the universe. It is the full expression of the Divine, which invests itself in all forms through the projection of its divine intelligence into all manifestations of life. Thus, divine intelligence – acting as an extension of the Divine – is the unifying energy that is the "wall" upon which all the pieces of life's mosaic adhere.

Seeing the Divine in all is the principle that all manifestations of life convey an expression of All That Is. It does not matter how far the unifying energy has been distorted or corrupted; the Divine can be observed. It is the action of perceiving the unification of energy even when the outward manifestations appear random, distorted, or chaotic. It is the realization that all life flows from one divine energy source that links one to All and all to One.

When every manifestation of life can be genuinely perceived as a fragmentary expression of All That Is, the vibration of equality that underlies all life becomes perceptible to you. You realize that life initially emerges as an extension of the Divine, and then, as an individuated energy frequency invested within a form. This individuated energy vibrates, in its pure, timeless state, precisely the same for all manifestations of life.

This is the common ground that all life shares. This is the tone or vibration of equality that can be observed within all life forms that unifies all expressions of diversity to the very foundation of existence. If you are able to look upon any and all forms of life with the outlook of equality, then you are seeing the Divine in all.

While this may seem like an abstract concept, it is actualized through the practice of looking for both the outward and inward manifestations of the Divine. In a very real sense, you expect to observe the workings of divine intelligence in every facet of your experience.

The principle of seeing the Divine in all is the unassailable expectation that everything is in its rightful position, performing its rightful function, and serving its purpose to activate the fullest expression of its life in the present moment. It is the outlook that all life is in a state of optimal realization and experience regardless of condition or circumstance. It is the perception that life is perfect in its expression because it flows from perfection, and that no matter how divergent its manifestations are, all life is an extension of the Divine.

In light of the obvious turmoil and destruction that are apparent on Earth, this is an outlook or perception that may seem naive. How can life – in all its forms and expressions – be perceived as optimal or perfect? This is the great paradox of life, and it cannot be reconciled with your mental or emotional capabilities. It can only be understood in the context of the soul, which is deathless, timeless, and limitless. Paradoxes exist because the human drama is too limited in scope and scale to allow a perception of wholeness to illuminate how the pieces of the puzzle are perfectly interconnected in the ever-unfolding divine cosmic dance.

The human drama is circumscribed by the dimensions of time and space and the elements of energy and matter. It is played out upon the stages of survival and dysfunctional behavior because of the methods of controlling information and manipulating conditions used by those operating within the hierarchical paradigm. The soul within the human body is largely unexpressed and underutilized in this human drama, and therefore, life's apparent perversions and imperfections are seen in isolation as impediments to perfection rather than perfection itself.

Life is perfect in its resolve to expand and express an intelligence that is limitless. This is the fundamental purpose of life in all its diverse manifestations.

The presence of the Divine expressing itself as a vibration of equality can be seen in all things. Sensory input derived from the human body is limited to frequencies in specific ranges that only convey an echo of this divine vibration. The divine resonance of all life is understood only through deliberate and focused contemplation of the equality inherent in all things, and through the ability to penetrate beyond the image of a thing to the origin of the image.

Calling forth the divine perceptions of the soul within your own being is the ideal method to access lasting sensitivity to the divine vibration. This is how you develop the ability to see the Divine in all. It is not only that the Divine is found within you and within every individual manifestation of life; it is also in itself the wholeness of all life. Thus, this principle calls for seeing the Divine in all its diverse forms of manifestation, as well as in the wholeness of life itself.

These insights stimulate a new sensory system beyond the five senses that rule the physical world. These new senses are an outgrowth of the awakening of your sacred intentions. They are manifestations of the first stage of profound personal transformation. With this new perceptual ability, you will be capable of sensing not only the presence of the Divine, but also the timeless divine essence that exists at the core of every living being.



Nurturance of Life

Life, in this definition, is an individual's sovereign reality. It is subjective and impressionable. Life is the wholeness of experience flowing past the individual's field of perception in the present moment. There is never a closure to life, nor a final chapter written. It is eternal, not only in the abstract sense of never ending or beginning, but also in the real sense that life is ever expanding in order to express divine intelligence in all realities within the universe.

Nurturance of life is the principle whereby an individual is in alignment with the natural expansion of intelligence inherent within all life. This alignment enhances the life energy that flows past the individual with the clear intent of gentle support. It is the action of opening to the highest motive in all people and in all life and supporting the flow of this highest intention towards its ultimate expression. In so doing, the action is performed without judgment, analysis, or attachment to outcome. It involves simply nurturing the highest energy that flows from all people and all beings, and thus supporting the fullest expression of their deepest essence.

This is a departure from the normal perception that nurturing support can only be granted when others are in alignment with your personal will and desires. When, instead, you view everything in your life as an integrated energy flowing as an expression of ever-expanding divine intelligence, all life is honored as an extension of the Divine. In this context, there is no energy that is misdirected or unworthy of support and nurturance. While this may seem contrary to the evidence of abusive energy upon the Earth, even energy that is laden with "evil intent" is nevertheless energy that is flowing outward in search of a higher expression.

All people and all forms of life can be nurtured and supported to their highest expression. This is the fundamental purpose of this principle. It is greatly facilitated by the intention to perceive the original motive and ultimate expression of life energy as it passes through your field of awareness.

Energy is an element of life that is so subtly interwoven with form that it is one, in much the same manner as space and time are inextricably linked in union. Energy is a motive. It is intelligent beyond the mind's ability to reason. While it is a force that can be subject to applications that deny its highest expression, energy is always imbuing life with the motive to expand and evolve.

Life energy is always in a state of becoming. It is never static or regressive in its natural state. You are very capable of nurturing this natural expansion of energy to forge new channels of expression and experience. In fact, it is your primary purpose to expand the life energy that encircles your personal reality, and to transform it to new levels of expression that more clearly reflect the perspective of divine essence.

There are many specific actions that can be taken to nurture life. Each soul has the innate ability to transform energy through a tremendous variety of means. Working through your body, your soul is able to collect and store energy and redirect its purpose or application. This transformation of energy can occur on both personal and universal levels of expression. That is, within an individual's field of awareness, energy can be transformed at any time to conform more to a vision of personal welfare, or aligned with a vision of universal welfare and goodwill.

One of the best methods to transform energy is through one's belief system. All beliefs have energy systems that act like birthing chambers for the manifestation of your perceived reality. Within these energy systems are currents that direct life experience. Your soul is aware of these currents either consciously or unconsciously and allows them to carry you into realms of experience that engage your core belief system.

By cultivating beliefs that expand and transform energy, you are more able to explore energy systems that are nurturing to life in all its myriad forms. When your beliefs are clearly defined as intentions – as preferred states of being – your life energy engages more fully in the present moment. Your energy system becomes inseparable from your being and woven into your spirit like a thread of light. Clarity of intention is essential to engaging the energy system of your core beliefs, and to allowing the nurturance of life to prevail in all activities.

The nurturance of life is essential to both personal and collective realities within the universe, which contains all realities that are interlinked like threads of an infinitely expanding fabric. Thus, as you awaken to your own creative power to transform life energy outside of yourself and enhance it with the clear intent of gentle support, you naturally experience ever-unfolding transformation within yourself as well. You become an increasingly clear beacon of the Divine and the architect of a new paradigm based upon the intention to nurture all life in the universe.

Gratitude

This principle is based on the understanding that the universe represents a collective intelligence that can be personalized as a single universal soul – a composite expression of the Divine. Thus, in this perspective, there are only two souls in the entire cosmos: the individual soul and the universal soul. Inasmuch as the individual is impressionable and constantly changing to adapt to new information, so is the universal soul, which is a dynamic, living template of collective energies and experiences that are coherent and as knowable as a friend's personality and behavior.

The universal soul is responsive to the individual soul and its beliefs and perceptions. It is like a composite omni-personality that is imbued with divine intelligence and responds to the perceptions and belief systems of the individual like a pool of water mirrors the image that overshadows it.

Everyone is indeed, at their innermost core, an enlightened soul that can transform themselves into an instrument of divine essence. However, this transformation is dependent on whether the individual chooses to project an image of divine essence upon the "mirror" of the universal soul, or to project a lesser image that is a distortion of its essential state of being.

The principle of gratitude is primarily concerned with consciously designing your self-image through an appreciation of the universal soul's supportive mirror. In other words, the universal soul is a partner in shaping reality's expression in your life. If you choose to project a transformed image upon the mirror of the universal soul, reality gradually becomes an internal process of creation that is increasingly free of external controls and conditions.

This process involves an interchange of supportive energy between the individual and the universal soul. This energy is best applied through an appreciation of how perfect and exacting this interchange occurs in every moment of life. If you are aware – or at least interested in having the awareness – of how perfectly the Divine, as expressed in the form of the universal soul, supports your sovereign reality, there is a powerful and natural sense of gratitude that flows from you to the Divine.

It is this wellspring of gratitude that opens wide the channel of support from the Divine to the individual and establishes a collaboration of purpose to transform the individual soul into a pure expression of divine essence.

It is principally gratitude – which arises naturally through appreciation of how the relationship between the individual and the universal soul operates – that opens you to connection with your divine essence, and to your eventual transformation into the state of perception and expression of divine essence. The relationship of the individual with the universal soul is essential to cultivate and nurture, because this relationship, more than anything else, determines how accepting each individual is of life's myriad forms and manifestations.

When you accept changes in your sovereign reality as the shifting persona of the universal soul, you live in greater harmony with life itself. Life becomes an exchange of energy between you and the universal soul that is allowed to play out without judgment, and is experienced without fear. This is the underlying meaning of unconditional love: to experience life in all its manifestations as a single, unified intelligence that responds perfectly to the projected image of each soul.

It is for this reason that when you project gratitude, regardless of circumstance or condition, life becomes increasingly supportive in opening you to further awakening your sacred intentions. This feeling of gratitude coupled with the mental concept of appreciation is expressed like an invisible message in all directions and at all times. In this particular context, gratitude is the overarching motive behind all forms of expression to which humanity aspires.

Every breath, every word, every touch, every thought is centered on expressing this sense of gratitude; a gratitude that you are sovereign and supported by a universal soul that expresses itself through all forms and manifestations of life with the sole objective of creating the ideal reality to fully awaken your sacred intentions and to transform your entire being into divine essence. It is this specific form of gratitude that accelerates the awakening of your sacred intentions and their inherent ability to integrate your body, mind, heart, and soul, and to transform your ability to perceive and express from the place of divine essence.

Time is the primary factor that distorts the otherwise clear connection between the individual and the Divine. Time establishes separation of experience. This creates doubt in the Divine's system of fairness and overarching purpose. This doubt, in turn, creates fear that the universe is not a mirror but rather a chaotic, whimsical energy. Time intervenes to create pockets of despair, hopelessness, and abandonment. However, it is these very "pockets" that often motivate awakening the sacred intentions of your soul, as they cause you to seek a more intimate and harmonious relationship with the Divine.

When you choose to align with divine essence and to live from this perspective as part of an ever-unfolding reality, you attract a natural state of harmony. This does not necessarily mean that your life is without problems or discomforts; rather it signifies a perception that there is an integral purpose in what life reveals. In other words, life experience is meaningful to the extent that you choose to live in natural harmony with divine essence. When your personal reality flows in alignment with divine essence, you create lasting joy and inner peace.

Gratitude is an essential facet of love that opens you to acknowledge the role of the universal soul and to redefine your purpose as a supportive extension of the Divine, rather than the whimsical outreach of fate or the exacting reaction of a mechanical, detached universe. Establishing a relationship with the universe through the outflow of gratitude attracts life experience that is deeply transformative – experience that is richly devoted to uncovering life's deepest meaning and most formative purpose.

The Emergence of Divine Essence

Through the ongoing application of these principles of transformation, divine intelligence increasingly permeates your soul, and your soul becomes the identity of your entire being. Thus, identity is transformed, and in the wake of this transformation, divine essence unifies your entire being with your soul, and your soul with divine intelligence. It is this unification and shift of identity that is the explicit purpose of these life principles. If there is any other intention or objective, these principles will remain misunderstood and their catalytic powers will remain dormant.

It is the perspective of divine essence that all life is pure love in its fullest expression, and that in this single concept, all life is conceived and forever exists. This becomes the core belief from which all other beliefs arise. And as these beliefs expand outward, this core belief system emerges with a clear intent of supporting a fundamental perspective of seeing, nurturing, and appreciating the universe as the divine cradle from which all life is created and evolves.

These principles of transformation are merely symbols represented in words and served to you as a potential recipe to stir awake the embers of light that tirelessly burn within. There are no specific techniques or rituals that are required to invoke their power. They are simply perspectives. In a real sense, they are sacred intentions that attract experience that expands consciousness. They do not provide quick fixes or instant realizations. They are amplifiers of personal will and intention that clarify how one lives. Their transformative power is contained exclusively in the intent of their application.

Through these principles, you can become a master of empowering your deeper self. In the past, boundaries were set, secrets were kept, and your light was subdued simply because your perception of external, hierarchical controls created in you fear of the unknown and of the mystical practices of transformed souls.

Now, if you choose to apply these life principles with clear intent, you have the tools to accelerate the emergence of divine essence. You can awaken the perspective, insights, and empowered abilities of your divine essence to create new realms of possibility and shape them as learning adventures that liberate and expand your consciousness. This is the underlying purpose of these principles, and perhaps the best reason to explore them.

Thank you for taking the time to read this empowering essay by WingMakers. Note that the text you've just read is a slightly edited translation into everyday English from the esoterically worded original. The original essay, titled Life Principles of the Sovereign Integral, is available here. Should you be interested in the origins of this engaging WingMakers material, click here to read some of the strange and fascinating history.

If you found this WingMakers essay to be meaningful, you might appreciate two other inspirational writings. The first is a concise, two-page essay which describes the deeper levels of what’s happening in our world and gives empowering suggestions on what we can do about it. Titled Building a Brighter Future, this compelling summary is available here. The second is an inspiring essay of two-pages titled Simple Keys to a Fuller Life available here.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Siddhartha Gautama (563-483 BCE) - Prince in Northern India

The Four Noble Truths

Dukkha - Life is suffering

Tanha - Suffering arises from attachment to that which impermanent

Nirodha - To cease suffering, one must cease attachment to that which is impermanent

Marga - The way to cease suffering and attain Nirvana (extinguishment of desire) is to undertake the Eightfold Path


The Eightfold Path

Right understanding: I recognize the impermanence of life, the mechanism of
desire, and the cause of suffering

Right intention: My thought and motives are pure, not tainted by my emotions and self desires

Right speech: I speak honestly and kindly, in positive ways, avoiding lies, exaggeration, harsh words

Right action: My actions do not hurt any other being that can feel hurt, including animals; I avoid stealing and sexual conduct that would bring hurt

Right work: My livelihood does no harm

Right effort: With moderation, I consistently strive to improve

Right meditation: I use disciplines of meditation and focused awareness to contemplate the nature of reality more deeply

Right contemplation: I cultivate states of inner stillness and peace (samadhi)

Sunday, April 3, 2011

'In The Garden' - Lyrics

In The Garden

I come to the garden alone

While the dew is still on the roses

And the voice I hear falling on my ear

The Son of God discloses.

Refrain



And He walks with me, and He talks with me,

And He tells me I am His own;

And the joy we share as we tarry there,

None other has ever known.



Refrain

He speaks, and the sound of His voice,

Is so sweet the birds hush their singing,

And the melody that He gave to me

Within my heart is ringing.



Refrain



I’d stay in the garden with Him

Though the night around me be falling,

But He bids me go; through the voice of woe

His voice to me is calling.



Refrain




Words: Charles Austin Miles (1912)

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Solving Personal Problems

Write down your answers to the following questions - brain vomit vs thinking too much!

1. Define your nightmare, the absolute worst that could happen if you did what you are considering. What doubt, fears and ‘what-ifs’ pop up as you consider the big changes you can, or need, to make? Envision them in pain-staking detail. Would it be the end of your life? What would be the permanent impact, if any, on a scale of 1-10? Are these things really permanent? How likely do you think it is that they would actually happen?
2. What steps could you take to repair the damage or get things back on the upswing, even if temporarily? Chances are, it’s easier than you imagine. How could you get things back under control?
3. What are the outcomes or benefits, both temporary and permanent, of more scenarios? Now that you’ve defined the nightmare, what are the more probable or definite positive outcomes, whether internal (confidence, self-esteem, etc.) or external? What would the impact of these more likely outcomes be on a scale of 1-10? How likely is it that you could produce at least a moderately good outcome? Have less intelligent people done this before and pulled it off?
4. If you were fired from your current job today, what would you do to get things under financial control? Imagine this scenario and run through questions 1-3 above. If you quit your job to test other options, how would you later get back on the same career track if you absolutely had to?
5. What are you putting off out of fear? Usually, what we most fear doing is what most need to do. That phone call, that conversation, whatever the action might be - it is fear of unknown outcomes that prevents us from doing what we need to do. Define the worst case, accept it, and do it. I’ll repeat something you might consider tattooing on your forehead: What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do. As I have heard said, a person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willg to have. Resolve to do one thing every day that you fear. I got in the habit of by attempting to contact celebrities and famous people for advice.
6. What is it costing you - financially, emotionally, and physically - to postpone action? Don’t only evaluate the potential downside of action. It is equally important to measure the atrocious cost of inaction. If you don’t pursue those things that excite you, where will you be in one year, five years, and ten years? How will you feel having allowed circumstance to impose itself upon you and having allowed ten more years of your finite life to pass doing what you know will not fulfill you? If you telescope out ten years and know with 100% certainty that it is a path of disappointment and regret, and if we define risk as ‘the likelihood of an irreversible negative outcome,’ inaction is the greatest risk of all!
7. What are you waiting for? If you cannot answer this without resorting to the previousloy rejected concept of good timing, the answer is simple: You’re afraid, just like the rest of the world! Measure the cost of inaction, realize the unlikelihood and repairability of most missteps, and develop the most important habit of those who excel and enjoy doing so: action!

Twelve Rules of Spiritual Wisdom—Author Unknown  

1.  God wants spiritual fruit, not religious nuts. 


2.  There is no key to happiness. The door is always open. 


3.  Silence is often misinterpreted, but never misquoted. 

4.  Dear God, I have a problem, it's me. 


5.  Laugh every day, it's like inner jogging. 


6.  Blessed are the flexible for they shall not be bent out of shape. 


7.  THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS IN YOUR HOME ARE THE PEOPLE.

8.  As a child of God, prayer is kind of like calling 
home everyday.

9.  He who dies with the most toys is still dead. 


10. It's all right to sit on your pity pot every now and 
again.
Just be sure to flush when you are done.

11. Surviving and living your life successfully requires 
courage.
The goals and dreams you're seeking require 
courage and risk taking.
Learn from the turtle, it only 
makes progress when it sticks out it's neck. 


12. Be more concerned with your character than with your
    reputation, because your character is what you really are,
    while your reputation is merely what others think you are.

Friday, April 1, 2011

How to Re-create the American Dream (Jonathan Bender)

A vision of an intellectual renaissance through public education reform
America’s role in the coming age: Our place in the world economy, in the
emerging global community, is no longer “the industrial giant.” That much is
certain. The days of blue collar middle class America are over (for the most part).
While there will always be exceptions, there are now cheaper and better means
of creating stuff in the world.
America has a cultural identity which emphasizes individualism, creativity, and
innovation. As a nation of immigrants, we are all descended from people who did
not settle for “business as usual,” and who took serious risks in order to recreate,
re-invent themselves in the “land of opportunity.” We are the land of
opportunity because we have a culture that celebrates trail-blazing.
We are also blessed with an incredible diversity of perspectives. Few places in
the world boast such an amalgam of cultures, such a lack of a dominant social
reference frame. Ironically, our unity can be derived from our respect for this
diversity.
While we are also blessed with wondrous natural resources, these 2
characteristics of our population (fearless trailblazing and cultural diversity) are
our greatest assets. They must be the focus of the new America: a nation of
innovation, a solution-generating engine, and a global leader of creative
enterprise.
While production will always be instrumental, ideas are the greatest economic
product in the coming age, and if we are to capitalize on our social and cultural
resources, we must do all we can to encourage the free exchange and
exploration of all that could be. We must focus our attention on producing an
environment with the fewest possible restrictions on the exchange of ideas. That
means that we must, wherever possible:
1. support collaboration
The problems of the coming age are far too complex for individuals
to solve. Indeed, the problems of the past have proven too complex
as well, as indicated by the unexpected consequences of most
“solutions” from the past hundred years (and more). Many of our
past errors could have been avoided through greater
interdisciplinary collaboration. We can only find solutions to modern
challenges through collaborative efforts across and between
disciplines
2. engage in transparent enterprise
to facilitate collaboration
3. reduce the presence of counter-information - false claims meant to favor
specific ideas at the expense of truth - To eliminate the unnecessary burden of re-proving what is already known
4. model open-mindedness at all levels
To encourage inclusion and consideration of ideas based on their merit
and not the personal traits of their originators. Values ‘trickle across,’ but
especially ‘down’ since prominent figures are seen and heard most
5. model intellectual risk-taking at all levels (honesty and vulnerability)
All innovation requires some amount of personal risk; at the very least,
there is a risk of rejection. Learning, similarly, requires risk-taking
6. model inclusion at all levels
To get the most from our phenomenal diversity, but also to counter the
perception of others as “others” and by others of us as “others.” This has
dramatic positive national security implications as well as educational ones

1. remove policies which favor specific demographics
2. de-emphasize individual accomplishment in favor of collaborative
achievement
◦ To reinforce the value of joint enterprise and thus, finding worth in all
7. minimize the stress of finding and maintaining access to basic necessities
for survival
To liberate the minds of citizens for the more important work of problem
solving and innovation
1. security
1. personal
2. public
2. health
1. nutrition
2. care

What part does education play? Public education, perhaps America’s greatest
institution (as it is intended), is more important than ever in the coming age.
Learning, as a value, is the cornerstone of the new America. This is not a stretch
for us. As mentioned above, we are a nation of trail-blazers, and that sort of
pioneering risk, combined with an appropriate amount of discipline, is exactly
what is necessary for good learning. We need to put learning at the front of
every aspect of society.
With education happening everywhere, our public schools will increasingly serve
as moderators and facilitators, as well as the purveyors of those abstracted ideas
not so directly accessible through practical application (but which are essential to
much of the ‘cutting edge’ of development).
This will be our mantra: The quest for understanding is riddled with treasure, and
there are infinite paths to travel.
How can schools best support this mantra? Learning must not be about
absorbing what is known. While existing knowledge is a valuable
scaffold on which to stand, what’s much more important is the ability to
address challenges not yet encountered. Further, history shows that
much of our most valuable insights occurred when people challenged the
very foundations of our understanding, pointing out structural
weaknesses in that scaffold. For that reason, learning should be a
personal journey of inquiry, where meaning and purpose is drawn from
within each of us, and fed by the ideas of our companions and our
predecessors. Questions must lead the way, not answers. Answers are
the end of the road.
Recruiting and retaining excellent educators: The tools for a
productive and successful educational experience in any
environment, and for any student, exist. Access to those tools
and/or willingness to learn to use them is usually behind any
failure to produce desirable results. Such a commitment can be
daunting, as it is a career commitment (at least multi-year), and
thus merits appropriate incentives. While effective teaching is
inherently rewarding, becoming effective is generally very
difficult.
If we are to recruit, train, continually develop the best we have to
offer (teachers should be the creme of the crop), we must make
teaching very desirable.
A priority, even before cosmetic features of schools and some
instructional materials (within reason), should be funding faculty
and administration adequately as to recruit dedicated innovators
willing to do what it takes to create a successful educational
environment.
Lovely facilities are wonderful, but the best educators can turn
anything into a learning experience.
Further, payroll must be sufficient to provide teachers with time
and space to collaborate, and collectively develop as
professionals.
Developing Exceptional Teachers: Channels of
communication and cooperation between schools is also key to
success. Schools should be research facilities - research into
instructional innovation - and that research must be available to
interested parties.
And pay structures should incentivize continual development
(commitment, leadership, effective innovation), and hold
instructors accountable for their gains not through the scores of
their students, but through vetted academic research. That is,
instructors would be expected to share their experiences
(through co-teaching and peer observations), produce reports
outlining their instructional innovations and gains, direct staff
training sessions when new techniques are shown to be
effective, and support colleagues’ implementation of strategies
that they champion.
Schools must be inclusive: All of the most effective schools, in any
environment, pay respect to the members of the community that they
serve. It should go a step further, however; schools should welcome all
members of the community to participate in some way. This is not
always easy, but if we are to model cooperative enterprise in education
and society, it needs to take place at every level. And for every
challenge there are at least as many benefits.
For one, every community has a wealth of skill and perspective.
Professionals can offer valuable resources and insight not available to
teachers, as well as providing context for learning experiences
(demonstrating a connection between what is being studied and what
exists outside the classroom).
It invigorates the community for constituents to feel they have value to
the coming generation. It empowers and involves parents and neighbors
to feel connected to the education of the children.
Learning must be relevant: Why, after all, must we construct an artificial
environment in which to learn, when there are countless resources that
are practical, urgent, and impactful, all around us. Granted, there are a
number of ideas that are fundamental to much of what is practical, but
which cannot be approached without some amount of modeling and/or
purely cognitive exercise, but even those skills and ideas are, indirectly,
connected with something real. And why would anyone learn unless the
learning is relevant?
The answer is artificial incentive structures. Up to this point, we have
relied on artificial incentives to motivate students, whether parental
pressure, grading, competitive college application, or “permanent
records.” Each of these may or may not have value to certain students,
and even when they do, it is by some amount of ruse that they are
effective. Why not allow natural inherent human incentives to guide
learning? Our minds are wired to learn and, indeed, it is nearly
impossible to prevent it. Our social needs are among the most powerful
of any motivator, and if we are immersed in a culture which values
exploration and discovery, it is only by a challenging up-river effort that
we stall our own learning. And there are clear and present issues that
need to be dealt with in our communities and in our society - and which
can be the framework of our curricula.

Conclusion: America would benefit from a paradigm shift in the direction of
collaborative idea-generation and away from production. That’s not to say that
production should cease - simply that it should become a more minor sector, or
smaller scale. To do this, we need to reform our educational policy such that
learning becomes a universal value. Public education, as it was originally
intended, should become a community resource, but it should also become a
machine for driving integration, innovation, and collaboration. Schools can be
innovators in the way that we wish our citizens to be innovators, and
communication between members of institutions, and between institutions, can
model the sort of collaboration that will bring about real solutions to pressing
social challenges. Finally, schools can be resources for the entire community,
and at the same time benefit from the resources within the community. These
changes will not be easy. We need to offer sufficient pay to teachers such that
the profession is as desirable as it is valuable, and make teachers accountable
for their instruction in such a way that not only encourages innovation and
continual development, but models those values for students and society.

THE GOLDEN STAIRS: ETHICS IN THE ANCIENT WISDOM TRADITION

Published in The American Theosophist, November 1984.
THE GOLDEN STAIRS:
ETHICS IN THE ANCIENT WISDOM TRADITION
By John Algeo

THE ANCIENT WISDOM OR PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY as it has also been called, is a
body of teachings that imply a way of behaving. Through the doctrine of karma, the
tradition’s emphasis on personal responsibility for one’s decisions and actions creates
an ethics that is individual, situational, and relative, rather than categorical and
absolute. Thus it is futile to look for a “Ten Commandments” of the Ancient
Wisdom—some list of specific things that one should or should not do.
To be sure, certain general principles of this philosophy, inherited from the Indic
tradition, have been extremely influential in modern thought, principles like ahimsa
(harmlessness) or viveka (discrimination) and vairagya (dispassion). Such concepts have
developed a wealth of ethical associations around them. But more specific than these
is a short statement published by Н. P. Blavatsky, called “The Golden Stairs.”
H. P. Blavatsky, through The Secret Doctrine and other works, was a leading
proponent of the Perennial Philosophy in modern times. Thus her summary of ethics
in “The Golden Stairs” presents briefly what the tradition has to say on the subject. Its
thirteen phrases are the closest equivalent to a set of Ten Commandments of the
Ancient Wisdom.

“The Golden Stairs” was originally published by H. P. Blavatsky in 1890, at a time
when she was much concerned with injustice, loyalty, and altruism in her own life.
Later a revised form of the document was made available. The differences in wording
between the original and the revised versions are slight; they were made perhaps
because in a few places the original version is susceptible to misinterpretation without
commentary. The original version has, however, been printed in the Collected Writings
(503) and is used here, as the one that most accurately represents the statement in the
form Blavatsky wished to be known. (It was originally printed as a single paragraph;
the spacing and numbers are introduced here to clarify the structure of the statement,
which is discussed below.)

THE GOLDEN STAIRS

Behold the truth before you:

[1] a clean life, [2] an open mind, [3] a pure heart, [4] an eager intellect, [5] an
unveiled spiritual perception, [6] a brotherliness for one’s co-disciple,
[7] a readiness to give and receive advice and instruction, [8] a loyal sense of duty to the Teacher,
[9] a willing obedience to the behests of TRUTH, once we have placed our confidence in, and
believe that Teacher to be in possession of it; [10] a courageous endurance of personal injustice,
[11] a brave declaration of principles, [12] a valiant defence of those who are unjustly attacked,
[13] and a constant eye to the ideal of human progression and perfection which the secret
science (GuptaVidya) depicts—

[conclusion] these are the golden stairs up the steps of which the learner
may climb to the Temple of Divine Wisdom. The statement consists of a prefatory injunction,
thirteen noun phrases, and a concluding statement that serves as a coda to round off the whole.
It is a deceptively simple statement, which many readers may be inclined to regard as a collection of
pious banalities. But such a reading quite misses the point of this document, which is
in fact a tightly structured guide to moral action.

Preface. “The Golden Stairs” is general advice that applies to a variety of situations,
not a specific list of Thou-shalts and Thou-shalt-nots. It reflects a belief in natural
ethics, rather than in revealed commandments. In its prefatory injunction, it stresses
the naturalness and obviousness of moral action. The reader is told: “Behold the truth
before you.” The ethical principles on which we should act are clear and available to
everyone; they stare us in the face, and all we need do is be aware of them.
Indeed, given the reality of karma—the effects of our actions which determine our
future—we have no alternative but to come to terms with the Moral Imperative of
nature. Our only option is whether we shall come to terms with karma consciously, in
full awareness of the meaning and effects of our actions, or whether we shall come to
terms with karma unawares—whether, that is, we are to be the victors or the victims
of our own actions.

In Jainism, one of the religions of India whose origin is approximately contemporary
with that of Buddhism, the great saints are called jinas, ‘victors,’ from the root
of the verb jayati, ‘he conquers.’ (The word jain means ‘pertaining to the victors’; and
those who call themselves Jains are following in the footsteps of the victorious saints.)
The Jina has conquered illusory action, false desires, and ignorance; he has beheld the
truth before him. The Jina has already climbed the Golden Stairs and therefore is the
Victor, the Conqueror.

The prefatory injunction is a statement about the naturalness of moral law and its
public availability and is also a call for us to respond consciously to it. The moral truth
of life is before us—it is up to us to behold it. The process of beholding consists of the
thirteen steps that make up the Golden Stairs. Those steps form three groups, the first
group with five steps, and the second and third groups with four steps each. The first
group of steps deals with the most general principles of ethical behavior; the
remaining two groups become increasingly specific.

1. Clean Life. The very first of the steps is an inescapable preliminary: “a clean life.”
In a sense, this step implies all the rest. If it were taken fully, it would be not the first
but the final step. Cleanliness, says folk wisdom, is next to Godliness; and so it is—in a
more profound sense than the folk saying is usually understood. A completely clean
life is a completely moral one. So in our beginning is our end. But the Golden Stairs
are not a scale to be run up once only.
All metaphors have their limits; and if we think of this set of ethical principles that
we call “The Golden Stairs” too literally as steps that we climb, one at a time, to reach
some pinnacle of moral perfection, we will have trespassed the limits of the metaphor.
We do not climb the Golden Stairs once only, but many times, repeatedly; every action
of ours is a step in some direction on these stairs. And so the first step is not taken
once only, but over and over again. When we at last take the step of a clean life
perfectly, we will have passed over all the other steps and arrived at the temple to
which they lead.
Even though our first efforts at this step are imperfect, it is where we must begin.
In his Confessions, St. Augustine recalled that he had prayed to God: Da mihi castitatem
et continentiam, sed noli modo “Give me chastity and continence, but not just now.” That
is the way most of us are with virtues we think will make life more difficult and less
pleasant for us: we know we ought to have them, so we want them, but not just now.
However, if we hope to follow the path, we must recognize that the spiritual life must
first be a clean life.
A clean life includes speaking truthfully and kindly, acting fairly, earning a living
honestly and usefully, thinking about others with good will, and being cheerful in the
midst of problems. These are simple qualities, but the ethical life is basically simple
and obvious. There is nothing secret or mysterious about it.
A clean life is one in which we are free of the stains that color our vision. One of
the great works of Indian spirituality is the Vivekachudamani (The Crest Jewel of
Discrimination) of Shankaracharya. It cites four preliminary qualifications for treading
the path. One of the qualifications is dispassion or desirelessness (vairagya). The
Sanskrit word, as is often the case in that language, reveals its meaning by its parts.
The literal meaning of vairagya is ‘colorlessness.’
In our ordinary language we use colors to suggest mental and emotional states.
We see red when we are angry, are blue when we are depressed, view the world
through rose-colored glasses, are green with envy, are in a black mood, are in a brown
funk, and so on. The emotional colors through which we look at the world distort our
view of reality. If we are to see the world and see it whole, we must take off our
colored glasses; we must dispense with the moods that cloud our perception; we must
practice vairagya; we must lead an uncolored, that is, a clean life.
This first phrase has another implication that is important to a theosophical view
of life. To be clean is to be free of foreign accretions, of all the contaminants that cling
to us and spoil our native purity. Goodness is not a foreign way of behaving that we
must painfully learn. It is not like make-up that we must apply to cover over a flawed
complexion. It is rather what is natural in us when we have washed away the
accumulated dirt that hides it. All nature is fundamentally good—and human nature
is so too. In The Voice of the Silence H. P. Blavatsky says that “mind is like a mirror; it
gathers dust while it reflects” (paragraph 115). The task we have is to clean off the
dust that covers the mirror, to let it reflect the sun perfectly.

2. Open Mind. If we are to find the way to cleansing our life, to removing the dust
that has covered over the clear mirror of human nature, we must have “an open
mind.” We should be willing to consider alternatives and not approach every subject,
every problem in life, and every person we meet with the assumption that we already
know how to deal with them. A closed mind is a conditioned mind; it has been shut
off from the world of new experiences, and it reacts only to its memories. It is like one
of Pavlov’s dogs.
The Russian Physiologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov experimented with dogs by
ringing a bell whenever he gave them food. Soon the dogs associated the ringing of
the bell with the arrival of food, and automatic physiological processes, like salivation,
would begin as soon as the dogs heard the bell, even though they were given no food.
The dogs had been conditioned to behave in a potentially inappropriate way. And so
it is with us. Our minds have been conditioned by our past experience, so that we
cease to respond to new things, but react instead only to our own past.
When we are conditioned by our psychological past, we cannot lead a clean life,
for that past is the dust polluting the bright mirror of the mind. So to lead a clean life
we must have an open mind, a mind alive to new possibilities, an unconditioned
mind. Being open-minded does not mean, however, that we have to accept everything
that we encounter. Discrimination (viveka) is just as necessary as desirelessness. But
we cannot discriminate truly unless we are willing to entertain new ideas, fresh
alternatives, and are willing to conclude that our past ideas, even ones we have held
very dear and close, are no longer appropriate. The past may be passé.
To have an open mind is to be aware of ourselves and everything around us
without passing judgment on anything we find to be true, but simply recognizing
what is. Long ago, European cartographers drew maps of the world that centered on
the Mediterranean lands and showed Africa and Asia as small islands; they did not
show the Americas at all. Around the edges of the maps were written warnings: Here
Dragons Dwell. As Alfred Korzybski, the founder of General Semantics, said, we often
mistake the map for the territory. The map is in our minds; the territory is the world.
To discover the world as it really is, explorers had to give up their old maps and
venture into those territories where they had been warned that dragons dwell. But
they found no dragons. They found new worlds instead. To make their discoveries,
they needed to look at the territories around them and not at their maps. They needed
open minds. And so do we.

3. Pure Heart. If we keep an open mind and consider new ideas, how do we keep
those new ideas from becoming just more dust blocking the mirror? How do we find
our way through a territory for which we have no map? How do we keep from
making new maps that are just as wrong as the old ones, though in a different way?
The next step on the Golden Stairs is the answer to such questions: “a pure heart.”
The expression “a pure heart” refers to something quite particular. Pure means
‘unmixed, uniform, homogeneous.’ “A pure heart” means the single-mindedness, the
intensity of purpose, the complete devotion that is, according to the Vivekachudamani,
the fourth of the preliminary qualifications for the path of enlightenment: mumukshutva,
the will to freedom from illusion and union with the Truth.
When our heart is pure, we have nothing else in it except the awareness of the One
Life that breathes through every being in the universe. When our heart is pure, we
have only one desire, the desire to be consciously united with that One Life. When our
heart is pure, we do everything for one purpose, to act out the will of that One Life. In
the Sermon on the Mount, Christ said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
God.” It is only those with the single-mindedness of a pure heart who see that
Principle of Life that dwells in us and without us.
In practical, everyday terms, “a pure heart” means knowing what is really important
in life and not letting anything else distract you from paying attention to it. It is, in
contemporary slang, having your head screwed on straight. Henry David Thoreau
wrote in Walden: “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is
because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however
measured or far away.” Having a pure heart is hearing your own drummer and
marching to his beat. “A pure heart” means freedom from uncertainty and indecision
about what is ultimately good and useful. Those who have a pure heart do not wonder
about where their lives are leading them; they know that there is only one direction to
go.

4. Eager Intellect. To carry out the single-mindedness of purpose in a pure heart,
one must also have “an eager intellect.” This is something quite different from an open
mind. An open mind is one that is free from the conditioning of past experience. But if
a mind is completely open, if it is—so to speak —open at both ends, it can hold
nothing; everything just flows through it. It is then not merely an open mind, but a
vacant one, There is no virtue in vacuity.
Adam and Eve were not good when they were in Eden; they were ignorant. They
had, according to the myth of Genesis, no knowledge of good and evil. It is only when
we become aware of the great, flowing work around us and of ourselves as little
whirls within the great ebb and flow of life, it is only then that we become capable of
moral behavior, of good and evil, because it is only then that we can choose. Ethics
implies making a choice; and choosing requires knowledge of the options. We human
beings are ethical creatures because we have free will; and we have free will because
we have minds with which we can know the alternatives before us. Etymologically,
Man is the being with manas. That fact is crucial to ethics.
Christian scripture speaks of one sin that is beyond forgiveness, a sin against the
Holy Ghost, but does not say exactly what that sin is. We might say that the
unforgivable sin is the refusal to use our intellects. If we neglect our minds, we neglect
the most human part of us; we deny our own humanity, we refuse the knowledge
which alone makes moral choice possible. By a curious perversion of truth, we
sometimes identify goodness with ignorance. But ignorant goodness is a contradiction
in terms. Knowledge makes evil possible, to be sure; but it also makes goodness
possible. Every virtue casts a vice as its shadow. In this world of duality, we cannot
escape the complementarity of the opposites. To have up, we must have down; to have
light, darkness; to have joy, sorrow; to have good, evil.
With an eager intellect, however, we not only recognize the existence of the opposites,
including good and evil, we also have a basis for choosing between them. An
eager intellect makes possible a discrimination between the real and the unreal. Thus,
in the tradition of the Ancient Wisdom it is a basic premise that learning leads to
goodness, that intellect is part of ethics. To be good, we must know.

5. Unveiled Spiritual Perception. Intellect alone, however eager, is not enough to
guide us in ethics. Intellect is, as the logicians say, necessary but not sufficient. In
addition to an active mind, we must also have “an unveiled spiritual perception” by
which we can discriminate. That is, we must take the dust covers off our intuition. The
intuition or buddhi is the faculty by which we see straight into the heart of things, by
which we recognize the essence beneath the surface appearances and thus
discriminate between the real and the unreal, the more important and the less
important.
This perception is called spiritual because it is not limited to the senses—to what
we can see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. Nor is it limited to the mind—to what we can
reason about, deduce, conclude inductively, or prove by theorems and logic. This
perception is not physical or intellectual—but is something that must be experienced
to be understood.
Spiritual perception is not developed in the way that an oak tree can be grown
from an acorn. It is not “my” faculty that I develop. It is not “mine” in any personal
sense, but is already there, fully developed, available to be used by anyone who taps
into it. It needs only to be unveiled, like a finished statue waiting to be shown to the
spectators. The unveiling process is the practice of meditation.
Having used the eager intellect to its full, we then still the mind and thereby bring
into the open the secret, but ever so powerful, insight into the nature of things that lies
beneath the surface of our minds. The intellect is directed outward; the intuition
inward. By the intellect we learn; by the intuition we recognize—that is, ‘know again,’
come into the old gnosis, arrive at the Ancient Wisdom. (Recognize comes from the
roots of re- ‘again,’ co- ‘with,’ and gnoscere ‘know, have gnosis of.’)
In the first five steps of the Golden Stairs are the qualities that form the basis of all
ethical action: right living, freedom from conditioning by our past, one-pointedness,
mental awareness, and active intuition. The remaining eight steps concern the fruits of
the first five, beginning with four that address the question of our relationship to our
neighbors.

6. Brotherliness. First, what is it that we recognize through our unveiled spiritual
perception? What is the essence of the Ancient Wisdom? Its fundamental teaching and
the ground of the meditative experience is the Oneness of all life. Beneath the dualities
of the mind there is a unity of intuition. Once we have perceived that Oneness in the
universe, nothing can ever again be quite the same. There is a moral imperative that
we should act upon our perception.
The action to which we are led is brotherliness. If all life is one, then all human
beings are our brothers or even more than brothers, and we should treat them as such.
The wording of this step, as Blavatsky published it, was “a brotherliness for one’s
co-disciple.” Perhaps because that wording seemed too restricted, as though it were
limiting the practice of brotherhood to some select group, students of the same
teacher, the revised version of “The Golden Stairs” changed it to “a brotherliness for
all.” However, the two versions really say the same thing.
As has often been noted, the world in which we find ourselves is a vast school—a
university that offers every conceivable subject and has all ranges of students, from
beginning freshmen to postgraduate fellows. Within this universal school we are all
fellow students, co-disciples. There is no human being who is not our co-disciple. And
thus to be brotherly to co-disciples is to be brotherly to all.
Every human being is, quite literally, related to every other human being. If we
could trace our family tree back far enough, we would find that the branches of our
tree eventually intertwine with those of every other tree in the human race. All grow
from the same stock. There are no human communities that have been completely
isolated since the dawn of time; rather we are all interconnected by the interbreeding
of our ancestors. We are joined together in a network of human brotherhood for which
brotherliness is the only appropriate expression. We are all kin.

7. Readiness to Give and Receive. Of what does brotherliness consist? How do we
show our brotherhood with all? When God spoke to Cain, he asked him, “Where is
your brother Abel?” And Cain answered with a question: “Am I my brother’s
keeper?” Cain intended the question to be rhetorical, to imply its own answer. It does.
But the answer is not what Cain thought. We are each our brother’s keeper. Thus the
seventh step is “a readiness to give and receive advice and instruction.” That is what
brothers should do.
Giving advice and instruction is easy. It is not only easy, it is often a distinct
pleasure. It makes the advisor and instructor seem important and knowledgeable. It
builds the ego. Receiving advice and instruction is often a good bit harder, and more
onerous. But what is important about advice and instruction is that it should be
mutual. Every one of us can help someone else at some time, and every one of us
needs help at other times. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Polonius told Laertes amid a long
flow of other sententious recommendations, that he should neither a borrower nor a
lender be. That may be good counsel when it comes to money, but in most other
regards each of us needs to be both a giver and a receiver.
There is, however, another important detail about this step. We are not told to go
about giving advice or asking to receive it. We are rather told to be ready to give and
receive it. And that is rather different. Some persons give advice when it is not wanted
or needed; and others seek for it when they should be developing their own resources
instead of relying on others. We should be ready to give and ready to receive advice
and instruction when it is appropriate to do so. And not otherwise. The difference
between a busybody yenta and a good samaritan is that the samaritan pays attention
to the word ready.
The ready giving and receiving of advice and instruction is the practical
manifestation of brotherliness for all persons. To each person in the world, whatever
our relationship to that person, we have a mutual obligation—an obligation to be
supportive, to succor in adversity, to share in need, to rejoice in good fortune. This is
the quality that the Romans called pietas—behaving toward others in a way
appropriate to our various relationships with them.

8. Loyal Sense of Duty. One of the relationships we have is that with a person from
whom we learn. And so the next step is “a loyal sense of duty to the Teacher.” The
phrase is an important and realistic one, which can be understood in various ways,
because the word teacher, like co-disciple, has more than one interpretation. We can
consider several.
First, we indeed learn things from others, and by so doing we contract a duty to
them. Confucius specified five basic human relationships that create mutual duties:
parent and child, older sibling and younger sibling, husband and wife, ruler and
subject, and teacher and student. In India, the relationship of the disciple to the guru is
a sacred one, which involves “a loyal sense of duty.”
Even in the West today such a relationship is recognized. When a student in a
university is studying for an advanced degree, especially the Ph.D., and is accepted by
a major professor who agrees to direct the student’s work, a mutual obligation comes
into existence; and long after having completed the degree and become an
independent scholar, the student will continue to talk about “my major professor,”
that is, “my guru.” Also persons who do not go on to advanced education often look
back on some particular teacher, in high school or elementary school, as having
exercised a great influence on their lives. And so loyalty to one’s teacher is a duty
universally recognized, whether the teaching is secular or sacred.
Second, the teacher to whom we are to be loyal can be understood as being any
other human being. The notion of teacher is correlative to that of student or disciple.
Since the sixth step can be understood as implying that we are all co-disciples and
since the seventh step has told us that we are to learn from and instruct one another,
each of us is clearly the teacher of every other. As we are all co-disciples, so we are all
co-teachers.
Brotherhood is a network relationship in which all participants are equal since all
participate in the relationship on the same level (though not with the same degree of
closeness to every other). The teacher-student relationship is hierarchical since teacher
and student are on different levels with respect to the knowledge that joins them. A
hierarchical relationship is not, however, an unchanging one. Whereas one day you
are a student and learn from another about one subject, tomorrow you will be a
teacher and instruct that same person about a different subject. We are all joined to
one another by these two kinds of systems—the network of brotherhood and the
hierarchy of duty—but both systems are fluid, and all of us fill a variety of roles in
each.
Third, it is not irrelevant that Blavatsky capitalized Teacher in this step. The
capitalization suggests that she thought of the teacher in this case as no human being,
but as the Higher Self within each of us. The Voice of the Silence (paragraph 221) says:

“Of teachers there are many: the Master-Soul is one, Alaya, the universal Soul. Live in
that Master as its ray in thee.” Finally, the teacher to whom we are loyal and dutiful is
no earthly guru, no major professor, no leader of any organization, no master of any
Brotherhood—but the One Life in us. The most any human teacher can do is to lead us
to the Teacher within.
Polonius gave Laertes another bit of advice: “This above all, to thy own self be
true.” If we change the wording slightly, the message is that of the eighth step: “This
above all, to the One Self be true.” Our own selves are the One Self, and that is finally
the only Teacher. To have a loyal sense of duty to the Teacher is to be true to our own
inmost natures, the universal Soul.
9. Willing Obedience. When we have a loyal sense of duty to the Teacher, what do
we do? What follows from a commitment to the teacher of Truth, whether the teacher
is a mortal or is the universal Soul? The ninth step addresses that question: “a willing
obedience to the behests of Truth, once we have placed our confidence in [it], and
believe that Teacher to be in possession of it.”
Having found the Teacher within and having become convinced of the reality of
the inner Truth so that we have faith or confidence in it, we must act upon it. Every
idea has consequences for behavior. Once we have accepted the Truth of the One Life
as an idea, we are faced with the behests, the commands to action, that follow from it.
Ideas are the most powerful things in the world because they impel us to act.
Obedience to the behests of Truth is not externally required. Nobody stands over
us and says, “You’ve got to obey!” This obedience is willing—it springs from within. It
is the natural and inevitable result of recognizing the Truth. When a plant is exposed
to sunlight, no one has to tell the plant to grow. Growth is the natural response of the
plant to light. Our “willing obedience to the behests of Truth” is similar.
Steps six to nine of “The Golden Stairs” outline our relationship to other persons,
in both the network of brotherhood and the hierarchy of duties, and they deal with the
consequences of those relationships: our responsibilities, as brothers, to one another
and, as students, to the moral imperatives that are implicit in the truth of Oneness. The
last four steps treat more explicitly moral dilemmas and our responses to them.
10. Courageous Endurance. What are the behests of Truth? What are the practical
implications for ethical behavior of the Truth of Oneness? Step ten gives one of them:
“a courageous endurance of personal injustice.” Every person experiences during life
situations that seem to be unjust, and indeed are so as far as the personality is
concerned. Believing, however, that all life is one and that perfect order governs all
things, we should endure such apparent injustice courageously.

This counsel is the same as that Christ gave to his followers when he talked to
them on a mountain (Matthew 5.38-45):
Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:
But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on
thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the
law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall
compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and
from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. Ye have heard that it
hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thy enemy. But I say
unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that
hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you,
that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his
sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the
unjust.
The injunctions of the Sermon on the Mount are sometimes called “counsels of
perfection” and are said to be directions for sainthood, not binding on ordinary
persons in the world. But there is nothing impractical about them. On the contrary,
they may be the most practical of advice. It has been remarked that if we all were to
follow the strict justice of an eye for an eye, the result would be a world of the blind.
From Thoreau to Gandhi to Martin Luther King, the doctrine of civil disobedience, of
satyagraha, or passive resistance—the loving but firm refusal to participate in evil or
to respond to evil with evil—has proven its value. We do not have to believe that the
concept has always been applied perfectly to recognize that it works.
The impulse of our egos is to lash back at injustice, but it is more effective to
endure evil courageously than to respond to it in like kind. As the Dhammapada says,
“Hatred does not cease by hatred at any time: hatred ceases by love—this is an old
rule.”

11. Brave Declaration. A passive response to evil and injustice may be mistaken for
timidity or for acquiescence in the evil itself. To distinguish the courageous endurance
from a cowardly one, the next step recommends “a brave declaration of principles.”
We are to step out and be counted.
Some of us, to be sure, are only too willing to explain the grounds of our action,
and we do so at every opportunity. A thin line divides “a brave declaration” from selfjustification,
self-righteous moralizing, and self-gratulation. Those who constantly
declare their principles are not heros, but bores.
However, there are occasions when we must make a statement. The ancient Christian
martyrs who were cruelly tortured and killed as sport to amuse the crowds in the
arena at Rome went to their deaths singing psalms. Their response is known as
“witnessing”; they were, by their response to their persecution, bearing witness to the
Truth they had experienced.
Few of us today are called upon in a similar life-and-death situation to make a
brave declaration of principles, but there are less dramatic contexts in which we
should, while accepting injustice, state the grounds on which we stand. If the
statement requires genuine bravery and if, in making it, we focus on principle, then it
is likely to be well made. But if we get a personal thrill out of the limelight we get from
making the statement or if we make it to justify ourselves, then it is probably better left
unspoken.

12. Valiant Defense. However we regard evil and injustice as they affect ourselves,
we should respond to evil and injustice afflicting others in a different manner. Christ
advises us, if we are struck upon one side of the head, to turn the other side to our
enemy rather than strike back. However, he does not suggest that, if a bully strikes the
person sitting next to us, we should grab the poor unfortunate’s head and twist it
around so that the bully can have a go at the other side too.
We are to endure evil that happens to us; we are not asked to endure the
misfortunes of others. On the contrary, we are called to “a valiant defence of those
who are unjustly attacked.” What we may not do for ourselves, we must do for others.
“The Golden Stairs” does not envision total passifism as an ethical ideal. In this, it
is one with the Bhagavad Gita, in which Krishna urges Arjuna to fight for the rights of
his brothers and against the deceit of his cousins. Arjuna is to enter upon a terribly
destructive war, not for his own benefit, and not even really for the benefit of his
brothers, but because evil has been done and must be righted.
Arjuna is told to fight without concern for the consequences—who will win and
who will lose, who is to gain a kingdom and who is to be killed. He is to fight because
the order of things has been disturbed and must be reestablished, and only through
the battle at Kurukshetra can the balance be struck again.
We are finally responsible for one another. We are our brother’s keeper. We must
do for one another what we may not do and cannot do for ourselves. That is the key to
altruism.

13. Constant Eye to the Ideal. A gnawing question remains: just how far may we go
in defending those who are unjustly attacked? What are the limits on moral action? Is
lying ever justified, or killing? Simple moral codes say, “Thou shalt not bear false
witness,” “Thou shalt not kill.” And simple moral codes are often useful, but they fail
to apply to many of the situations in which we find ourselves. If a lie would have
saved the life of a Jew hiding from the Gestapo, is lying wrong? If killing a terrorist
who threatens a plane full of people will save the passengers, is killing wrong? How
are we to discriminate between an action that is necessary and one that is immoral?
The last step tells us where to look for the answer to such questions: “a constant
eye to the ideal of human progression and perfection which the secret science (Gupta-
Vidya) depicts.” All our actions should be carried out in view of the ideal of evolution.
What contributes to human betterment is good; what does not is evil. That is the
ultimate touchstone.
To be sure, we may sometimes be mistaken about what contributes to evolution—
to be human is to make mistakes. However, as long as our intention is in line with that
ideal, as long as our motive is to further the progress of humanity towards perfection,
our action is a moral one.
If we worry so much about the results of our decisions—whether they will be right
or wrong—that we become incapable of any free action, we have fallen into the Arjuna
syndrome. We cannot sit on the floor of our chariot in despondency about the right
course of action. As Krishna told Arjuna, the effects of the action are not our business.
We are not to worry about them. We are to do what we believe to be right—what we
see as contributing to human evolution. And there our responsibility ends.
One more point. The prefatory statement says that the truth is open to everyone;
the last step says that the basis of ethical action is derived from the “secret science.”
But these two statements are not contradictory. The science in question is secret,
esoteric, or concealed, not because it has been copyrighted or trademarked, to be
retailed by a mysterious lodge of adepts, but rather because it is of things that cannot,
by their very nature, be told by mouth or heard by ear, but which must instead be
experienced by each individual alone. It is open to everyone to have that experience,
but until we do, the science that studies it must remain a secret to us.
Conclusion. And so we come to the end of “The Golden Stairs,” and only the
conclusion remains: “—these are the golden stairs up the steps of which the learner
may climb to the Temple of Divine Wisdom.” That is, Divine Wisdom can be
approached only by those who lead an ethical life. But “The Golden Stairs” does not
purport to be a list of commandments, telling the world what it should think about
capital punishment, abortion, homosexuality, draft resistance, vivisection, or any of
the other social issues of our time. It is the inescapable burden of each person to make
a personal judgment on the hard moral issues before us. That is the consequence of
individual freedom. And respect for the decisions that others make, even when we
ourselves have arrived at different decisions, is the mark of true brotherhood. “The
Golden Stairs” does not remove moral ambiguity from our lives or resolve the crises in
conscience which we face from day to day. But it does point the way to our collective
involvement in bettering society, in lifting a little of the heavy karma of the world.


Blavatsky, Helena P. Collected Writings, ed. Boris de Zirkoff, vol. 12. Wheaton, IL:
Theosophical Publishing House, 1980.
_____. The Voice of the Silence, First published 1892, often reprinted.
Sankaracharya. Vivekachudamani. Many editions, including: Viveka-Cudamani, ed.
Mohini M. Chatterji (Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 1932,1973);
and The Pinnacle of Indian Thought, ed. Ernest Wood (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical
Publishing House, 1967).