The secret of change is to focus all your energy on building the new, not criticizing or fighting the old.
Finland is in the midst of government negotiations following the elections three months ago. Politician and banker Björn Wahlroos says that right people are now leading the government negotiations. Accompanied by the CEO of the Finnish Enterprise Association, I can imagine the gentlemen clapping their hands in satisfaction. But the articles on the media make me think that there are no real solutions from the politicians to the nation’s problems on the horizon.
As in past decades, the solution to the problems of public finances seems to be to discipline the unemployed, cut services to citizens and reduce the burden on companies (employers). But such measures have not solved the problems for decades.
For decades, the alternative media have criticized the fact that money is created out of thin air, it has no value and can be manipulated at will. The complaint is that people lose everything they have to live for when the gamblers pull the rug out from under them and collect even the ashes from the fireplace. Nothing can be believed and trusted, yet one wants to believe that wealth is secured in material things like gold. Its value is held to be solid, like its ability to bring food to the table regardless of the situation, although it is not edible.
People criticize the bankers’ right to create money out of nothing, without seeing that all people have an innate ability to create money out of nothing. When I invoice a client for a translation I have provided, I am creating money out of nothing. When people sell their labour force and get paid they create money out of nothing. The problem is that not everyone is given the same freedom to use their inherent ability to create money, so the flow of money is very limited.
Companies want to keep people as cheap as possible a labour reserve. Politicians, civil servants and bankers support the needs of companies with their decisions. In principle, the law allows every citizen to set up a business name and work as a self-employed person, which is one form of enterprise. In practice, however, not all citizens are free to become self-employed.
Around 20 years ago, an unemployed friend of mine was building a database for a listed company for 8 euros a day on the orders of the employment agency. The politicians had decided that it was reasonable to pay the unemployed a nominal wage on top of the unemployment benefit. Perhaps to suppress the public’s talk of slave labour. They wanted to suppress the fact that the market price of that kind of labour was at least ten times higher.
It meant that my friend on the unemployment register had no right to decide for herself at what price she would sell her labour, which is the inherent capital of a free citizen. My friend had set up a business and had endless ideas about how she could be self-employed and sell her products and services. However, as a condition for receiving unemployment benefit, she had to close down the business.
In the 1990s and at the turn of the millennium, online discussion forums were full of similar stories. A single mother with three children was assigned to work three shifts at the Nokia factory in nearby town. At night, when no other transport was available, she would have to take a taxi to work. She was supposed to pay the travel costs out of her ‘salary’, under threat of quarantine (no unemployment benefit ).
A year ago, I wrote that my assistant quit her job after setting up her own business. In practice, this meant that she started working remotely for a Dutch company in her home office under her business name. I myself have done online translations for a Lithuanian translation agency. I had my own desktop on the company’s portal, where I could monitor in real time the assignments I had received and the translation fees.
So today’s labour market is not confined within the borders of a country, even from the point of view of a common worker. Everyone should be able to choose their own way of working. Whether to work full-time for one company, to operate on the international labour market of the Internet, or how to organise one’s activities. The opportunities to earn money on your own are endless.
For years, the company that provides me with physiotherapy has followed the principle that all its employees are self-employed. The company has no incidentals or statutory social costs, as everyone takes care of their own costs and claims. This could be a model for all employees. The state would not have to guard every remittance, but the employees’ activities would be spread over accounting periods of one year. Regardless of whether workers receive social benefits or other income, they would be free to earn as much money as they can. The state could calculate each person’s tax only after the end of the financial year on the total income for the year.
The armor of God’s warriors
It is said that politicians have no solutions to society’s problems. But this depends on how we understand the word ‘politics’. A narrow definition of politics is that it is the action of state leaders to control the masses. According to this definition, ordinary people would be the targets of measures outside politics.
During my studies, I wrote a coursework on political language and came across a much broader definition. According to it, politics is any determined action to achieve a particular goal. It does not exclude anyone, as all people are required to concentrate their energies to achieve defined goals.
When I chose the name for my blog ‘put on the whole armor of God’, I was not thinking so much about the religious meaning of the phrase as it is presented in Paul’s 6th letter to the Ephesians. I was thinking of the concentration of spiritual energy associated with the concepts of ‘shield of faith’, ‘helmet of salvation’, ‘sword of the Spirit’, ‘belt of truth’, ‘breastplate of righteousness’ and ‘gospel of peace’.
Equipping oneself with the battle armor of God creates in a person living in 3D consciousness a warlike image of arming oneself against the enemy. However, equipping ourselves in this context does not mean that we have to look outside ourselves in order to fight the enemy. Everything we need is inherent within ourselves. We do not even need to think about what is the word of God, because at best we receive all the knowledge through our intuitive hearts.
In the same context where Paul urges us to put on the armor of God, he says that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 6:12).
Paul saw things 2000 years ago in the light of his own understanding. His personal spiritual awakening was very powerful, but in his teachings he stresses the importance of church connection and the written word. According to the Christian religious view, blind faith in the ‘word of God’ as transmitted by the elders of the church, gives people a battle armor (shield of faith) against ‘unbelievers’. This is completely contrary to Jesus’ teachings, for Jesus emphasized that people have a direct relationship with God in their own hearts, and no one needs intermediaries to connect with Father/Mother God and our heavenly support team.
Paul’s teachings not only reinforced the worldly belief in authority that Jesus said people needed to break away from in order to draw closer to God. Paul taught that Jesus had died for the sins of men. In his view, Jesus was our Saviour and Redeemer who lifted people out of their burden of sin (helmet of salvation). Jesus declares on the New Earth website that this is an absurd idea, because all people are personally responsible for their actions and inactions. Only each person personally can free and save him- or herself.
These two basic elements, the shield of (authoritative) faith and the helmet of salvation, which are the foundation of Christianity, make Christianity a secular religion. I personally came to faith through my brother in 1983, but we parted ways very quickly when he began to impose the teachings of apostle Paul on me.
The words of the hymn ‘Great Divine Power’ were imprinted on my heart, and they still represent to me the purest Christ consciousness. I could not then – nor can I now – honor anything but ‘the all-comprising, all-maintaining, world-sustaining power that is above every perishing thing, inconceivable in its greatness and power’.
When I came to faith, so to speak, I understood that Jesus was talking about this very divine power. I had previously read the Bible and tried to understand what it said, but it seemed absurd to me. All the teachings seemed to contradict each other. Only Jesus’ teachings and parables as presented by himself were somewhat coherent.
What my brother did to get me to understand the message of the Bible was simply a change of perspective. He told me that I didn’t need to understand the Bible, but simply to believe. Just like you believe when you get a notice in the mail that a package has arrived for you and is waiting to be picked up. You get the package when you believe the notice. The gospel of the Bible is a similar revelation that you can only redeem when you believe it. Our heavenly support team does not interfere in people’s lives until we ask them to, because people’s right to self-determination is free.
After I became a believer, I felt that I was the main character of my own life and I started to more or less consciously create my own reality. When my brother talked about the importance of church fellowship, my alarm bells started ringing. My brother said that just as a log that is not on the fire goes out, even if it has a spark, I need to keep my faith alive by seeking God’s church.
In my heart, however, I knew that my faith had been born entirely without the influence of the church. So why did I need other people to sustain my faith? I felt that the Christ consciousness was so strong in me that no power in the world could nullify it. Rather, I felt my faith was strengthened by contact with ordinary people.
It’s never too late to create a well-balanced life
In recent months, I have had a Finnish assistant who is 73. In her twenties she married a Greek doctor. She lived in Greece for about 50 years and learned the Greek language in addition to housework, childcare, etc. She was not happy in her marriage and felt she was keeping up a front, which ultimately did not satisfy her at any level.
It wasn’t until the age of 70, when the children were grown up, that my assistant’s love for herself gave her the courage to break away from her comfort zone. Her husband found her demands for independence completely absurd and lectured her: “You can’t live independently! All you know for sure is that you don’t know and that you can’t!” This set my assistant off. “Perkele! (Finnish word for courage and perseverance) We’ll see about that,” she blustered.
She left the several-hundred-square-meter villa on the Aegean Sea and moved into a 17-square-meter apartment in Kallio, Helsinki. I can imagine the sense of freedom she felt in moving into her own realm. There, she can build her life from a new starting point and focus on what matters most – her intuitive heart. That is what I wish for everyone. That everyone has the courage to step out of their comfort zone and do what feels right in their own heart.
Change starts with each person themselves
When my assistant read the above text, she said that it would deeply hurt her children. However, there is nothing offensive about the text. All people, except masochists, expect others to treat them with consideration and love. This also (especially) applies to family members and people we think we own.
We are used to thinking of consideration and the cultivation of constructive practices as a human right, but it is rather a duty we owe first and foremost to ourselves. None of us can make others happy if we do not feel happy ourselves. My assistant sometimes felt that her jacket was so empty that she would have jumped in front of a train if she could have found a suitable one.
An exhausted person cannot appreciate anything he or she has achieved. How can we expect them to appreciate our own achievements or goals? This is why it is so important that we look after our own wellbeing and that of those around us. If we ensure that everyone has the opportunity to live an independent, self-determined life, many problems would solve themselves naturally.