METAPHYSICAL BIBLE INTERPRETATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
This is a series of lectures given by Mr. Edward Rabel, member of the faculty of S.M.R.S.
Fall semester 1975 - 2nd. Yr. Class. Lecture given on October 31, November 3 and November 4, 1975
Topic: 56
Exod. 20, pp. 221-235 of transcript.
The Ten Commandments
In Chapters 18 through 40, the final chapters of Exodus, with the exception of Chapter 20, which contains the ten commandments, are an endless series of do's and don'ts and you can't and you mustn't, pertaining to ceremony, religious observation, cooking, eating, housekeeping, diet, sex, social behavior, civil law and various other matters including the use of the toilet. Now, it's very difficult for a teacher of metaphysics to know just how to take these chapters. There are many other similar sections of the Bible, and you wonder, are they meant literally; if they do have metaphysical significance, you wonder what could it be? My own personal guidance told me that I should skip these types of portions of the Bible and give attention only to those sections which I was convinced were of obvious metaphysical significance. But, the ten commandments do come in Chapter 20, and of course, it is an exception.
The commandments take up verse 3 through 17 of Exodus 20. Don't do what I did one day, I got up in front of the T.O.U. and I said in Genesis, the ten commandments tell us - and sure enough a little girl in the back - "Where did you say the ten commandments were?" There's always somebody who knows the facts and you have to check your facts. The question is, what are these ten commandments? Where did they actually come from, who issued them? Here's one of the places you can see validity and the necessity to keep in mind this level. This is where they came from. This is why they are commandments, because they are truth. They are the modus operandi taken for granted on this level. But they have to be brought down to this level in order to help them let go of certain things that would hold them down and become more and more of their real selves.
These commandments are mundane statements of cosmic principles. They were written in tablets of stone, which simply means they are legitimate on the concrete level of life, as well as the more ethereal and then eventually we will see their validity on the cosmic plane, but they are very, very good and very true laws and principles. Man has always recognized this, even while disobeying them, blatantly, he still has known that they were the real McCoy. They can be viewed and they can be interpreted on all those levels. Our Baptist friends, many of them, are dealing with the first two and we're trying to deal with them on the third and fourth. Where we stand I'm not sure.
"But thou shalt have no other gods before me" - this is cosmic. It doesn't mean "don't put the god Thor ahead of the god Jehovah because the god Jehovah doesn't care much for the god, Thor and Jehovah would much rather be in front of Thor, and watch out where you put Venus. She's a tricky one." It doesn't mean that. It simply means there can't be anything other than God, not in reality. God is the generic word that we use to refer to the reality of all there is, the ultimate, reality, which is absolute. There is nothing before that. All is within it. But nothing can be before it. How can there be anything before omnipresence? Where are you going to put it? Omnipresence? Put something before it — and also we know that in God, in reality, what we call time and space and relativity, etc. these have no meaning - these have no relevancy - God is allness - so there's nothing before Him, but all is within.
"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image" - a graven image would be, in the metaphysical sense, any kind of product of polarized energy, or polarized substance. Any product of that, no matter how good, how beautiful, how horrible, or how ugly, it falls into the category of a made thing, a produced thing, and this should never be worshipped... never regarded as a source or a cause. If you regard it only as a graven image, a product of thinking within the source or within God, then ... however, the commandment does say not to even make it; but I don't know how I'm going to not make it. I don't know how to stop making graven images, but I'm going to stop worshipping them, and I'm going to stop calling them the source of my good. They can be products of my good, but not sources of anything. They are products. They are not to be worshipped. To worship anything is to call it supreme, to call it the source of your good. Now what in the realm of form can live up to that? Only what can live up to that? Spirit, or God.
If you have a different viewpoint on these ten commandments, that's perfectly legitimate. They will probably change, just as mine has changed, and I'm only sharing with you my current evaluation of their meaning. Now, we've covered the first two, the first one was not actually a commandment so much as a statement of blunt absolutism, hard-core absolutism - God is all there is - wise up, is what it's saying, don't try to play footsy with God, because God is all in all and that's all there is to it. Don't try putting anything before Omnipresence and Omnipotence, and Omniscience, because if you do, you'll only stick your foot in it metaphysically, and be sorry, so wise up and put God in His rightful place, which isn't even first. Now, you take it from there. Right, it's only and allness rather than first, because first used as a number can have a zero. But when you use one in the absolute sense, you're not dealing with a number, you're dealing with omnipresence, which isn't a number, it contains all numbers.
Then, the graven image having to do with being careful that you do not switch your worship to anything in the realm of form. We're not saying that things in the realm of form can't be good, but they can never be good enough - there is always that which is better than form, which is the formless or the source, or the infinite. So, we cooperate with, we appreciate, we enjoy the goodies which are in the realm of form, but we stop short at worship. We do not worship, even if they're our own grandchildren. We do not worship the form of our grandchildren, but what can we worship about our grandchildren? The reality of them, the spirit within them, the Christ, the truth of them, that's in the realm of Spirit. Although I did mention that I'm puzzled about the wording of the commandment, which says not even to make graven images, but I prefer to equate that with worship because I don't know how we can stop making images - because that's our job, we are the producers of form within God's creation.
Now, the third is: "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." Now, we know that at this point in scripture we only are given one name so far for God - the word Jehovah is not actually a name for God, it refers to an aspect of God, and activity of God and the same for Elohim. Elohim is a plural word for one thing and it refers to God emanation of creative forces from God, rather than meaning God. God Almighty is never named, you see, but the first name we are given for the Jehovah aspect of God is I AM, and it's in this same book. So that, for mankind, on his level, the name of God would be I AM. I AM that I AM. It is a name that only each individual can speak for himself, you can only state your awareness of it, if you're talking about another person you say, "you are", but you do not name God. When you name God for yourself, it is I AM. Now to take that name in vain, what does it mean?
That would be to try to disconnect that name from Truth, or to try to connect it to something which is not truth, in vain. Your real self, your I AM is one with only goodness, truth and reality. Your I AM should only be connected, with the truth and reality. Anything other than this is in vain, it is connected with the attempt to connect with lies, illusions and fallacies. I throw in a little personal suggestion here, folks.
Try to be especially careful about this in regard to recognized negative emotions. Most of the time we will not go so far as to verbalize taking the name in vain, but we may do it mentally and emotionally, we may identify our self with the negative emotion and since negative emotions are so swift, so lightning swift and so penetrating, this can attach to a person before he realizes that he has done it. Negative emotions blind us to our own reactions. Do I sound as though I'm exaggerating? We almost think that we're getting away with it and a very alert person will take heed here. For instance, one of the most lighting swift of negative emotions is anger and resentment. It can hit and pow! - if we're not careful we will connect our I AM with that emotion and our attitude will be, I AM resentment - I am anger. We say I am angry about this, but what we are really saying is, for the time being I believe that I am anger, and this causes an infraction of this commandment.
Q. I think you are doing something very dangerous here. Many people here at Unity think they shouldn't express anger and other negative emotions. I think they need to express the emotion first, then deal with it.
A. Yes, I was getting to that - you've made a legitimate point. So, what we're doing here is, we're remaining alert, we're observing our self in a moment of danger and invading negative emotions. Now, I just mentioned the dangerous thing to do, the thing that you will have to pay the penalty for in the form of some kind of suffering, unnecessary suffering, if you just blindly and mechanically identify your I AM with the negative emotion that has invaded your consciousness or your soul. However, we know then that this does not have to be that way. It isn't that you deny that the anger exists in you - good heavens, how much of an ostrich can a person act like, you recognize the presence and the effect of the emotion, but you do not mechanically and blindly connect yourself with it - you can say something like Dr. Nicoll suggests in his commentary; you recognize the emotion, you recognize the cause of it, but you still are not making yourself it, nor it you, you are seeing it as something that is now within your framework of consciousness and so Dr. Nicoll suggests one of the things you can say is; "This is anger" - see the difference between I am anger and this is anger. The thoughts will be working very fast, much faster than my words and it came from here.
Now here it is, you want to realize that denials can work just as swiftly as negative emotions. If the denial faculty, the renunciatory faculty is in good shape, and usage, awareness keeps it in good shape, the renunciatory faculty will be quickened in this situation and with your right thinking it will prevent the connection, or the identifying between your old I AM awareness and the invading negative emotion. That it will not take you over, it will not lead you into another cul-de-sac of useless, unnecessary suffering. You will be able then to utilize or capitalize on the fact of that negative emotion, that is, you will be guided to some way make constructive use of a negative burst of emotional energy. There is a way to do this and you will be guided; for instance, what is anger really"? In its essence isn't it the same energy, substance or anything else? It's just in a form that can be destructive and damage-causing.
Well, when you realize this and you have refused it connection with your I AM realization - something has to happen to this energy - there is, it just doesn't go poof - it has to take a course. Now, in your freedom of non-identification you will be guided in how to direct that same energy, that same substance, that same intelligence which might have gone into the form or motivation or the lack of control, called anger or resentment, and somehow utilize it to a constructive use. For instance, some persons are able to very quickly transform or transmute the energy of anger into a very spectacular increase of physical strength, and do something with that strength than to destroy.
People can take fear, I've seen this myself, some persons can take the emotion of fear which uses up a great deal of power and energy and by non-identifying with it, can take that fear and transform it into sensational increase of physical strength or even some kind of intuitive change of mind, but no negative or destructive form of energy needs to remain in that form when the mind is controlled.
But the mind surrenders its control when you allow the mechanical I AM identification with the negative. Dr. Nicoll suggests even if there is nothing you can do about that negative emotion, for instance, very often I am angry and I know why I am angry and even though I am not identifying my I AM identity with anger, I don't quite know what to do - there it is, it isn't me, but it's still here. Dr. Nicoll suggests that in a case like this, keep your eye on it - tell it what to do, don't condemn it - don't deny that it's there - but, in a non-condemnatory or non-judgmental way observe it and that anger, and this is true because I've experimented with it - that anger will begin to act like an actual entity being watched. It will, it'll begin to act like somebody up to no good, caught at it and being watched. I've tried this on some anger and on some jealousy and it has worked. You can tell it to turn into something of a different shape, you're pure basic energy just like everything else and in that sense, you have a right to exist, but not as a harm-causing, not as a foiler of the good and the true in my nature or in my life.
It's strange how these things will react. You know, the apostles tried this and it worked. They came running to Jesus and they said, "Oh, guess what, even the devils are subject unto us." Get it? Who do you think these devils are? Our own negative thoughts and destructive attitudes and emotions. They were delighted when they found out that by observing them and functioning in the manner that was taught by Jesus Christ that they actually became subject to them, and Jesus agreed but don't rejoice over this, rejoice more that your names are written in Heaven, that you have been chosen to have this knowledge revealed because you have a divine purpose now, once you know this. Once Spirit knows that you know this, then Spirit has jobs for you, which it wouldn't assign to you if you didn't know this.
If you were still a person who blindly identified your I AM with every emotion that came into your soul, you would not be fit for certain important assignments of the Spirit. Once you acknowledge this kind of knowledge Spirit has certain things that it can now commission you to do on the behalf of the Christ. It's been known before the Hebrew Bible that in our culture, our religious orientation, this is the first mention of that kind of a control.
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. God's job, so to speak, in us, which is finished is called involution, and God's work of involution is known as creation, and the Sabbath, the moment that God rests, is also where spiritual man begins, spiritual man's cosmic job at this time, it to be in charge of evolution, because God's work of creation, involution is finished. All that we need to unfold and express our innate perfection is already here, this was the work of the Elohim, the Elohim aspect of God, involving into a consciousness of all that constitutes what we would call perfection and creativity. And now our job, the job of the Christ in us, is to take charge of this unfolding of all that God has already involved in us. Now, when you look at the commandment, at the exact words, it says, "Remember the Sabbath" - it doesn't say take a day off, it just says to remember the meaning of the Sabbath, it doesn't mean to do this or don't do that, it doesn't even say take a rest. It just says remember, that's all, and keep that remembrance a holy thing.
So, now you tell me now should I remember the Sabbath. By taking a moment of rest as the book says, not that you shouldn't take a rest, but I don't think that's remembering the Sabbath. Remember something which is holy, which is what? That God has involved all of His nature as Creator into my being, as the Christ, as I am. I must remember this, all that the Father has is within me, and my job, so to speak, my reason for being is through the I AM of me, to now begin to express and unfold all that has been involved into me by my Father Creator, God, or if you were a Jew, by my Elohim. You see, it's all here, I must remember this.
Can you see why remembering this is so important, because it would determine motivation, wouldn't it? If you begin on the premise, I've got to get all I can get while I can get it, or someone else will get it first, you begin with, because there's only so much to be had. Can you see what kind of a basic motivation you would have toward life, and what kind of character formation would be in that? But, if you remember that all that the Father is or has is involved into me exclusively? No, into everybody, into every human being. We all have all of the Father's qualities involved into us. What am I remembering there? The same thing the Sabbath means. Now, if you know this and you believe it and you keep that holy, an inviolate truth, that you're never going to give up, then what are the chances for a basic motivation that you're going to have? Good, it will be spiritual, unselfish, and the perfect basis for all creation. Not going out and seeking and getting and competing, but unfolding and sharing that which already is completely there. Can you see how that can eliminate competitiveness? Selfishness? You don't live to go out and get something, you live to unfold that which you already have. Your good is my good, my good is your good, because the good is already totally there in Spirit and in Truth. This is so much more sensible than, is the Sabbath Saturday or Sunday? - prove it!
Nobody is after your good, they've already got all good, and Christ within them. You see? This will begin to dissolve more and more of these selfish impulses, which are really expressions of the blind instinct of survival which man doesn't need any more. It's an evolutionary hangover that he's carrying with him that he is no longer needful for his true being, to his divine purpose.
Honor thy father and thy mother. When I first worked on an interpretation of this, the words of Jesus came back to my mind, that who is my mother and who are my brethren, stretched for His hand and said, "All these who do the will of my Father, the same are my mother and my brethren." Then He said, "Call no man on earth your father, for one is your Father which is in Heaven." Now, I think that what Jesus was saying is definitely the cosmic level of meaning, but I would prefer to deal with it on a more mundane-metaphysical level for the time being. Since most of us are still very much involved in earthly parenthood importantly, and definitely this commandment had to have something to do with that, don't you think? I don't think it was entirely cosmic, I do believe it had something to do with people having babies - I said it and I'm glad. OK. I think it's well for us to realize that the parent-child relationship cannot be merely one of biology. Biology served part of the purpose, but biology is not the purpose, is not the reason for a parent-child relationship. It is one of the servants of the reason, bringing into factuality. Parent-child relationships I do not believe begin with a sexual conception or a physical birth. Actually we can have no knowledge of how, when or where any of our human relationships really began.
Some began perhaps many lifetimes ago, many mystics and metaphysicians believe that a parent-child relationship is simply one of the links in a relationship destined to be eternal. This, I believe is one reason behind the persistency of that belief that we're going to see them in heaven...that they're going to be there, they're going to be what we know them to be. Technically, this may not be true, but there must be some essence of truth to that, otherwise the human mind and heart wouldn't believe it so strongly, so persistently.
We know that souls are not drawn together just be chance or luck; that souls attract other souls for very deep and important reasons, and all of these reasons are good. Even if what the soul does with the relationship might not be good, the reason for all relationships among souls is good. And a soul born into a new infant body must have some tie with the soul of at least one of its current earthly parents, but more than likely, both, but at least one. And we do not know any of the specific details for sure.
Let me interrupt just for a second. I never have believed, and I believe now less than ever that we are correct when we say that the soul chooses its parents. I may be stepping on some toes, and I know that thousands disagree with me, but my own mind and heart say "'taint so." It's not that definitive; it's heading in the right direction, but it's falling into a bypass. That's all I want to say.
One thing we do know for sure, and that is that all souls that are drawn together in any earthly relationship are brought together for good reasons. All things do work together for good, and we are all here to give and receive blessings among each other. And only because this is so can any relationship have any real meaning or purpose, and especially, obviously so must this be so in the parent-child relationship. And in this life it is very easy for me to make very good sense out of the commandment, "Honor thy father and thy mother." Honor the fact that these particular souls, for some good reason, became the agents for your entry into this realm. It is a beautiful and sensible thing and does not have to cause any personality conflicts, as sometimes is the case where you just take this as an admonition, do it whether you like it or not, do it whether you understand it or not. A little bit of understanding behind the logic of a commandment like this makes it easier.
On the cosmic level it more than likely refers to honor the father-motherhood of God in all people. That would be to me its alternate meaning, but I don't like to go into that and bypass this human parenthood level, it's too very important.
"Thou shalt not kill" -- now, of course, the cosmic level of the meaning of that would be you can't kill, you can't take life because you can't give life—you have nothing to do with the taking or giving of life. Therefore, you can't kill. You can destroy forms but you can't kill life. If you can kill life, tell me how - with a gun, with a knife? You can't. So the cosmic level of this again is not a commandment. It's just like the first one. It's a statement of absolute cosmic truth. You can't kill.
You can't give life, you can't take it. On the more mundane or personal level it could mean then that thou shalt not attempt murder. But where are most murder attempts done in truth? In the mind, in our inner world, in thought and feeling. Many of us would no more think of taking a gun and killing somebody, but this commandment must apply to us, and so we think of it in our inner life. Remember our definition of metaphysics: That which is true pertaining to the inner life of every human being, regardless of time, place or circumstance. Metaphysically, we are talking about the inner life, where people exist, people have existed within us as our thoughts and feelings of them. That's where you exist, and that existence of you in me and my existence in you is just as real, folks, as this corporeal separateness that you're witnessing right now. Who dares say that this corporeal separateness you are observing is more real than your thought of me which is in your mind and heart right now? I'd say that is more real, and that's where I'm in the great danger from you. We have to act ourselves, and this isn't as easy as it sounds. Is everyone safe in my inner world?
Was I taking a mental pot-shot at John Salunek when he jumped the gun on me this morning? Did I mentally shoot an arrow at him? Oh, don't sit there and say, "Oh no, not me. I never — ah, dear ones, how many pot-shots have we taken at our thoughts, at our feelings of a person, our impressions of a person, which is that person's existence in our inner world. We've got to get into the practice of issuing a safe conduct pass to every person who makes an entry into our inner world. Really, we've either got to give him up over to rest or give him a safe conduct pass, and put away all the weapons. We must not try to assassinate or annihilate the existence of a person in our inner world. One of the ways that we try this, and we justify and justify it, and yet it's a form of attempted murder — we try to change them, we try to change that person, to make that person into something that we want, not what they are, but something we want them. So in a sense we are trying to kill the existence of that person as they are, and equate them with the person we wish they were. This can be very dangerous. It has broken many hearts.
Q. I was wondering if by treating that person as a bad person, or by trying to starve that person out of existence by not nurturing that thought of that person. In other words, maybe not trying to change the person, but trying to be with love and other ways to try to starve that person - does that make any sense?
A. I think you're certainly on the right track. I would say that the starving of a person would be equivalent to your being completely cold and indifferent to their attitude - "who cares? you went to a different school - what you think and how you feel, who cares?" Jesus, when He began to heal this blind man, He spits on his eyes and says, "Seest thou ought?" And the man says, "I see men, but I behold them as trees walking." And so Jesus' spiritual awareness did more than heal physically, and the Bible says, "and now the man saw all things clearly." and Jesus then said, "Don't go back to that village." In other words, don't go back into that state of unbelief, indifference. But that would be equivalent to sort of starving a traveler in your inner world, that you don't offer him any of the things that another human being wants from us. Make this very personal right now: I exist in you right now as your thought of me and your feeling about me. What is it you think I want from you more than anything else? I want you to accept me, I want you to feel that my existence is important, no matter what kind of an outer connection I may have with you, no matter what part I may play in your future. At the time being, I want to live in you with a comfortable feeling. I want to feel safe as a thought-feeling in you, and only you can do this, only we can do this for each other.
I think then that we would be fulfilling this commandment to the highest degree when we would get into the attitude of respecting and protecting our thoughts of every other human being, no matter what outer things may be going on at the same time.
"Thou shalt not commit adultery" -- On its most superficial and literal level, and even discordant level, the commandment is treated as a warning against sexual misconduct. This commandment is almost always restricted to the level of sexual behavior, and yet we have to know there is the metaphysical. Obviously, the commandment has to do with the male-female of a person, rather than a male person and a female person and their behavior. The male aspect, thinking nature, female aspect, feeling nature—and to commit adultery in the metaphysical sense, would be to do something in which either the male will, contaminate the female, or the female will do something to contaminate the male, or both will become contaminated, to pollute in some way our thinking and feeling nature. Now, how does a person usually do this? Either by connecting his thoughts of I AM to negative emotions or to put his feeling of I AM into negative thoughts. Either I take a negative emotion, which is an adulterous woman, or a harlot, and I have intercourse through my thought of I AM; or the other way around, we can take our feeling of I AM and allow it to be penetrated by negative thoughts. That is adultery or fornication in the metaphysical sense. When the meaning of this commandment in the metaphysical sense is really obeyed, it leads to the most wonderful of all human states, pure in heart. Pure in heart.
"Thou shalt not steal." To steal is one of the most futile, stupid and desperate and fruitless things a person can do for the simple reason it cannot be done successfully. Now, if you realize in advance that you really can't get away with it, you might cut down on this kind of crime. But the big job is, who's going to teach the potential thief? We know that no matter what a thief may appear to get away with, the spiritual law of justice must be met. A form of good gained at another's expense turns into a "thorn in the flesh" in the long run. The act of stealing goes against the very fiber of the universe, and the most pitiful victim of a theft is the thief, himself. Because there is no reason to steal, because any person's good can and will come from him if he will work with himself in developing consciousness of the good. But if you think that by taking the form you have taken the good is an illusion.
In Sunday School I used to put this on the blackboard: 2x2=4. This is good, and this is mine because I know the principle, I know the source, so I can put down these correct chalk marks on the board. This is equivalent to the good of your life. Now suppose a child sees me do this, and he sees the class applaud me, so he fixes this in his mind, and runs out of here, and goes home. On his blackboard he puts 2+2=4, but only because he copied the form. Have I lost anything? Has he gained anything? The chalk marks on his blackboard are empty form, but I can always replace mine. But suppose this child then learns the same principle that I know, that enables me to do this. He doesn't have to take my chalk marks. He can manifest his own, through his own understanding of the source. And the same thing is true of any similar action.
The judgment faculty is the most reciprocal of all our faculties in the sense that it obtains the quickest backfire response from its expression of all twelve powers, even more than love, judgment will come back to its source faster than any others. The judgment faculty seeing anything negative or harmful as temporary factors, not ever as finalities or permanencies, that way then the judgment becomes a very, very beneficial faculty. It also enables us to fulfill the idea in this commandment that we do not bear false witness. In my notes I have added, why do we sometimes misjudge another person, isn't it usually because we are taking some outer appearance as the whole factor. We constantly do this, we take an outer appearance and say that's the thing, that's it. We seldom see the whole person at any one time. We seldom see all sides of a situation from just one viewpoint, so when we do judge, we should take this into consideration and judge only as we would want ourselves being judged in the same situation.
Then, the last one, "Thou shalt not covet." When I was growing up in the Sunday School I went to, we were taught that covet means to desire, to want something, and so we were at a very young age promptly indoctrinated to be ashamed of our desires. That somehow by desiring something you were going against God's will and that made a pretty tough childhood. But sometimes, or rather some people have expanded that in the case of covet and they say it means to desire something that another person has - but again, I feel that sometimes we just cannot help desiring something that another person has, I mean, I see a good-natured, good-humored, kind-hearted person and I want that, too, see? So, I'm not really coveting that, I'm desiring it and this will possibly lead me to emulation, but I think so far, this desiring what another person is not coveting.
I think the quality does not become covetousness until it hits a certain negative point, which is to resent the fact that another person has something that I want. Why should I resent your good nature and kindliness? Do I have any legitimate reason to desire it? Sure, absolutely, but, is there any reason for me to resent the fact that you've got it and I don't? No, because why? Right, the full capability of developing it is within me as it is within you. I don't have to covet another person's beauty because I can develop my own unique style of beauty, which does not depend on measurement of facial contour. Anything that is worth desire, worth having, can be had by each individual, but if I am unhappy about my desire, then what? I'm covetous. So, the covetousness is not in the desire, but in the attitude about having the desire. If I am unhappy or envious about what I desire, then I'm coveting and again, don't you think that the same reason why the commandment is against this is the same reason why the commandment is against stealing? There's no need for it. There's no reason for it, it cannot possibly accomplish anything, therefore it is something to be overcome. All that the Father has is each one of ours.
Q. Couldn't we say that we don't really desire what someone else has because that would take away from them, but we desire something equivalent to it?
A. Now, why do you say it would take it away from them, I can desire what they have and I can get it without taking it away from them in any sense if it is worth desiring - see? I think I do know what you mean, if I'm a woman and I desire your husband, then I am misinterpreting that true desire. The true desire is that I want to have the companionship and happiness which your marriage is illustrating for me, but I don't want your old man - not really. I may think I do, but I think that a person who has evolved to the place where he has certain morals and standards and ethics, would also have to realize that he or she is on the wrong track there. I don't get my good at your expense. It may seem that I could, and even if I could there may be some of the outer symptoms of a successful conquest there, but I really wonder. If things work out that way without "taking your husband from you", but if it works out so that the relationships change and life events work out in such a way that eventually I wind up with your ex, that's a different story. That's each individual's own pathway of life, but this taking things from others, thou shalt not steal, I can't steal your happiness, I can't steal your good, and I don't have to covet it either, because we all have our own full share of all that is good to us.
Transcribed by Margaret Garvin on February 10, 2015.
