Clarification

1999-10-9 04:37:00

Susi,

Your story about feeding the homeless gives us some good real world practical wisdom that leads us in the right direction, but the point you are making is in the opposite direction of my point and (I believe Anni's point).

I said this: "If someone is hungry, feed him. If the neighbor's house is on fire help him put it out and let the chips fall where they may. If some ultimate oneness is delayed a day or two so be it!"

The debate has nothing to do with whether the hungry person is a con just as the debate has nothing to do with whether or not the guy with the fire is defrauding the insurance company. My statement assumes that the reader understands that for all intents and purposes the person seems legitimately hungry and you have extra food, the neighbor has a fire and seems to be in trouble and you can help.

The situation assumes that you have already concluded that both people seem worthy of your help. Now that we have established that this is the case do we watch the person's house burn down as we consider whether or not we may be interfering with his path?

Do we sit and contemplate: "Now if I call the fire department I may be robbing this person of an important experience and lesson. Maybe he has a need to lose everything. Gosh, I wouldn't want to interfere with that. By taking the good side on the "saving the house polarity" will I delay my entrance into oneness??? No one in his right mind thinks such things and that was my point, yet some who adhere to this odd philosophy seem to think that helping the neighbor stop his fire (when by all evidence he needs help) could be a wild, crazy and reckless jump into concentration on good with dire consequences of missing the beautiful center of things. Instead, such an idea is on the extreme of a polarity that totally misses the holy point.