This is a part of the “Ask Jane” Series,
in which Jane answers questions
you email to her that of concern to you.
(Names are changed to protect your privacy.)
Just go to the “Contact Jane” page
and ask your question in the contact form.
This a continued dialog with Jered about the Australian Founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, who has been responsible for leaking sensitive secret government information out into the world.
Jered: My concern is the wisdom and consequences of these disclosures since there’s no way Assange read 250,000 sensitive documents.
Jane: What is the purpose of judging the wisdom and consequences of his disclosures? I guess you’re wondering what the righteous thing to do is. Should we allow government to keep certain things secret and who should be in control of that? Is that covering up things that should be known by the general population? But if we don’t keep these things secret, is that causing even more harm?
Focusing on trying to control each other is a losing battle, and if we look out in the world that becomes pretty apparent. We can’t control the terrorists, we can’t control which political party wins and the laws they end up passing or revoking. Sometimes things go our way, and sometimes they don’t. But that’s not the real playing field. And the shift the world is undergoing right now is increasingly making that clearer. We have been looking in the wrong direction for solutions.
Whether Assange’s actions are wise or not is not the issue. He did what he did, and apparently is going to continue doing it. You could say he is in a dialog with the world, and the world is in dialog in response. And how you relate to the dialog will be a learning experience for you. The dialog itself is what opens up truth. As I said in the previous post, the issue now is engaging rather than trying to control. Engaging is where the resources, safety and well-being can be accessed, because it’s hooking into a larger truth, a larger framework beyond any individual person’s control. It’s participating in life, rather than trying to control it.
This is a part of the “Ask Jane” Series,
in which Jane answers questions
you email to her that of concern to you.
(Names are changed to protect your privacy.)
Just go to the “Contact Jane” page
and ask your question in the contact form.
From Ginger in San Marcos. (I never use people’s real names.)
Ginger: In your newsletter, you brought up self-interest and how people immersed in fundamental, repressive religious dogma, with no legitimate outlet for human desires, may act out inappropriately. I have a dear friend, who recently became very active in a church. I sent her an invitation for a new thought series and received the following preachy email. I would love to hear your perspective on how to best handle this.
“Please do not send me this kind of information. There isn’t anyone or anything that has the power to ‘connect with your soul’ other than Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. The New Age has really gotten a hold of many. And sadly, they are deceived about the truth. I pray you would flee from these sorts of things, and find your true worth and purpose in life is for the ONE who made us. I encourage you (because I care and you are my friend) to read your bible, begin with the book of John. Only there you will hear the truth, the word of God.”
I feel attacked, judged and hurt, although I love her and want the best for her. I am feeling that this friend may have moved into a new vibration that doesn’t support the energy I want around me. It seems a shame to throw this friendship away if some clear communication can resolve it.
Jane: The energy behind your friend’s email seems to be coming from fear and anger — both in relation to what you might be representing to her that has the potential of influencing her, and also coming from limiting decisions in her that are causing her to take such a blind stand on concepts that don’t appear to be something she is really coming into her own experience with. The issue is not the content of what she is saying, but the invulnerable and separating way she is saying it. When a person is taking a ridged stand on concepts around which to orient reality that are based on a fixed source outside of themselves (usually some written document or some central charismatic leader), rather than being grounded in their own experience, there is no way to relate to them about it. Instead there is a separating wall, based on fear.
Fundamentalism is about not trusting your own experience of reality. One of the reasons people gravitate toward fundamentalism is it gives them the sense that if they join it, they can be identified with a powerful authority — in this case the word of God. So a person, for example, that has made the limiting decision that they are powerless, or they can’t trust their perception of reality, or they are inherently bad, could gravitate toward some external symbol of authority and righteousness that can’t be questioned because it is seen as the word of God. And that way they don’t have to deal with their own limiting decisions, and they don’t have to build up their own strength and personal empowerment. But instead they are building up a separation between themselves, reality, and other people. Separation leads to mistrust, and mistrust leads to fear. The unspoken demand is you have to give up your own perception of reality to their control, as an agent of the only source of truth.
There are three choices I see that you have in relation to how to respond to your friend. One is to join her in her separated place, which is inherently against anyone who doesn’t agree with her stance — which clearly is not a choice you wish to make. Another is to be at odds with her. You would only make this choice if you are not secure in your own perception of reality, because you would see her as a threat, which is how she appears to be viewing you. Or, you can relate to her beyond her defenses to where and who she really is, which she may or may not be open to.
It appears to me that your friend is in a major power-struggle to hold her perspective on reality in place. And the question is whether you are going to let that define your reality or not. She is reflecting a fearful, separating, and conflicting perception of reality, in which there is a power-struggle going on. Are you going to step into the fear and separation and power-struggle, where you and your friend are at odds with each other — or are you going to stay in a heart-connected place, and relate from there to who your friend really is?
You may be right that she has stepped out of a vibration you can relate to, but it won’t hurt to practice relating to her from your own defining of reality and see what happens.
I also suggest you upfront acknowledge that you are both coming from perspectives that are different from each other’s, to just make clear where you are. And make an agreement to not try to convince each other of your points-of-view on religion.
(The name is changed to protect participant’s privacy)
(To Randy) “Taking a symbolic stand in order to win a power-struggle is never a place of power.But standing in truth, which is a revealing of where you actually are, is and feels strong.
When there’s a power-struggle, each person in the struggle is trying to control what the other person perceives of as reality, based on a construct that person has formed, to protect their emotional defense system.So each person in the power-struggle is trying to cause the other to take on their take of reality.Because it is based on a construct rather than truth, there is no common ground that everyone can relate to and understand from their own internal experience. This causes each participant to be relating to each other’s constructs, rather than to actual reality where the real resources and solutions are.The moment any one pulls themselves out of the power-struggle and accesses their own inner connection with reality, they are then standing on truth.And anyone who then relates to that truth (which can be accessed in common reality) is on equal ground. When there’s a power-struggle, there’s a person on top and a person on the bottom.When you’re standing on what’s true, that’s a larger frame-of-reference than either of you, and it encompasses both of you.”
