Asking
the unthinkable question about the Iraq war
NOTE:
This teaching was given on January 11, 2007, after the NEW
DIRECTION was implemented.
Kim: Jesus, I know that a lot of people are wondering what
you think about the situation in Iraq, including the November elections
in the U.S., the Baker-Hamilton report, the escalating violence and
now President Bush’s call for sending an extra 20,000 troops.
Do you have any comments?
Jesus: Why would people expect me to comment on a situation
when there has been no fundamental change in the dynamics of the situation?
I have commented extensively on the situation twice before Link
1, Link 2, and what has changed that
was not covered by those comments?
Here is what I said in May 2004:
It
was black-and-white thinking that led the United States to go to war
with Iraq. The war and the fact that the United States government
insists on continuing on its present course, has created a counter
force from the universe that this nation has no chance of overcoming.
The more the United States insist on pushing in its current direction,
the more the universe will push back. The opposition you see from
the Iraqi people, and even from foreign fighters, is simply an expression
of the fact that the universe is pushing back. I am not thereby saying
that the universe or the Ascended Host approve of the attacks on Americans
in Iraq. I am simply pointing out the fact that if the United States
want to see this opposition diminish, it has to change course, it
has to change its mindset and its fundamental approach to the situation
in Iraq. It has to leave behind the black-and-white thinking that
created the problem, because you simply cannot solve a problem with
the same state of consciousness that created the problem.
Do you see any changes in
the thinking of the Bush administration? Do you see a serious desire
to overcome black-and-white thinking? Isn’t sending 20,000 more
troops simply doing more of the same?
Kim: Do you have any recommendations for how the United States
might change course and what might be the best possible way to deal
with the situation? Are there any specific solutions that might resolve
what seems to be a stalemate or even a downward spiral?
Jesus: In may of 2004 I said the following:
No
member of the Ascended Host has any desire to see the United States
humiliated before the eyes of the world. We did not support this war,
as I explained in my previous comments, but we would like to see the
United States, and all the parties involved, emerge from the situation
in a way that can lead to true progress in terms of establishing a
more peaceful world. In other words, we would like all nations involved
to learn the best possible lessons they can learn, incorporate those
lessons into their policies and then move on in a constructive direction.
I can assure you that we of the Ascended Host are more than willing
to work with the moderate and balanced people in the United States
government. And if these people would reach for a higher understanding,
we would willingly provide the understanding of how the crisis in
Iraq could be solved in a way that represents the best possible outcome
of a situation that was not the best possible to begin with.
I would like people to consider that my underlying theme on this website
is that when people become blinded by the dualistic
thinking of the ego, they cannot see the reality of any situation.
If you look at history, you will see many situations in which a leader
or group of leaders became so blinded by a situation that they made
decisions which all people now realize were monumental mistakes. Why
couldn’t the leaders themselves see what is now obvious to everyone?
The reason is that when people are in a very intense situation and when
they are already into black-and-white
or gray thinking,
they generate mental and
emotional energy which forms a veil around their minds – even
the entire situation – and prevents them from looking at the big
picture. Thus, they become blinded by their own way of looking at the
situation and their desire to be right. They form, a mental image of
the situation and they seek to force that image upon reality. If their
image is wrong or if they are not willing to adjust the image based
on changes in the situation, they will continue doing the same thing
until something shatters the veil of illusions, such as Napoleon’s
defeat at Waterloo.
My point is that the Iraq war is a textbook example of a situation that
blinds the decision makers because they look at it from inside their
self-created mental box. Thus, nothing will fundamentally change until
something shatters the veil that blinds the Bush administration and
to some degree the entire nation.
The Baker-Hamilton commission was an honest attempt to provide an outside
perspective. The Ascended Host did work with the members of this commission—not
in the sense that we appeared to them or that they knew who we are.
What we do in order to help humankind solve any problem is to send thoughtforms
that people with sensitive minds can pick up and often take for their
own ideas.
What does it take for a person to receive such ideas? The person needs
to have some knowledge of the actual situation and the person needs
to be willing to look at the situation in a new way. Take note that
I am not saying the person needs to know everything, for the people
who know the most are often very inflexible and unwilling to “think
outside the box.” So there has to be a balance between knowing
enough to receive an idea and being open to new ways of looking at the
situation.
There were members of the Baker-Hamilton commission who were sufficiently
balanced and who could receive some of our ideas, so the commission’s
recommendations are generally sound. However, I would like to point
out that we were severely limited in what kind of ideas we could transfer
to the commission, and it is important to understand why.
Even balanced and sensitive people will work within the larger framework
of their national consciousness. And since the American nation has not
sufficiently examined its own psyche and the psychological mechanism
that led to the Iraq war, the members of the commission were not able
to think outside the national box. Thus, they simply could not receive
ideas that were too far beyond the American nation’s current view
of itself and the conflict.
There are many people on Earth – even many ascended master students
– who look upon us as some kind of magicians. They think that
no matter how complex a situation people have created through dualistic
thinking, the Ascended Host – who supposedly know everything –
should be able to pull a rabbit out of the hat and make a suggestion
that will instantly resolve the situation. They think we always have
a solution to human problems.
Yet the stark reality is that you cannot solve a problem with the same
state of consciousness that created the problem. And in most cases –
when people finally acknowledge that things didn’t go as planned
– they are not looking to change their consciousness, they are
simply looking for a quick-fix. Yet there is no quick-fix for any major
problem, and especially not a problem as complex as the Iraq war, whereby
I do not mean the outer situation in Iraq – although it is
surely complex – but the larger situation of the national psyche
of America.
The American nation and the national debate is still focused almost
exclusively on the outer situation in Iraq and there has been very few
honest attempts to look in the mirror and ask the logical question,
“How did we get ourselves into this situation?” If you do
not understand how your own consciousness led you into a situation,
how could you possibly get yourself out of that situation? And if you
are not willing to change the consciousness that created the situation,
how could you even receive the ideas that will help you change the outer
situation?
The Ascended Host do have solutions that would bring about the best
practical outcome of the situation around the Iraq war, but at this
point the people who can make decisions – even the people who
can be heard in the public debate – are not able to receive those
ideas because their minds are trapped in a mental box that is simply
too small. Until that changes, I see no point in publicly suggesting
solutions. And even after it changes, this website is not the best forum
for presenting such solutions, since the American government does not
have a habit of consulting this website before making foreign policy
decisions. I am, for that matter, not saying they should, as we are
quite capable of transferring ideas directly to people with open minds.
So what is the fundamental change that needs to happen in the national
debate? What needs to change is that the American nation asks the unthinkable
question. What is that question?
If you look at President Bush’s rhetoric before the November election,
you will see that his most often used phrase was “stay the course.”
President Bush believes he was right in going to war. He is genuinely
surprised that things didn’t go as planned, yet he believes that
if the United States can just turn the critical corner, everything will
change and there will be a happy ending. In other words, President Bush
believes history will eventually prove him right.
After the election, President Bush realized that the American people
were tired of hearing about staying the course, so he is no longer using
that expression. The American people clearly voted for changes in Iraq
and the Baker-Hamilton report recommended several. In the shock after
the election, President Bush seemed to be open to the report, but after
recovering, he has now decided to send more troops—which is clearly
against what the report recommended and what the American people wanted.
So President Bush is no longer talking about staying the course
in Iraq, he is simply staying the course.
My point is that President Bush fundamentally believes that going to
war was the right decision and that history will eventually prove this.
And although there is growing doubt, the fact is that so far no one
– in congress, in the media or among the people – have
been willing to come out and publicly ask the unthinkable question:
“Was it a fundamental mistake for the American nation
to go to war in Iraq?”
Until that question is asked and seriously considered, the American
nation will not be able to understand the mechanism in the national
psyche that led the nation into this war. And until that mechanism is
understood and changed, the American nation will not be able to see
the best possible way to rise above the situation. The very mindset
that led the nation into the war is preventing the nation from seeing
the best way out of the war. It is a catch-22, but as always, it can
be broken by asking the unthinkable questions and looking for answers
outside the box.
Do you see what I am suggesting? As long as the American government
and the entire nation is operating inside the mental box that America
could not possibly have made a monumental mistake, they will be looking
for a way to prove that it was not a mistake. And committing another
20,000 troops and billions of dollars will be seen as a reasonable price
to pay to save the national pride. Here is what I said just before the
war started:
I
do not consider any war unavoidable, but I realize that if the United
States were to stop or even postpone this war, the current leadership
of this nation would see it as a loss of credibility, even a loss
of face.
Unfortunately, the concern
for not losing face is still a primary force in the American nation’s
approach to the war, and I am not here only talking about the Bush administration
but the entire nation, including the media and the Democratic party
(most of whom voted for the war). No one really wants to admit that
the war was a mistake, no one really wants to come out and say that
the emperor has nothing on.
As a result, the national debate is locked on a track that cannot lead
to a constructive solution. Yet if it is openly admitted that the war
was a mistake, then the debate will change fundamentally. And this will
open up for possibilities that, today, no one can even imagine. If the
nation would honestly admit that a mistake was made – without
making President Bush the scapegoat – it could potentially bring
about a shift in the national psyche and tremendous growth and transformation
could be the result. Obviously, practical solutions for exiting Iraq
without causing a major war in the region would also be forthcoming—as
if someone had pulled a rabbit out of a hat.
One of the main messages on this website is that if you encounter –
as an individual or a nation – a situation that does not reflect
who you want to be, you can use the situation as a springboard for transforming
yourself. You need to recognize that the universe is a mirror and that
what you experience as physical circumstances is a reflection of your
state of consciousness. What you get back from the universe is a product
of the mental images you send into the cosmic mirror. Thus, even the
worst possible outer circumstances can be used as an impetus to take
a look at your own consciousness and change your mental images. Doing
this honestly can lead to tremendous personal and national transformation,
and such transformation is the highest form of victory.
In other words, the American nation now has a certain mental image of
what it means to have victory or defeat in Iraq. Yet the Ascended Host
have an entirely different conception of victory, namely the greatest
possible transformation for all nations involved. We are not primarily
concerned about what happens in the outer circumstances, for what we
really want to see is that America – and, of course, Iraq –
uses this situation to rise above its current state of national consciousness.
Yet it is an inescapable fact – as I have explained above –
that leaders or even entire nations can be blinded by a situation. Thus,
the very mindset that led America into this war is also preventing the
nation from asking whether the war was a mistake. So for those who are
open to examining the national psyche, let me offer some thoughts. Here
is what I said in 2004:
I
would like the United States to learn the highest possible lesson
from this war. The highest possible lesson is that in today's world
black-and-white thinking no longer works. This form of thinking simply
cannot produce results that are in harmony with the greater good of
all. In fact, in today's world allowing your actions to be motivated
by black-and-white thinking is a recipe for disaster.
We can now go further by
taking a more specific look at the kind of black-and-white thinking
that influences the United States. My brother, Gautama Buddha, described
it eloquently in his New Year’s
address:
My
beloved, what was it indeed that caused the American President to
start the war in Iraq—which now most people in his own country
realize was an ill-conceived adventure? Well, it was, my beloved,
that there is something in the national psyche of America that Americans
have so far not been willing to recognize and give up. And what is
that something, my beloved? Well, it is indeed the entire idea of
superiority. The entire idea that a certain people can be the chosen
people, the most powerful people, that a nation can somehow be favored
by God.
Superiority is indeed a specific
form of black-and-white thinking. It is dualistic in that it requires
two opposite polarities. For someone to be superior, someone
else must obviously be inferior. For someone to be good, someone
else must be bad. Thus, superiority causes a nation to set itself apart
from other nations and peoples, even to set itself above them.
In this context, the main problem with superiority is that once you
have allowed yourself to think you are superior, you simply cannot admit
a mistake. For if you were to be proven wrong, your claim to superiority
would be threatened. That is why superiority so often causes people
to become blind, and it has led to many of the situations mentioned
earlier where leaders made enormous mistakes.
Once a situation was set on a track, the leaders could not change course
because doing so would be seen as admitting a mistake, which would then
threaten their claim to superiority. So they blindly kept going in the
same direction, they kept “staying the course.” In some
cases the consequences of their actions became so severe that they could
no longer be ignored. In other cases the consequences were not severe
enough to awaken the leaders or their nation and consequently no one
learned the lesson. Which is precisely why history has a nasty habit
of repeating itself.
What Gautama did not explain in his discourse is why the United States
is so influenced by superiority, and he did not do this because it is
my responsibility to do so.
It should be obvious that President Bush has been influenced by a subtle
sense of superiority, and he has obviously felt that the United States
had the moral high ground over Saddam Hussein. He has felt that American
freedom and democracy is superior to any other form of government, which
gives America a right, even a duty, to spread freedom and democracy
around the world.
Yet where do these feelings of moral superiority come from? Well, the
truth is that they come from the president’s Christian belief
system. President Bush has made no secret of his evangelical background,
yet as I recently explained in my comments on Pastor
Terry Haggard, evangelical, or fundamentalist Christianity is very
far removed from my true teachings. In fact, while America sees itself
as a Christian nation, it is actually dominated by a black-and-white
form of Christianity that is not true Christianity.
This black-and-white Christianity is defended vigorously by preachers
like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Terry Haggard, Billy Graham and others,
some of whom actually advised the president before he made the decision
to go to war. Some of these preachers have publicly stated that the
war in Iraq was a just war, even that God told them it was just.
Obviously, these modern preachers did not create black-and-white Christianity,
but they are indeed responsible for holding America back and preventing
the nation from growing into a more balanced approach to Christianity,
such as has been at least approached by Bishop Spong, Joel Olstein,
Rick Warren and others (I am not hereby saying I agree with everything
these people advocate, I am only saying they are making sincere attempts
to develop a more balanced approach to Christianity. It remains to be
seen whether they can avoid the trap of going from black-and-white to
gray thinking.).
Obviously, the development of black-and-white Christianity goes back
to when Christianity became the state religion of the Roman empire.
For Constantine, Christianity was not a system of thought designed to
set people free but a means to a political end, namely the survival
of the Roman empire. Ever since then, Christianity has been controlled
by people who see it as their duty to control the population, and this
view is obviously based on the fact that such people see themselves
as being far superior to the population.
That is why these people destroyed my true mission, namely to set an
example of a systematic path to personal Christhood that all people
can follow. They did this by elevating me to be the only
Son of God, even as being God in embodiment (which I consider to
be blasphemy). Thus, from the very beginning of Catholic Christianity
and continuing into Lutheran Christianity, this religion has been dominated
by the sense of superiority.
Since Christianity has portrayed itself as the only true religion and
as the only road to salvation, superiority and spiritual pride have
been the inevitable companions of the Christian movement. Obviously,
this has allowed Christianity to be dominated by people who are blinded
by their egos, and that is why this religion has spawned so many atrocities,
such as the Inquisition, the crusades and so on.
Yet what was the admonishment I gave to my disciples when they were
fighting over who should be superior among them? Did I not say,
43 But so shall
it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall
be your minister:
44 And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of
all.
45 For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to
minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. (Mark,
Chapter 10)
My overall point here is
that if America wants to truly learn the lesson it needs to learn from
the Iraq war, it needs to take a long, hard look at its Christian heritage.
It needs to acknowledge that American Christianity has, for far too
long, been dominated by black-and-white thinking that leads to spiritual
pride and a sense of superiority. It is high time to move Christianity
out of this form of thinking without falling into the equally non-productive
trap of gray thinking.
As Gautama mentioned, America does indeed have a special sponsorship
from Saint Germain and has the potential to become a forerunner for
the Golden Age. Yet for this to happen, America must overcome the superiority-inferiority
duality and begin to see itself as the servant of all nations. America
must decide to stop serving mammon – meaning the international
power elite who wants only money and power – and instead begin
to serve God, meaning God’s purpose of setting all people free
from suppression by bringing a Golden Age to Earth.
Yet for America to fulfill this role, it must make an essential decision.
Does America want to be a Christian nation or a Christed
nation?
For those who cannot tell the difference, I recommend they begin by
studying my ego discourses
and then move on to studying this website in general. The difference
truly is the difference between life and death, between being the true
servant of all life or seeking to elevate oneself above others. I can
assure you that I had no sense of superiority toward any part of life
and I have no tolerance whatsoever for those who have turned my religion
into a den of thieves, dominated by those who think they can steal or
buy their salvation by elevating themselves above others on Earth.
God is no respecter of persons and neither is Christ. Nor are we respecters
of nations except those who are seeking to humbly serve the people instead
of serving an elite who insists on continuing to play in the sandbox
of superiority. If a nation is built on sand – if it is a house
divided against itself by allowing an elite to manipulate the people
– it will not stand as the winds of Aquarius will begin to blow
with full force.
Take note of what I said in 2004. It is as relevant today as it was
back then:
The
American people are today in a similar situation to that encountered
by Prince Hamlet. Hamlet knew there were forces inside his own kingdom
that were plotting against him, yet he refused to take active measures
to stop these forces, and this decision led to a greater calamity.
I am not suggesting that the American people should use violence to
prevent their government from using violence. On the contrary, this
battle must be fought with information and nonviolent measures. What
I am saying is that the American people must do something to restrain
their own government, because without action from the people, the
government will not be able to restrain itself.
Obviously, the American people
have indeed done something to restrain their government by the way they
voted in the November elections. Unfortunately, their president seems
content to ignore the message they were sending him, for he is still
so blinded by superiority – and the accompanying unwillingness
to admit that the war was a mistake from the beginning – that
he thinks his own people are wrong and that history will eventually
prove him right.
Thus, he is still acting as a typical politician who is trying to save
face, rather than stepping up and becoming a true statesman who can
admit his mistakes and make the necessary adjustments to save his nation.
Therefore, the American people now face a new challenge of whether they
will call their president to order and make clear to him – through
the democratic means available to them – that they want to see
the change in policy that they voted for.
Will the American people decide to step up and accept their responsibility
for making their nation a Christed nation? Or will they continue the
old approach of leaving it up to a small elite to run the nation as
they see fit? I can assure you that if President Bush’s latest
policy is allowed to go forward unchallenged, the consequences will
not be to anyone’s liking.
The simple fact is that President Bush and his entire administration
needs a reality check that shatters their spiritual blindness. It would
be better for everyone if that reality check came from the people who
elected Bush rather than from a disastrous development in the Middle
East, where several scenarios – all equally non-constructive –
are about to drop into the physical realm from where they cannot be
turned back.
Back to Main
Page.
Back
to top
Copyright
© 2007 by Kim Michaels |
