₦airaland Forum

Many European nations have taken secularism so far that religion itself has become a taboo in public debate. Many Europeans are so non-religious or anti-religious that they are greatly intimidated by Muslims who openly practice their faith and put their religious beliefs first in life. Europeans think this is medieval and that they are above it because they are so sophisticated and modern. Yet they are not willing to look at the obvious fallout of secularization. This has led to a special form of religious intolerance. Instead of being intolerant of those who belong to ANOTHER religion, many Europeans are intolerant of those who belong to ANY religion.

The fact is that Europe has removed the religious fanaticism of the middle ages, which is clearly a step in the right direction. Yet people have not replaced it with anything, and the result is that they are now stuck in a vacuum. The positive side of religion – or rather spirituality – is that it provides people with a sense of meaning and purpose that reaches beyond themselves. When people do not have this, they become entirely self-centered, and their personal lives quickly deteriorate into boredom and a sense of having no purpose and meaning. This leads to depression and escapism, which is responsible for a substantial part of the rising social problems in Europe, such a mental illness, depression, substance abuse, broken marriages and families, et-cetera.

Because of secularism, European governments have so far failed to address the core of this problem. I can assure you that the problem has no human solution. The ONLY solution is a spiritual solution, yet no European government can address this problem without finding a more balanced approach to spirituality and its role in society. Dealing with the Muslim immigrants actually provides Europeans an opportunity to move in this direction.

It would be completely unrealistic for Europeans to expect that Muslim immigrants would abandon their religion and become as non-religious as many Europeans. So Europeans simply have to – from the government down – become more tolerant of religious expression in their society. For example, there is no need to ban religious head dresses in public schools in order to maintain the separation of church and state. This is simply secular fanaticism pitted against religious fanaticism.

Kim: So are you saying that if a society has free speech, people should be allowed to say absolutely anything, even incite violence and hatred? For example, in several Europeans nations, resident Muslims demonstrated against the cartoons and some carried banners encouraging terrorist attacks as a retaliation. Some people say the police should have arrested them for inciting hatred, which is illegal in several nations.

Jesus: I will defend the right of these Muslims to say whatever they want in a – peaceful – demonstration, just as I will defend the Danish newspaper’s right to publish cartoons that depict the prophet Mohammed. What I will not defend is anyone’s right to take their so-called protests beyond the level of using words to where they actually attack other people or burn embassies. If a society has free speech and you say something I don’t like, then I can use my free speech to protest or counteract what you are saying. If I go beyond speaking out and start acting out, I have crossed an essential line.

It is a fact that many people in the West have not fully understood what it means to have and maintain a free society. They fall prey to the age-old rationale that the ends can justify the means, a rationale that springs from the mind of anti-christ. Thus, such people reason that in order to preserve freedom, it is necessary and justified for a government to restrict freedom. This is both true and untrue. It is necessary to restrict people’s freedom to act. But it is not necessary to restrict people’s freedom to think or speak.

There is a fundamental difference between saying that you will do something and actually doing it. If I attack you physically, I have violated your free will because you had no option to choose to avoid my attack. You cannot choose to make my actions undone because my actions have an unerasable physical effect. (However, you can choose to prevent my actions from starting a negative spiral of revenge, which is why I told people to turn the other cheek and forgive seventy times seven.)

If I attack you verbally, you have the option of choosing how you will respond to my words. You can choose to ignore my words as if you had never heard them, thus – in effect – making my words undone or of no effect for you. My actions can affect you without your consent. My words cannot affect you without your consent. You must choose to take offense before my words can affect you.

I agree that having free speech does not mean you have the obligation to offend others. Yet the fact is that Muslims do not have an obligation to take offense. As I said in our first discussion, the true message of the Koran is to rise above the consciousness that takes offense. If you feel offended, you have not fully surrendered to the Will of Allah.

If you do not have the self-control to prevent yourself from taking offense over what I say, then YOU have a problem and YOU must pull that beam from your own eye. It really is that simple.

Kim: So are you saying that a government should allow people to express hatred, even to encourage violence and make threats?

Jesus: If you have people in your country who are ready to use violence, wouldn't you rather know about it, so you can do something about it before it is too late?

You have a right to say that you will hurt others, but you do not have a right to carry out your threats. The reason is that a free, democratic society MUST give all of its citizens the maximum opportunity to learn their life lessons.

As I explain on this website, planet earth is a schoolroom. People are here to learn a lesson about life, and the ultimate outcome is that they rise above the dualistic, selfish state of consciousness that causes people to give and take offense, thus leading to conflict and violence. As I explain throughout this website, people are imprisoned by their own egos, and humankind is engaged in a process of freeing themselves from the ego and the consciousness of anti-christ.

People can learn the hard way or the easy way. The easy way is when they listen to their spiritual teachers and allow us to guide them to a higher state of consciousness. The hard way is to learn by allowing their own egos to interact with the egos of other people, thus wearing down each others rough edges. People learn by doing something that springs from the ego and then seeing the consequences of their actions in the form of other people’s ego-centered reactions. We might say that people can learn by voluntarily transcending the dualistic, ego-centered state of consciousness or by acting out this state of consciousness until they finally get tired of playing the game of “my ego against the world.”

Yet even when people learn the hard way, there are levels of learning as there are grades in a school. The lowest level is when people commit acts of violence that lead others to take revenge through violence, creating a seemingly endless spiral of violence and revenge. This is what you have seen taking place in the Middle East for thousands of years. And as you can see in the recent demonstrations and embassy burnings, some people in the Middle East are still trapped at this level of learning—they are still in kindergarten.

What has brought civilization forward is that some people have grown tired of learning the hard way, and they have modified their behavior. They are still often acting from the ego and their actions conflict with the egos of other people. Yet they have restrained their egos to – in most situations – avoid violence. They have learned to turn the other cheek to certain offenses. In many cultures this has largely broken the spirals of violence and revenge, which is the only reason democracy could emerge as a viable form of government. As long as people are still too prone to violence, only a totalitarian form of government has the ruthlessness to restrain them.

As I explain elsewhere, there are cycles in the spiritual growth of humankind, and this planet is in the process of leaving one cycle and entering the next. The most important lesson people should have learned over the past 2,000 year cycle was to respond to offenses without violence—by turning the other cheek. In the cultures where there is less violence, most people have learned that lesson to some degree.

The cultures that have not yet risen above the old ways, need to catch up quickly, and that is why extreme measures are called for in helping them see the need to change. Because too many Muslims still have not learned to turn the other cheek, it is necessary to provoke them into seeing the beam in their own eyes.

Nevertheless, my point is that humankind is entering an age in which they need to use peaceful means to rise above the ego-centered state of consciousness. And freedom of speech, expressed in a free and open debate, is the primary tool that can bring humanity forward. If you look at the world as a whole, you will see a great increase in communication. This is not only due to better technology but also to people’s willingness to talk about issues that were taboos just a few years ago. The cultures that are the most open are generally making the most rapid progress.

Europe is on the forefront of this development, while Muslim cultures are in the rear. Thus, Europeans can help Muslims catch up, and the obvious choice is to start with the many Muslims living in Europe. So far, there has not been sufficient willingness to openly debate the issues – from both sides – but hopefully the cartoon conflict will make it clear that avoiding dialogue is no longer an option.

Kim: Some people will say that if you allow people to openly encourage hatred and make threats, you simply allow tension to increase until it inevitably breaks out in violence. That is why several European nations have made it illegal, for example, to engage in anti-semitic speech. Most people seem to think it is okay to restrict extreme right-wing groups, such as Neo-Nazis. What is your response?

Jesus: As I said 2,000 years ago, you cannot serve two masters. You have to decide whether you want to be a democracy or a totalitarian regime. You cannot be both at the same time, and history has several examples of how trying to mix the two leads to an unsustainable situation. If a totalitarian regime gives people freedom, they will want more and their country moves toward democracy. This is what happened in the Soviet Union, and it is now happening in China and many nations in the Middle East. If a democracy restricts freedom, it will start a slide back toward totalitarianism. That is why the American government’s restriction of civil liberties under the guise of combatting terrorism simply will not stand the test of time—unless America becomes a totalitarian nation.

Free speech is a basic human right—which part of “free” don’t you understand?

If you are not absolutely free to say anything you want, you do not have truly free speech. Thus, a democratic society that makes ANY attempt at limiting free speech is going against the foundational principles of democracy—as well as the laws of God. If you cannot say what you want for fear of physical violence, you do not have free speech. This is exactly what the cartoons attempted to demonstrate—and rarely has any cartoon made its point more clearly.

I understand that Muslims are offended, but that does not give them the right to respond with violence. Nothing you say to me can justify that I respond with physical violence. I have a right to use my freedom of speech to say anything I want in response, but using violence is going too far. This is precisely what all Muslims need to recognize and admit, so they can pull the beam of anger and revenge from their own eyes.

The fact of the matter is that as long as people are in a certain state of consciousness, they will always take offense. Yet it is their consciousness – the beam in THEIR eyes – that causes them to take offense. Because they are not willing to look at that beam, they will claim that you do not have a right to offend them. The reason is that they know they cannot control themselves when they are offended. They know they cannot refrain from using violence, and they know violence is wrong. So if they can stop you from saying anything that offends them, they can pretend like the beam in their eye is not there. Yet this is a false peace that is no peace.

My point is that when you have free speech, you DO have the right to say something that offends others. The propensity for people to take offense cannot and should never be the measure of how you should exercise your free speech. You have a right to provoke in order to make a problem visible so that people can be forced to look at the beam in their own eyes.

The problem here is that most people do not understand the basic function of free speech, so let me explain it point by point:
A substantial portion of human conflict springs from a lack of mutual respect between individuals or groups of people.
Lack of respect most often springs from a lack of understanding.
Lack of understanding most often springs from a lack of communication.
In the past, the means of communication were primitive and thus made communication between different cultures difficult. Modern technology has removed this barrier, so the problem is generally that the two groups of people do not want to communicate.
The refusal to communicate most often springs from a misunderstanding that causes the parties to break off communication.
When you are not communicating openly, you cannot know what other people think or feel, so people resort to making assumptions.
Assumptions often lead to negative feelings – people suspect the worst – and this leads to a build-up of tension.
Because there is no open communication, there is no way to peacefully diffuse the tension. Thus, the tension keeps mounting until a flash-point is reached and violence breaks out.
If you look at human history, you will find a nauseating amount of examples of how this process has created a negative, self-reinforcing spiral between two groups of people, leading with stark inevitability to violence and war.
Democracy was an attempt by the ascended masters to give humankind a tool to create and maintain a form of government that is not based on force, so that a small elite cannot as easily – or at least not forcefully – suppress the general population (as you see in most non-democratic forms of government). Yet for a democracy to work, there must be a peaceful way to avoid the build-up of tension between various groups in the population and also between separate countries.

The tool for avoiding a negative spiral of mounting tension leading to violence is free speech, which gives people the opportunity to avoid a break-down in communication so they can release tension peacefully. Obviously, there is no guarantee that people will use their free speech, but at least they have the opportunity to do so, and that is why a democratic society should NEVER allow any factor to limit free speech. Once you start limiting free speech, you increase the likelihood of a break-down in communications, and thus you WILL see tension mounting in society.

This is precisely what has happened with the influx of Muslim immigrants in many western nations. Because the threat of violence has made Islam a virtual taboo in the media, greater understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims has been blocked. This has led to an increase in tension, and the riots in France are just the beginning of what will happen unless the negative spiral is broken. The ONLY way to peacefully break the spiral is to establish FREE and open communication. The cartoon controversy is a perfect opportunity to do this. It remains to be seen whether people, the media and governments will make use of it.

Kim: What about the argument that having free speech does not give you the right to offend anyone? Some people say that if you use your free speech indiscriminately – or with a deliberate attempt to offend – you are not decreasing tension, you are increasing it. And they will say that the Muslim reaction to the cartoons proves their point.

Jesus: As I said above, having free speech means that you have the right to say absolutely anything—even if it offends other people. It is perfectly true that saying something that offends others can increase tension in the short run. Yet in the long run it is the ONLY opportunity for decreasing tension by building greater understanding.

Let us look at a practical scenario. I exercise my free speech and say something that offends you. Since I am not a bad person, I did not say this deliberately to offend you. I said it because I did not realize that it would offend you, and the cause is that I do not understand you. I do not understand you because I have not communicated with you.

We now have a positive and a negative potential. The ideal outcome is that you exercise YOUR free speech by telling me how you were offended by what I said. When I realize that you were offended, I am naturally concerned. I am willing to modify my behavior to avoid offending you. Yet to do this, I need to understand how you feel, so I respond back with an apology and express my desire to understand you better. You, likewise, have a desire to understand why I said what I said, and thus we engage in an open dialogue that leads us to understand each others viewpoints. This leads to mutual respect, and we can now live as better neighbors than before.

My point is that before the incident, there was little or no communication and thus little understanding. The incident may have increased tension in the short run, but the long-term outcome is a decrease of tension. By freely communicating, we have broken the ice and have created mutual respect. FREE speech has worked for us because we both made use of it freely.

Obviously, there are many less than ideal scenarios. One is that you are offended but refuse to communicate that to me, so you withdraw. Thus, you do not increase your understanding of me and resort to making assumptions. I know you are mad at me, but I don’t know why, so I start making assumptions. We now have the beginning of a negative spiral of mounting tension. Free speech has not worked, but the reason is that we have not been wiling to exercise it. This is not a fault in the principle of free speech but a fault in our use of it.

Another scenario is that you respond to my insult with another insult and so the spiral of tension is created instantly, with insult leading to insult leading to violence, murder and mayhem. This is precisely the pattern you have seen in the Middle East for thousands of years, and as I said in our previous discussion, it is high time to expose it so that people can see this beam in their own eyes.

This brings us back to the question of – given the situation as it is – whether it was wise or necessary to publish the cartoons. I have already answered this in our first discussion, but let me relate this to free speech. If the newspaper had published the cartoons with a deliberate intent to inflame tension and anger in the Muslim world, then I would say it would have been an unwise use of free speech. I would still defend the paper’s right to deliberately insult Muslims, because this is one of the inevitable effects of free speech. Yet I would have said that the paper had clearly violated the Golden Rule.

In the actual case, the paper had understood that the mounting tension between Muslims and non-muslims in Denmark and other European nations had reached a dangerous level. The paper also understood that the real problem was that the people, governments and media did not feel free to openly discuss issues related to Islam. Islam had become a taboo in modern Europe, as Catholicism was a taboo in medieval Europe.

The problem we have is that many Muslims are as unwilling to question or debate their religion as are many fundamentalist Christians. Thus, it is very difficult to approach them openly. What can break the stalemate? In western culture, you see many examples of how governments, large companies or other organizations have been unwilling to openly discuss their actions. Yet the press has often used satire to point out the inconsistent viewpoints and hypocritical actions, and this has often – in the long run – led to a more open dialogue and a decrease of tension.

Again, look at how Ghandi used non-violent means to force the British empire to face the beam in their own eyes. Sure, this increased tension in the short run, but the only option for not increasing tension in the short run was total submission to British rule. Can there be any doubt that western colonialism had been outrun by the wheel of time and had to stop? Can there be any doubt today that Ghandi’s actions decreased tension in the long run and prevented a more violent confrontation that could have led to many more deaths?

As I said in our first discussion, Muslims are behind the wheel of time, and their approach to religion MUST change if we are to avoid World War III. The attitude of Muslims will change ONLY if they come to see the beam in their own eyes. They MUST be made to see that it is hypocrisy to claim that Islam is a peaceful religion and then use Islam to justify responding with violence to any provocation. This will happen only if something can make their hypocrisy so obvious that they finally see it and decide to do something about it. And because they have closed their minds to open dialogue, only a provocation has any chance of breaking the stalemate.

History has many examples of how it took a strong provocation to bring a situation to the point, where the hypocritical actions of a group of people became so obvious that they finally saw it (or that the rest of society saw it and brought about a change). I deliberately provoked the scribes, Pharisees, money changers and temple priests. They killed me for it, but if you have vowed to be an instrument for positive world change, you must be willing to run a risk in order to help people see the beam in their eyes.

So, once again, even though the cartoons have created a seeming increase in tension, the reality is that they have only made more visible what was already lurking right under the surface. The “peace” between Muslims and the rest of the world is a false peace. This will not change until Muslims finally see that Islam IS a religion of peace and that their tendency to take offense and react with violence (using religion to justify it) is in DIRECT violation of the laws of Allah. Thus, some of the current “laws” spring from an Islamic tradition that has deviated from the true teachings of the Koran.

The cartoons provided Muslims with the perfect opportunity to prove that Islam is a peaceful religion and that they are peaceful people. The violent reaction to a non-violent provocation has caused many Muslims to see that things need to change. It remains to be seen whether the moderate, open-minded Muslims will have an impact on the debate or whether they will continue to let the extremists define the western image of Islam.

It is a cornerstone of free speech that you have the right to provoke others with the intent to bring about a change in an untenable situation.

Some people would say that offending the very core of Islam is not the best way to start a dialogue with Muslims. And they are right. It is not the best way, but in the present situation it is virtually the ONLY way. As I have said, there is an increasing tension between Muslim culture and western culture. This is especially true in many European nations with sizable Muslim populations. Because there has been no free communication, tension has been steadily increasing. There has been no communication because neither side has been willing to face certain issues in themselves, and thus it was easier to ignore the problem, hoping it would go away.

The ONLY possibility for easing the tension peacefully is to establish direct and open dialogue where all the taboos have been neutralized. Neither side was willing to do this voluntarily, so what could force them to do so? A handful of Danish newspaper editors and cartoonists became the unwitting instruments for giving people the opportunity to face the urgent need for open dialogue. For all reasonable people, this situation should have demonstrated the need for dialogue beyond any doubt.

Let me focus on the situation with Muslim immigrants in Europe. The ONLY long-term peaceful solution is that Muslims become integrated into European culture without losing their Muslim faith and their Arab identity (I do not mean national identity). For this to happen, there has to be a give-and-take on both sides. What do Muslims have to give in order to be able to live peacefully in modern Europe?

If Muslims expect European society to voluntarily turn itself back to the 16th century, they are simply out of touch with reality. Thus, Muslims need to face their fear of change, their fear of the modern world. This fear has been focused around the Muslim religion, and as I said in our first discussion, many people use their religion to justify not having to change themselves. The approach that many Muslims have is characterized by the following:

Our religion is the only true one. All non-believers will go to hell.
Our religion is infallible and thus above questioning. The result is that the leaders of Islam can hide behind this veil of infallibility as did medieval Catholic leaders. Even political leaders can hide and prevent or delay political changes in their nations. Modern Islam is serving to uphold an outdated political system, as did the Catholic Church in the middle ages.
Any offense of our religion is an offense against God, and thus it is the ultimate offense.
The ultimate offense justifies and even necessitates the ultimate response. Thus, it is justified and necessary to kill those who offend our God. In fact, our God will reward us for doing so.
Muslims need to see that not only is this attitude out of touch with the true teachings of the Koran, it is also out of touch with the times. Obviously, medieval Catholics had the exact same attitude, which is how they justified the Crusades and the Inquisition. Yet Europeans left this approach to religion behind centuries ago, and if Muslims in Europe don’t do the same, they will have no chance of integrating peacefully—and thus they should leave.

Muslims in Europe also need to be willing to adapt to modern European culture. You cannot realistically expect to move to another country and have the people of that country adapt to your lifestyle and beliefs. If you are not willing to adapt, you should leave that country. Incidentally, Muslims could learn a lesson from the Jews.

Before World war II, there were tensions between Jews and non-Jews in many European nations. This was the responsibility of both sides. Many Jews were reluctant to adapt to their new countries, and the people in those countries were intolerant and not willing to accommodate outsiders. In no European country was there an open and free dialogue about this problem, so there was no way to peacefully release the tension. This lead to the inevitable flash point, which occurred in Germany with the results most people accept as historical fact.

After the war, both Jews and non-Jews changed their attitudes and became much more willing to adapt and accommodate. As a result there is little tension between Jews and non-Jews in most European nations. This is in large part due to the fact that the European Jews have been willing to adapt while still honoring their Jewish heritage and practicing their Jewish religion. However, many of them do not see themselves first as Jews living in, say Denmark. They see themselves as Danes who happen to be of Jewish origin and practitioners of the Jewish religion. Thus, they can better relate to the other Danes who happen to be white and practicing – or not practicing – the Christian religion.

The only thing that prevents Muslim immigrants from becoming integrated in a similar manner is the willingness of both Muslims and non-Muslims to accommodate each other, which must begin with dialogue. In the case of the Jews, it took the Holocaust to make both sides more willing to live together. I hope it will not take another war to make Muslims and non-Muslims come to the same point.

In terms of Europeans, I already stated in our first discussion that they need to face their own intolerance. Yet they also need to face their unwillingness to openly debate certain issues, and one of them is religion. It is true that the intimidation factor of Muslim terrorism has made many Europeans reluctant to debate Islam. But beyond that many Europeans are reluctant to openly debate any issue relating to religion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J5bDhMP9lQ

I agree that abortion is a complex issue, and at some point I would like to give more detailed teachings about it. However, let me for now give a very concentrated teaching on abortion.

Let me begin by stating that the abortion debate is the perfect example of what I talked about in my remarks about the separation of church and state. When a debate becomes polarized towards two extremes, the first casualty is truth, the balanced perspective of Christ truth.

One extreme: pro-choice
The current abortion debate has been distorted by two extremist viewpoints. One is the belief system of scientific materialism which states that there is no God and therefore no higher authority. Consequently, it is up to human beings to define right and wrong. The fallacy of this viewpoint is, as I said in my remarks about the man who killed an abortion doctor, that God’s law is not altered by human beliefs and opinions. So when pro-choice people make the claim that a woman should have the right to decide what to do with her own body, they are both correct and incorrect at the same time.

I clearly understand and recognize that there are many people in the pro-choice movement who are acting out of a sincere desire to help pregnant women in distress. I also know that these people truly believe in their cause and believe it is a just cause. As I stated, the Law of Free Will is the fundamental law of this universe. The very purpose of life is to give people an opportunity to learn by exercising their free will. Therefore, one might reason that a woman has a right to terminate an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy.

The problem is that this viewpoint is often promoted by people who are followers of scientific materialism. Therefore, these people do not recognize the existence of God’s law and the fact that no person can escape the consequences of her actions. The central issue here is that unless you fully understand the potential consequences of a particular action, you will not be able to make a completely free choice in the matter.

In other words, unless a woman consciously understands the spiritual consequences of having an abortion, consequences that are not altered by r belief or disbelief in God’s law, she cannot make a truly free choice. Therefore, the simple fact is that the people who are encouraging women to have an abortion are actually encouraging these women to violate God’s law and thereby create spiritual consequences, or rather karma, that their lifestreams might take several lifetimes to repay. I firmly believe that if a woman truly understood the spiritual implications of abortion, she would most likely choose not to have an abortion.

Another extreme: pro-life
Now let us go to the other side of the debate, namely the pro-life people. Most pro-life people come from an orthodox or fundamentalist Christian background, and therefore their approach to the abortion debate is heavily influenced by Christian beliefs. Once again, I fully recognize that most of these people are sincere and truly believe in their cause.

Yet, as I am trying to explain throughout my website, LINK orthodox Christianity has moved away from my true teachings and my true intent. As I explained elsewhere, humankind has moved into a more rational state of consciousness. Unfortunately, most orthodox Christians have not embraced this rational state of consciousness. Therefore, they find themselves in the difficult position of having to defend Christian doctrines, doctrines that did not come from me but were made by human beings for political reasons.

Because modern Christians cannot give people a rational explanation for these doctrines, they are left to use the same means that orthodox Christian churches have been using for almost 2,000 years, namely an attempt to scare people with hellfire and damnation. In a rational age, this approach simply will not work.

In today's rational age, it has become much more difficult to alter people's behavior through fear. Instead, you must give them a rational understanding which makes them see what is in their own best interest. Because orthodox Christianity has not been willing to go back and correct the political errors made by early church fathers, they have no efficient way to explain their viewpoints to people in a rational age.

The balanced view of the Christ mind
Although there is much more to say about what is really going on behind the scenes of the abortion debate, I will, in the interest of brevity, focus on what has been lost in the struggle between these two extremist viewpoints. What has been lost is the balanced perspective of the Christ mind. This perspective is focused on the fact that life on planet earth is an opportunity for lifestreams to grow. To fully take advantage of this opportunity, a lifestream must inhabit a physical body.

When a woman becomes pregnant, that pregnancy represents a unique opportunity for a particular lifestream to enter the material world and work out its divine plan. There are currently a large number of lifestreams that are eagerly and earnestly waiting for the opportunity to inhabit a physical body on earth. Because of changing demographics, and in large part because of abortion, there are many lifestreams who have been denied their opportunity to enter this world. In many cases this has delayed and severely complicated the ideal growth path of these lifestreams.

So any pregnancy represents the best possible opportunity for one particular lifestream. When you fully understand the reality of karma and reincarnation, you realize that most lifestreams have, over many lifetimes, created a very intricate net of associations with other lifestreams. Before lifestreams can become permanently free of the earth plane, they must pay back their debts to any lifestreams they have harmed in previous lifetimes. The best way to accomplish this goal is to embody with these lifestreams in a family or group situation.

Therefore, a pregnancy not only represents an opportunity for the incoming lifestream, it also represents an opportunity for the parents of that lifestream. When a woman has an abortion, she not only aborts the spiritualopportunity of the child. She also aborts her own opportunity to balance karma with that lifestream. She aborts the opportunity of all of the lifestreams that her child might have met during its lifetime.

I am aware that most of the people who have gravitated to the extremist viewpoints on both sides of the abortion issue will vehemently reject what I have just stated. Yet I must once again say that God is not mocked. God’s laws are not altered by human beliefs or disbeliefs.

I can assure you that I council and comfort many lifestreams who die, look back at their lives and then clearly see the consequences of their choices. I can assure you that there are very few people who do not have regret for their mistakes and who would have done better if they had known better. I can assure you that there are very few women who do not regret having an abortion. In other words, if a pregnant woman truly understood the spiritual consequences of an abortion, most women would voluntarily choose to give birth to the child.

In that respect, let me make it clear that in many cases a woman can balance her karma with the incoming lifestream by giving the lifestream an opportunity to embody. It is not necessary that the woman raise the child as her own. Therefore, from a spiritual perspective, adoption is in many cases a perfectly acceptable alternative to abortion. It represents a win-win situation that gives an opportunity to all lifestreams involved.

Kim: So what about society. Should the U.S. continue to legalize abortion, or should it be illegal?

Jesus: When you truly understand that abortion takes away a lifestream’s opportunity for spiritual growth, in the same way that murder does, you clearly see that abortion is a violation of God’s law concerning free will. It prevents the incoming lifestream from exercising its free will in the same way that killing a human being does. Therefore, if a society makes it illegal to commit murder or suicide, how can that society make it legal to kill an unborn child?

It is a recognized fact that the lower aspects of human nature can cause people to commit selfish acts that violate the rights of other people. Therefore, it is recognized in all civilized nations that society must step in to protect those who cannot protect themselves. This most certainly applies to the unborn child who has no voice and therefore has no way to influence the decisions of the mother, decisions that profoundly affect the lifestream of the child.

Let me say that in an ideal society all people would have a clear understanding of the spiritual reality. Therefore, they would fully understand the consequences of an abortion. If a woman had a clear understanding of the spiritual consequences of an abortion, the Law of Free will would mandate that the woman should be allowed to have an abortion without reprisal from society. However, in an ideal society women would have a much greater understanding of their right to avoid sexual exploitation. They would have better tools for controlling their own sexual desires, and they would know how to protect themselves from an unplanned pregnancy. Therefore, in an enlightened society, unplanned and unwanted pregnancies should be a rare exception and not the common occurrence they are in today's society. What I am saying here is that in an enlightened society the number of women wanting and abortion would be so small that the issue of whether to legalize abortion would be relatively insignificant.

However, even in an enlightened society, the Law of Free Will demands that the rights of the mother be balanced against the rights of the unborn child. Therefore, even an enlightened society might well choose to make abortion illegal.

In today's unenlightened society, it would be in the best interest of everyone, including society itself, that abortion was made illegal. This would protect not only the rights of unborn children, but it would also protect women from creating consequences for their lifestreams that most women would choose to avoid if they truly understood what is at stake. It is commonly recognized that one of the purposes of enacting laws is to protect people from themselves and each other.

Furthermore, let me say that just as an individual can make karma, so can an entire nation. Currently, the United States and many other nations that allow abortions, have made severe national karma. Once again, people on both sides of the abortion debate will deny or ignore this fact. Yet, as I have now said many times, the law is the law and it is not changed by human opinions. It is truly possible for a nation to make such severe karma that it can affect the entire nation for generations to come. Thus, the sins of the fathers can truly come back to haunt the third and fourth generation.

Kim: What about the interests of the woman. I see many people who are engaged in the abortion debate out of a sincere desire to help women. How could these people best channel their energies so that they avoid working for an extremist viewpoint?

Jesus: With all thy getting, get understanding. The solution to any problem must begin with a higher understanding of the problem.

I would encourage these people to start by developing a deeper understanding of the spiritual side of life. I fully understand that many people are truly concerned about helping women who face an unplanned pregnancy. I also understand that at first glance these people might think that my suggestion is simplistic and ignores the very physical needs of pregnant women. Yet in reality my viewpoint is far from simplistic.

As I attempt to explain throughout this website, virtually all of the problems currently found on planet earth spring from the fact that human beings have descended into a dualistic state of consciousness in which they no longer understand their situation. Therefore, people continue to create problems; they compound error upon error, until it seems like there is no way out. When you look at current social problems, it is very understandable that people give up in despair, thinking that there is no solution. Yet I must tell you that although the sense of hopelessness is understandable, it is based on an illusion.

People have created their current problems because they do not have a clear understanding of the spiritual and material laws that God used to create the universe. Therefore, people are constantly violating those laws and creating problems that limit their freedom. The only way out of this impasse is that people gain a deeper understanding of the spiritual reality. If people would attain this understanding and begin to use God’s laws correctly, they could very quickly resolve, and I mean truly resolve, the vast majority of problems now found on this planet.

Let me make a very clear statement. There is a solution to every problem. The key to finding the solution is to realize that every problem is created by people who have descended into a dualistic state of consciousness. Therefore, the only way to find a solution is to reach beyond that state of consciousness. Only by reaching beyond the relative, dualistic, self-centered viewpoints of the lower mind, only by reaching for the middle way of the Christ consciousness, the balanced perspective of the Christ consciousness, the higher understanding of the Christ consciousness will people be able to find the spiritual solution to human problems.

Take note again that planet earth is a schoolroom for lifestreams. People have two ways to learn their lessons. They can align themselves with the truth and reality of God and thereby receive help from above. Or they can cut themselves off from this help and thereby assign themselves to the school of hard knocks. Currently, most people have rejected the enlightened perspective that God is ready to give them. Instead, people have chosen to learn by reaping the consequences of their actions.

What is happening right now is that people is that people are violating God’s laws to such an extent that they are literally boxing themselves in. Unfortunately, humankind at large have not yet reached the point where they are willing to change the situation. They might not reach this turning point, they might not reach bottom, until they have created so many problems that they literally feel they can no longer move.

I am a spiritual teacher, and I am ever ready to help any human being who reaches for the enlightened perspective of the Christ mind. I do not want to see people paint themselves into a corner where they feel like there is no way out. I came to earth to show people that there is indeed a way out of the dualistic state of consciousness.

That way is a higher understanding, a higher state of consciousness, what I call the Christ consciousness. Every human being has the potential to discover and follow that way out by making inner contact with his or her Christ self. This is the path that I am attempting to describe on my website. LINK By following that path, any human being can begin to identify with the Christ mind. Thereby people can gradually come to the point of union with the Christ self so that they can literally say, “I am the way the truth and the Life.”

When people attain this Christ consciousness, they will become the open doors that will bring spiritual solutions to the man-made problems that currently seem to have no solutions. So if people are truly concerned about the abortion debate, about helping women in distress, about solving social problems, political problems, economic problems or environmental problems, let them reach for the only possible solution. Let them reach for a higher understanding, a higher state of consciousness.