Self respect

Daniel: What is self-respect as it related to doing work. It is well known that meaningful work is essential to maintaining self-esteem however that work my be defined and in whatever context that work may be done. The most severe punishment that can be meted out, the cruelest thing that can be imagined, is for an able bodied, mentally alert individual to be deprived of meaningful activities, meaningful service opportunity, meaningful employment of time. It is erroneous to ignore this, and to affirm that all inherent value is in beingness. There is also inherent value in work.

What do I mean by work? What I mean is for a person to not have discovered what creative thing they can do, whether or not they earn money from it, is to deprive them of a major portion of their human experience, to be co-creator with God with some worthy enterprise, if nothing more than their own soul. And yet there are so many who are in this prison of unbelief, not knowing that the universe is purposeful and loving, and eternal in its destinies. They languish in the presence of the bread of life and the water thereof.

Our Master said, "My Father works, and I work also." Work is creation. It is bringing into actuality that which is only latent and potential. It is a divine attribute. To labor is God-like, because it is God's will that all that is potential shall become actual. Therefor does it become of the highest value to cooperate in that co-creation from potential to actual. The work that you do on this planet, as it is usually understood, is but a pale reflection of the higher concept of work that I am talking about now. It is, however, of value, and necessary for this planetary society to function.  

Your compassion for the handicapped has provided much sustenance and compensation for the accidents of time and the arbitrariness of nature to these unfortunate ones, although it has been at times abused so that dependency has been created. And the result is a great lack and lowering of self-respect for those individuals who have found themselves entrapped in that dependency cycle.

On planets that have reached the beginning stages of Light and Life, idleness is virtually nonexistent. There, the understanding of work has been transformed beyond the mere maintenance activity required for income, beyond even the more advanced activity which is the expression of preference, doing what one likes to do. At the level of entry to Light and Life the work is essential service to other people. The work that one does to maintain their standard of living is very brief in contrast to your hours of labor. Two-hours a day in some cases are sufficient to provide those material needs, while the rest of one's time can be spent in
spiritual enhancement for oneself and service to other brothers and sisters.

Work is not something that will be dispensed with once the mortal life is completed. Oh no, work will be transformed to a higher and higher level. And here is the inherent self-worth, my friends, to work as a partner with God. To work in co-creation, in its spiritual upliftment, is to be in partnership with the Divine.

Now, you have the "unemployed." What they need while they wait for means of earning a living is to fill their time with other kinds of work. This applies also to those who are "retired." You all need to be working in the higher sense: bringing the potential to the actual; serving yourself and your brothers and sisters where the real needs are; allowing God's love to move through you and, in the process of moving through you, enhancing you, as your allow it then to reach out to others.

Remember that our Lord did many kinds of work for which he was paid in order for him to support his family. He was a carpenter, a boat-builder, a fisherman, a caravan leader, a teacher, a philosopher, but always were his "vocations" under-pinned by his real work which was to do the will of God. His work in doing the will of God was to serve his brothers and sisters, and to reveal, in that service, the same God and Father of us all.

Our work is to be co-creators with God of our own souls, of our own destinies, and to be craftsmen and crafts-women with others, with their cooperation and their consent.

This is the big picture. The work that we do is like concentric circles. It begins with the work that we do on our own soul. It spreads to those immediately around us, our family and our friends. It spreads to the society we are part of. It spreads to the planet that we are domiciled on. It spreads to the larger universe, but ultimately reaches the level of the total. All of our creation, co-creation, is part of that emerging deity.  That's the big picture. All diversity, all the beauty, the texture of creation, will be manifest in its completion. The art that you do with your hands, that you sing with your voice, that you create with your mind is just a tiny shadow of this incredible reality. Our minds are too small at this point to understand, and so our work is a joy, is a privilege. It is a divine gift.