Discriminated People and Conventions (Short Answers from the Spirits – 07)
Benjamin Teixeira de Aguiar
by the Spirit Eugênia-Aspásia
Q – Edna: Could you explain to us the parable of the Good Samaritan?
A – A very appropriate question, Edna. Edna is referring to a passage from the synoptic gospels in which there was a bloodied man, in need of immediate relief, in what we could call a common path. At that time there were roads that were almost invisible; they were more like travel routes, imaginary paths used as travel routes, because the roads similar to what we know today, though still very rudimentary, were to appear with the Romans in Ancient Rome.
At the time of Our Lord Jesus, in that very poor and primitive route, which was no more than an open space where traffic could flow, linking these two small urban conglomerates, there was a sufferer. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
And Jesus says that a Samaritan, Samaria was a condemned region, Edna, a region of abjection, an execrated nation – just as we sometimes have divorced women (there’s still those who think like this; a complete nonsense) homosexuals, black people, people of social and economic inferior classes considered inferior, because we’re only thinking in terms of income, endowment, possessions, properties, all this perfectly forgettable when we’re disencumbered from our physical body. Thus, there is an extreme inconsistency with this point of view. When we see priests and doctors of the law, we are representing allegorically two large groups: those who represent the power of the state and those who represen the divine power – State and Religion, the power of politics, economy and society and the power of religion. And we see those who are condemned: those who believe in reincarnation, who are conventional spiritists or ourselves, spiritualists in general, we are seen in a very suspicious way, looked askance, by those who are more dogmatic. We are the Samaritans.
But our Lord Jesus points out that the Samaritan, by being good, was the one who showed love for his neighbor, the one who was serving the common good, the one who was not biased, even because he himself was also focus of taboo and discrimination. He was the true brother, brother in God, brother in Christ. It is a great exhortation to forget conventions as the absolute dictators of our conduct. Conventions have to be respected on what they have of constructive, e.g. table manners, so we don’t behave as animals, beasts at the table.
By no means should we stop following the guidelines of social etiquette; it is not hypocrisy, it is the first step to true politeness, the one that comes from inside. Therefore, etiquette will no longer be needed when we are extremely loving and spiritual, but while we are not, we need to acquire and deepen the positive elements of convention. But although conventions can offer guidance, they should never castrate. That’s why our school of thought…
Thank you Edna for your question which was inspired by a spiritual agent of our group, while you were still at home. Although Benjamin was unaware of your question, what we very much prefer… no one please inform Benjamin regarding any question so we can have more freedom to speak for ourselves without any interference of his views or opinions, although very respectable ones).
Returning to our point, in our school of thought, we do our best to propugn – I’m not using this word by chance, propugn comes from the Latin pro-pugnare which means propose to fight – against all forms of prejudice. Unfortunately, to fight against prejudice is litotes – an affirmation expressed by means of a negation. To fight against prejudice could very well be said as: to live love, to be fraternal, to be Christian.
But we have been saying this for twenty centuries, and the crowd, the mob, (Benjamin doesn’t like these words being said by a lady, but I am a very severe, strong and assertive lady… so, now that I have his permission…) the mob, ignorant, stubborn, and obstinate, should be tenacious, not necessarily stubborn. The mob vitiated and frequently vitiating because it transfers its vices to their children in a perpetuation of collective madness… that which Jean-Yves Leloup called Normosis, the madness of the majority.
To combat prejudices is to live fraternally, is to live christianly, is to live the best side of ourselves. It is to be loving, no matter one’s social or economic background, sex – women are still very discriminated though many of them may not realize – no matter whether we are using a male or female body; no matter which are our sexual preferences or what’s the concentration of pigment in one’s skin; no matter what our level of formal or academic education is, no matter our fortune or our income, no matter what our surname is or how beautiful the biological machine we use while incarnated. There are people who are discriminated because they are experiencing the test of ugliness, but there’s also the very difficult probation of extreme beauty which misleads people much more than ugliness for being much more revealing.
So when one is born without financial resources, without an impressive beauty, without wealth that draws attention, without opportunity to get educated, one is hardly tricked by the shameful stinginess that still pervades humanity on Earth. But we will win, and we are already winning, gradually but effectively, century over century, dear friends, because we already have hospitals, orphanages, nursing homes, liberating schools of thought like this one, we have justice and law that slowly but progressively become more attuned with the democratic ideals as explained in this evening’s lecture.