Questions on the Ethics of Stealing and Survival.

[ana]

Hi de-tached,

Have you asked yourself how did you come to your present situation?

As I see it choices are always there, but it seems that we only see what the machine that is in us is able to see.
Our only hope is Knowing thyself to free ourselves.
A bird inside a cage cannot fly and a bird that cannot fly cannot see the whole picture.

Life is religion. Life experiences reflect how one interacts with God. Those who are asleep are those of little faith in terms of their interaction with the creation. Some people think that the world exists for them to overcome or ignore or shut out. For those individuals, the worlds will cease. They will become exactly what they give to life. They will become merely a dream in the "past." People who pay strict attention to objective reality right and left, become the reality of the "Future."

 

[theos]

Hi de-tatched,

You've listed some very noble-sounding (to you) reasons for your behavior. The bottom line is that you are taking what does not belong to you and by doing so you are creating an imbalance. It is unknown to me how this imbalance plays out in your life. Do you have any ideas?
And you still have yet to answer whether you are stealing because otherwise you would starve (it doesn't sound like it) or simply because you believe (wrongly) that you are sticking it to "the man". It sounds to me that you just get off on stealing as it seems that you've been doing it for a while.
Do you think getting caught and spending time in jail would be good for your esoteric development? Maybe you're setting yourself up for a lesson in this area?

 

[Azoth]

Probably safe to say millions have died for less. Conversely, many elite families et al (seem to) get away with eons of genocide.

This reminds me of the question I had about psychopaths. What is Their tolerance to pain? Where is Their level of courage etc?

So what about killing? Thou shalt not kill, unless you're in the army!? And if that war was fabricated by a small click of opportunistic bankers? With a volunteer army...
Hey, I was just following orders.

The idea of self defense as to offense is another dilemma.

From looking without, it's apparently ok to slaughter tens of thousands of Certain animals every day. While at the same time, a joker could do time for smacking a fancy pooch.

Life feeds on life.

Life really is like the lord of the rings. It's a constant battle... take our immune systems, viruses and bacteria. Did you know that these three each have sub systems which evolve and carry out countermeasures against the others? It's ongoing, each trying to outdo the other.

Life. Do I, a human, have special status over other life forms? I doubt it. Folks hunt/kill/test on simply because they can get away with it. Try it with a T Rex, without the bazooka.

Sorry, I'm raving and not really saying much. There just may be something to the idea of well, working around a questionable system. Who knows, five years from now saying "drop dead" could land you in the slammer...It's Their artificial system of control (where poverty is intentionally maintained).
If it gets really bad - as they say it will around 2012 (the real meaning) - it may be one's duty to respond in kind. But better behave tho or they'll Branch Dividian you...

They say you intended what you are experiencing. You did it and it's all your game and fault. So I guess this is a point for "creating your own reality".

Now if you Can do that, what does that imply?

Final speculation; what about archetypes - such as the dark aspects of mercury? Fact is, this has to play out somewhere...

Ah, but man is the mediating sublimation agent. We are to bring all these forces into balance... I read that somewhere....

 

[Bernhard]

Hi Azoth,

I really have a hard time understanding what you are talking (or raving as you say) about. What does that have to do with the topic at hand and in particular with de-tached's situation and his request for a mirror?
What you wrote sounds like lots of noise and word salad that's a bit all over the place.

If it gets really bad - as they say it will around 2012 (the real meaning) - it may be one's duty to respond in kind. But better behave tho or they'll Branch Dividian you...

What "real meaning"? I'm wondering, have you read "The Wave" in its entirety?

Fwiw...

 

[Mountain Crown]

Hi de-tached,

Seems to me the issue is the right of ownership of property. Thieves feel entitled to what they take regardless of the claim of the party they steal from. Your disapproval of marked up prices doesn’t nullify the store’s claim of ownership.

There are various degrees of good and bad use of what one owns. I feel it may benefit you to consider how your assessment of the store’s use of the products they own gives you any entitlement to them.

Heinz didn’t regard his wife’s illness as a reason to steal. He saw stealing as the only available means to save her life.

 

[Brenda86]

FWIW... I have had friends who used to steal without a truly URGENT need who had had similar rationalizations - the biggest being that it doesn't really cut into the profits of these huge, corrupt corporations. This may be true, but what if you and 100 other people who shop at the same store have this same idea? The store won't want to see its profits decline, so it will probably lay a person or two off instead to make up for the reduction of profit. So you may not be hurting the store, no, but what about the people who work there? What if it's franchised and you are hurting the owner who happens to just own that one store? You really have no way of knowing just how much damage you are doing.

As it has been said, there is really a difference between stealing food to live and stealing food because it doesn't seem that bad in light of the things you contribute, which you have deemed to be important enough to outweigh the possible ramifications of your actions.

 

[The rabbit]

Its really strange how this topic came about in the time that it did. I have had some one living on my land who pays no rent , lives in his own van ,and who i have paid in food for work because i have no money , but he proffessed to be a teacher of gurdjieff , and is in search of the right spiritual path .

etc etc

Well he stole a push bike and brought it to my property , the property i have given him free rent on , and after asking him to take it back to where he got it from , he looked at me as if i was an idiot,

he moved the bike a few yards further away from his spiritual home/ van , but it was still on the property.

The day after de tached post arrived i have told the spiritual man to leave.

All revolves around self importance

Correction. I have been informed that it was not him stole the bike , but a visiting student of his.

He reads this forum.

There is a lot more to this story but thats as much as i can write now.

 

[Aidylsun B.]

Money, food, clothing, a pencil or postage stamp for work; time - When has stealing ever been okay? And who really pays?

 

[spyraal]

Hello,

I think that very few -and probably none in this forum- are satisfied or approve how the global resources (food, water, land etc.) are shared by the people of this world. Yes, the mega corporations are there, injustice is there, exploitation, loss of freedom and the lot. The setting is there to provide for any kind of excuse. But a man with integrity is the one who does what is right even when he is on his own, and no one is watching. And by extension, i guess a man with integrity is the one who does not use a situation and/or the deeds of others as an excuse for his own doing.

I know too a few people that, like De-touched in some ways, are denying to participate in what we may call a systemic life. Meaning a life with a 9 to 5 job, consuming, paying rent, taxes etc.
But the people i know are REALLY living on minimum conventional requirements from their life. No car, no fancy life, no spending money. And i have figured by talking to these people, that this attitude comes from an inner sense of freedom. A freedom to start walking aimlessly without obligations, without fear, without worries about tomorrow, without watching their back every single moment, without owning to anyone. It is a freedom i admire and for which they are paying a price. This is actually a kind of strategic enclosure. What De-touched calls freedom in his life, is not what i would call freedom in the above sense. I guess it is better to have a clean face and soul and fly through the radar of Law stealthy and with minimal "signal return", rather than trying to fly constantly UNDER the radar of law and be obliged to maneuver all and in any given time, always ready to divert from where you were going to avoid detection. This is not freedom in it's true sense IMO.

So regardless of whether De-touched choosing to occasionally steal from big groceries is right or wrong under his current life circumstances (the Law of the Three has to be thought of here), the fact for me is that his lifestyle is not one leading away from the system, nor it is fighting the system, nor it is a life of freedom and independence. How can it be when you might have to hide, to pretend or to flea at any given moment? The people i know and mentioned above, can travel, do anything and go anywhere provided that they have or are given some little money. They have paid the price to have a minimal signal for the system. De-touched is maybe trying to conveniently settle between the two worlds, but the price in freedom is considerable IMO. And freedom is precious. It is either freedom or time to fight. Just some thoughts...

Thank you all,
:)

 

[Windmill knight]

For me it is not just a matter of the act of stealing - which I agree that in certain circumstances, such as Heinz's, is ethically justified - but in cases such as de-tached, it is also about an attitude towards life. That is, the attitude of 'take as much as you can', which is already selfish, but is made worse by the attempt to justify it with esoteric or anti-establishment ideas.

I have met a few people in my life who basically have the same attitude. They don't necessarily shop-lift as a habit, but they profess to be very 'spiritual' or 'liberated' from the system, and basically use that mask to get away with anything they want. Some gather followers, others indulge in hedonsim or drugs, others seduce women, others are just plain lazy, etc. In the end it is all about what they like or dislike, except that on top of that they have a huge self-importance and they calm themselves with their 'holier than thou' self-images.

It reminds me of something that was quoted in the recent Sott focus about COINTELPRO. Michael Tsarion says:

...My main mission is to reveal that we do not need any external authority. We are to understand that we are here on earth to be our own priests or priestesses. We become initiated into these roles through the right use of the High Arts of Divination. That is what they were expressly created for. They alone are the prerequisite to reaching this esteemed goal. They are the means for engendering in each of us the necessary mental, emotional, and moral hygiene necessary to effect actual, lasting, positive change in our own lives and subsequently in the world at large. As we know, there are many people calling themselves "teachers" who involve themselves in these arcane subjects. Nearly all of these individuals come from other disciplines, from the fields of academic psychology, mythology, philosophy or even business and science, etc. They are often severely handicapped by the bad habits they have learned from trying to matriculate in these fields. I come directly from the philosophical and metaphysical traditions. It is in my bloodline from many generations past. We would do well, therefore, to remember that though many can teach ancient subjects, few can teach them in the ancient way. And there is a difference - Michael Tsarion

In other words, he can't be bothered to pay for his knowledge by studying hard and long what the fields of science have to say about 'arcane subjects'. Instead, he brushes them aside by accusing them of being handicapped in their thinking and announces that his bloodline is enough to make him a teacher. It is exactly the same attitude of justifying one's own likes and dislikes with a story about being so spiritual, rebel or liberated.

And that attitude is as opposite as you can get from real esoterism, in my opinion.

 

[go2]

We must look deeply into our own lives. Do you work for governments, academia, or large corporations? Do you pay taxes? Do you receive public assistance? Perhaps you are complicit in a stealing operation. I am reminded of Jesus saying to the crowd preparing to stone the woman at the well, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”

We live in a world of stealing and lie. The depths of ponerization of the mind and institutions and associations of this world make it nearly impossible for truly honest and ethical men and women to survive without complicity in the stealing and lie. Which brings me to an old Dutch saying, “We must not burn the barn to kill the rats.”

So, de-tached isn’t detached and neither are we. Less we become hypocrites as well as thieves and liars we must examine our own minds and lives. Of course, the ignorant claim to have clean hands and a right to judge. We would like to examine your lives for their hidden motives and associations.

 

[anart]

We must look deeply into our own lives. Do you work for governments, academia, or large corporations? Do you pay taxes? Do you receive public assistance? Perhaps you are complicit in a stealing operation. I am reminded of Jesus saying to the crowd preparing to stone the woman at the well, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”

We live in a world of stealing and lie. The depths of ponerization of the mind and institutions and associations of this world make it nearly impossible for truly honest and ethical men and women to survive without complicity in the stealing and lie. Which brings me to an old Dutch saying, “We must not burn the barn to kill the rats.”

So, de-tached isn’t detached and neither are we. Less we become hypocrites as well as thieves and liars we must examine our own minds and lives. Of course, the ignorant claim to have clean hands and a right to judge. We would like to examine your lives for their hidden motives and associations.

Hi go2, I'm curious about how you think this applies directly to this conversation? Do you think the forum is 'judging' de-tached? Did he not ask for objective feedback? Perhaps you mean something else entirely?

 

[go2]

Hi go2, I'm curious about how you think this applies directly to this conversation? Do you think the forum is 'judging' de-tached? Did he not ask for objective feedback? Perhaps you mean something else entirely?

Hi anart,

I think the forum did an admirable job of objective feedback and I offer my comment in the spirit of examining de-tached's ethical dilemma in the larger abstract context of how can we or can we live ethically in a world of stealing and lying. It is not simple. I for example, made a living trading stocks for several decades. I became aware that I was participating in a stealing machine, even though it was a perfectly legal and accepted.

As to the question of "judging", each must answer for himself or herself. We may each be compromised, but as a group we approach objective truth. It is why a network works.

 

[vinny]

I think the forum did an admirable job of objective feedback and I offer my comment in the spirit of examining de-tached's ethical dilemma in the larger abstract context of how can we or can we live ethically in a world of stealing and lying. It is not simple. I for example, made a living trading stocks for several decades. I became aware that I was participating in a stealing machine, even though it was a perfectly legal and accepted.

This is where Windmill Knight's comment becomes applicable (and also Mme Jeanne de Salzmann's essay which I cited earlier), that it is not directly to do with the technicalities of stealing, but to do with one's attitude to life.

Either an 'off-grid' existence or alternatively one which involves participating in the 'world-corporate-game' for survival, can in both cases be parasitic OR potentially something else, and it depends on the individual's approach and attitude (and on the presence and orientation of a conscious aim), and also their level of understanding of these dynamics and of themselves.

 

[Mark]

I think the forum did an admirable job of objective feedback and I offer my comment in the spirit of examining de-tached's ethical dilemma in the larger abstract context of how can we or can we live ethically in a world of stealing and lying.

Wouldn't that distract from the focus of this thread right now? Isn't this about helping de-tached see himself in his specific situation? Seems to me that discussing a larger abstract context would just muddy the waters in this instance.