Synarchism = Joint rule Rule by a secret elite (the "elite" = 0.1% + 0.6% muppets).

Synarchy vs Anarchy

I dont blame young people for taking the wrong road; I simply say that they are imbibing ideas and examples which are far from magnificient. We should not try to destroy all the old traditions; there's a great deal of good in traditions which are the outcome of thousands of years of experience. Men have spent their lives searching and suffering and groping their way and, thanks to their efforts, have discovered a certain number of rules on which they have built their culture and civilisation. Some of these forms need to be changed; that is true. But that does not mean that everything must be thrown overboard, especially when no one has any idea how to replace what exists with something better. Do I go around destroying traditions? Certainly not! I am in favour of tradition on condition that it be adapted to our own times. But young poeple, who have no proper perception of present-day reallity nor of what it should be, simply follow their impulses and rush into action blindly, changing this and destroying that without a thought for the consequences.

Let's take it, then, that young people want a revolution. They want to upset the existing order. but have they ever asked themselves whether there are not certain immutable laws which no creature has the right to transgress? Life has its laws, laws that are studied by chemists, physicists, biologists, etc. and, whether we like it or not, we cannot go against those laws without being destroyed by them. Believe me, there are such things as immutable principles and anyone who tries to deny them is condemning himself to darkness and death. Of course, I know that young people justify themselves by saying that they are dissatisfied with what adults offer them. This I understand, for I am equally dissatisfied! But I still cannot side with them, for the freedom they are demanding, the freedom to do whatever they please, isnot at all ideal or divine.

Freedom! Liberty! Well, however much you repeat the slogan, 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!' there is really no liberty and no equality; of the three, only fraternity exists. I assure you: there is no such thing as liberty, freedom. How can you talk of man being free when he is a slave to his own appetites and pleasures, his family, his physical circumstances and the constraints of time? God alone is free and man will be free only when he identifies with God, when he becomes one with God. Outside of God there is no such thing as liberty. Licence? Yes, there's plenty of that and, for many, this is what the notion of liberty has become: a total lack of respect for everyone and everything. But the danger of this is that others can do the same; you will not be the only one who thinks he has the right to be unjust and violent; others will retaliate in kind. But nobody bargains for that. You are in love with violence? Well, I can understand that. I may have a tendency i that direction myself – wouldn't I just love to set the whole world on fire! – but that is not sufficient reason for doing so.

Human beings think they have the right to be violent, and then they are pained and surprised when others react in the same way. You must realize that every act or gesture on your part triggers a similar act on the part of others. Be generous with someone and they will be generous with you. Something i them will whisper, 'Ah, I'll just show how kind, noble and generous I can be, too!' and then i becomes a battle of smiles and gifts; a Battle of Love. This is what is so wonderful, and it is something that people have never really understood: the law of echo, of rebound. They say, 'Just let me get my hands on that fellow: I'll break his jaw!' And I say, 'Go ahead! Hit him...you'll see where that gets you!' But they are astonished when they get some of their own medicine in return. Young people think that they are justified in doing what they please to others but they object when others do the same to them. But you must never forget that this law exists and that it makes others reflect your own behavior.

They cannot do otherwise: if you start something they are obliged to retaliate.
If you think that everyone is going to let you ride roughshod over them without hitting back, you are very much mistaken. Sooner or later the law will strike back. If you have no respect for anyone, no one will have any respect for you. You need not expect to receive respect if you never give it. If you want others to respect you, you have to begin by respecting them. If there is one law I have proved to my satisfaction, it is this one. All my life I have shown respect for others and now I can see the law at work: others respect me. Sometimes, in fact, I wonder why. It is because, having spent my whole life respecting others, I have triggered a movement which is now bouncing back to me.

It is perfectly true that we are living in a society in which a great many things need to be changed, but this must not be achieved by violence. In any case, violence never brings about true change; it only makes things worse. How, then, can we transform society? By our own way of life. If we begin by changing ourselves we shall end by changing the whole world. This is why, in the Brotherhood, we are working to become a tangible example of a better kind of society. We are endeavouring to become a solid core of highly conscious, resolute men and women who will prove that mankind is capable of becoming one family, one brotherhood. Our first task, therefore, is to transform ourselves into living examples and even, one could say, to impose this example on others, not by physical force, of course, but by the nobility, magnanimity, light an spiritual beauty emanating from us. The need to feel their own strength and power drives too many young people reckless actions. They don't realize that true strength is inner strength, the ability to control an master themselves, to show themselves to be noble, great-hearted, perfect. Initiates, too, want to become strong and powerful but they know what true greatness and true power are, whereas so many young people, by ginving way to their instincts and seeking power through violence and destruction, merely wearken themselves and become the slaves of their own base instincts and vices.

I am completely impartial: I love all these young people and I love their elders, but believe that both are at fault: the adults because they have not known how to educate the young and, especially, how to give them a good example, and the young, because they think they can settle all their problems through revolution and violence and by destroying everything that adults have done.

I readily admit that there are a few real revolutionaries such as Lenin, Mao Tse-tung and Fidel Castro. But people like that didn't destroy everything. Besides, can you say that things are really better since their revolutions? No; nothing is really different except, perhabs, that the man at the top has disappeared and someone else has taken his place. The rhetoric has changed a little, the slogans are not the same, the songs are new, but the vice and crime, the fear and corruption are still the same.

Anarchists are incapable of doing anything constructive. some revolutionaries can be constructive, perhabs, if they are very intelligent and generous and work to improve the situation rather than making it even more intolerable. History shows that tyrants come and go: they may rise to power and liquidate their enemies, but they cannot stay on top for long. For this, too, is a law of life: a tyrant, by his very tyranny, attracts others of the same kind who end by destroying him. You know the saying: 'They sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind'.

The young have chosen anarchy? Very well; let them have it, but the laws are merciless: anarchy will take control of their beings and, later on in life, they will be subjected to identical reactions from their own children or the people around them. Then they will start moaning about injustice and declaring that they have done nothing to deserve such dreadful children. Not deserve them, indeed! Have they forgotten how they behaved when they were young? Let them remember that and then they will begin to understand. But it will be too late. The damage will have been done. The boomerang effect exists in the psychic as well as in the physical world, but it is only when the consequences of their acts rebound and hit them on the head that people begin to reflect.

If I had to give you a really exceptional example I would not choose any of the great Initiates of the past, but someone you all know: Socrates. After he had been condemned to death, some of his disciples tried to persuade him to let them organize his escape but he refused to leave his prison, saying that a good citizen should obey the laws of his city. One cannot help but refer constantly to the example of this great man who, although he never wrote anything, he continued to influence men's minds for the last twenty-four centuries. Of course, this is largely thanks to Plato, who was his disciple, and Plato and his own disciple, Aristotle, are still the twin peaks of philosophy; no philosopher since has ever surpassed them. But what an extraordinary man Socrates was! He had the face of a satyr and, in fact, he confessed that this was because he had, once, been very vicious, but that he had succeeded in conquering his vices; it was a thing of the past. So his merit was all the greater.

Im sure you all know the story of Socrates' life: how he married Xanthippe and how he strolled through the streets and public places of Athens, teaching his fellow citizens simply by talking to them and asking them awkward questions. Although he was very popular with the people, his integrity and outspokenness gained him some powerful enemies and, in a plot to get rid of him, they arrested him on trumpedup charges of corrupting the youth of Athens and he was condemned to drink the cup of hemlock.

Socrates could certainly have escaped death if he had wanted to, but he refused and it was precisely because he was conscious of his innocence that he was able to accept his sentence so fearlessly. What calmness and courage he demonstrated in his last moments! You have probably read the account of his farewell to the gaoler who told him that the time had come for him to drink the poison, of how he asked the man who brought him the cup exactly what he should do and how he followed his instructions to the letter. Then there was that encounter with his disciples shortly before he died... After all these centuries, the death of Socrates still lives as something unique in the memory of men.

You may say, 'Surely, he must have had special guidance?' Yes, of course. All the sages are guided. How could the Invisible World abandon a sage who possesses truth and respects the laws of God? Socrates was constantly accompanied by an entity which he called his daemon (the meaning of this in Greek has nothing to do with the Christian notion of the Devil or of Hell). Socrates' daemon was a very exalted spirit who guided and counselled him. All sages have one – sometimes several – of these guides.

If young people would only accept to learn, they would discover within themselves all the same truths and laws that the sages have discovered over the ages by observing what went on in nature and comparing it with what they saw happening in themselves. All sages come to the conclusion that life is based on laws of harmony, disinterestedness and love and that, if one fails to respect these laws, everything falls apart. This is how moral laws were discovered. And what I find especially inspiring in Socrates is that he understood that what matters most is the way you live. In this he was very different from other philosophers and sophists of his day who claimed to know all that physics and metaphysics had to teach and be able to discourse about everything. Socrates concentrated on the study of man; he adopted as his personal motto the famous inscripition from the temple of Delphi, 'Know thyself'. All true Masters have the same philosophy. What is good and true for one is good and true for them all; they all teach the same ethic, the same philosophical system. Depending on time and place, there will be some minor differences, but the fundamental principles are always identical.

Initates refuse to have anything to do with anarchy because they know only too well that they would be the first to be affected by the ensuing illness, disorder and destruction; that anarchy would destroy them. As soon as you open your heart to the seeds of dissolution, invisible currents and forces begin to ravage your whole being. It won't happen all at once, of course; but, little by little, you will disintegrate. Even physical health depends on obedience to this universal order – call it what you will: synarchy, hierarchy or divine monarchy – and, once a man begins to establish that order within himself, every part of him finds its balance and he dwells in peace, harmony and beauty. He is illuminated and strengthened; he receives new life and begins to vibrate in unison with the whole cosmos, with the Heavenly regions above.

He becomes a gushing spring, an ever-flowing source of light; radiance streams from him. This is the higher man, the ideal man that we are all meant o be, instead of being a door flung wide to every destructive current that swirls round us in the form of anarchistic philosophies and ideologies. All those, be they individuals, families, social groups or whole countries... all who open themselves to these currents destroy themselves. The law is absolute and it is essential to give it an important place in one's life.

Blessed are they who understand this! They have the power to trigger unlimited forces within their own being and then to see how these eternal forces work within them to liberate and transform them. And those harum-scarum bunches of young rebels with their black flags must realize that they will not succeed in destroying society. Society needs to be improved and it will be, but only by good example, word and selflessness.

Sooner or later, in the presence of these qualities, things are bound to change. The attempt to change things in any other way can only justify those who say, ' The more things change, the more the filth is the same!'

Without light there will never be any real change. There is no need to invent new systems, revolutionary or otherwise. Nothing needs to be invented, all the solutions we need have already been invented by Nature. All we have to do is rediscover them.

According to initiatic science, an anarchist is someone who refuses to submit to the divine order of creation, and this means that nine-tenths of all human beings should be classed as anarchists. People's understanding of anarchy is usually based on political or social criteria, but these are inadequate; the only true anarchy is anarchy in relation to heaven. Of course, in actual fact, many people are double anarchical, being anarchical in their attitude both towards earth and towards heaven.

Think of the parable of the prodigal son, who left his father's house because he was bored and went out into the world in search of freedom and adventure. To begin with, he enjoyed the novelty of it all, but his enjoyment did not last long and his fortunes gradually deteriorated.

Wherever he went he was a foreigner, and people distrusted him and refused to give him work. So the poor young man began to suffer from hunger, thirst, and bitter cold; he had nothing to eat and nowhere to live, and he began to regret having left his father's house. He remembered that there he had had everything he needed; everybody knew who he was, and his father and mother and the whole family loved him. He knew now from his own experience that neither love nor pity ruled the world, and so, a wiser and a humbler man, he decided to go back home. And his father recognized his son in the miserable, half-starved creature who appeared before him dressed in rags and covered with dust. The Gospel adds that he welcomed him with open arms and ordered the fatted calf to be killed to celebrate his return. Of course, his brother was rather angry at all this and grumbled a bit, but the father soothed his feelings and reminded him that he should be generous to someone who was destitute.

The story of the prodigal son is the story of all those who, instead of living in harmony with divine law, want to do exactly as they like and take pleasure in being anarchical. And, as I have said, the worst form of anarchy is that which reigns within man. This is why the goal of all initiatic schools is to induce human beings to return to their Father's house, to the safety of that 'secret place' of which Psalm 91 speaks ('He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty... He is my refuge and my fortress; my God, in him I will trust'), and which the forces of evil cannot enter. Human beings always seem to be glad to get away from this secret place in which they are under the protection of the Lord. They are eager to live their lives in their own way by breaking God's laws and getting as far away from him as possible. Well, let me tell you that people like that have a great deal of suffering in store for them. Their constant tendency to be out of step and to disobey means that their destiny requires them to suffer. But those who have already suffered a great deal, and whose sufferings have brought them understanding, are ready to return to their Father, to that 'secret place'. This is why they join a spiritual brotherhood, an initiatic school, for to do so symbolizes a return to the divine order.

Many years ago I talked to you about this 'secret place' in which man is unvulnerable. It is a world of such harmony, a world in which the vibrations are so intense and so pure, that the slightest negative element is immediately rejected and cast out. Jesus said: 'I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.' This expresses exactly the same idea. Find and take refuge in this fortress, therefore, so that you may be protected and nourished. How can anyone fail to understand this? Human beings are all anarchists, they all want to break away from the Lord in the hope of getting something more, something which, in fact, they can never get. Before launching out blindly like that, they would do much better to study the laws and understand how things are likely to turn out. But they are like the prodigal son: he too should have seen what life was like in his father's house and compared it with the life he would find in the outside world, where men claw, bite and hack their way to success. But he did not study anything, the poor wretch; he just imagined what he would find. And this is what all anarchists do, they imagine. This is why I advise you all to examine the whole question very thoroughly to see what is in store for you if you continue on the path of anarchy.

This question of laws is so easy to understand. Suppose you overeat: you will not be prosecuted in the name of any you overeat: you will not be prosecuted in the name of any human law - no policeman will come and arrest you - but you will suffer from acute indigestion. In the name of what law are you laid low and put to bed? The laws of nature are not those of human beings.

Human beings will come and see you and commiserate with you in bed, but however much they sympathize, they will not be able to cure you; only nature can cure you. If you start to obey the laws of nature again you will be cured. You must learn these laws of nature, the divine laws that rule the intellect, the heart, and the physical body. You should know exactly what everything you say and do represents in the way of energy, see where these energies go, and make sure that they do not disturb or harm anyone. In the Tales from from the Arabian Nights there is a story about a merchant who sat down to rest from his travels and eat some dates, and as he ate he threw the stones carelessly in different directions. Suddenly, a monstrous genie appeared and declared that he would kill him. 'But why?' stammered the unfortunate merchant; 'What have I done?' 'When you were throwing those stones away,' replied the genie, 'my son was passing by, and you threw one into his eye and killed him. Therefore I must kill you.' Of course this is only a legend, but there is great meaining in it.

There is also a popular tradition that when one goes out at night one must carry a light. This external light symbolizes the inner lamp that you must keep burning in order to protect yourself against evil spirits. For just as wild beasts hunt their prey at night, so do many evil spirits roam freely at night, seeking to harm human beings, until at cock-crow they are obliged to disapear.

But human beings are so ignorant; they leave their doors wide open night and day for any entity to enter and lay waste their inner world.

So there you are, my dear brothers and sisters, do as you please; cut yourselves off from the Lord and maintain your independence if you like, and you will see what your destiny will be. For my part, I do not need to wait and see; I already know what it will be. How do I know that? I only have to see a person's attitude and I can immediately sense what he wants from life. The goals of those who cut themselves off from God and from the fellowship of initiates, who turn their back on the light, are necessarily extremely banal and mundane. They want wealth, power and glory; they want to be able to gratify their appetite for food and drink and sexual pleasure. In other words, their ideal is not very lofty; on the contrary, they spend their time in the filth and slime of the lowest regions, and the only possible outcome is misfortune and suffering. As you see, I only need to know a person's ideal and I can immediately tell you what his final destination will be; he will end up exactly where his final destination will be; he will end up exactly where his ideal has led him. When you possess initiatic science, nothing is easier than to prophesy. When you know which track a train is running on, you know exactly which towns it will go through and where it will end up. Every station-master is a prophet. And astronomers are prophets too, because they can tell you the exactly where the planets will be years in advance. All those who are really proficient in any science are prophets. Predictions for the future are based on an occult science.

There, this is what I wanted to say about anarchy. All these intellectuals who think they are God's gift to mankind must learn that their philosophy of breaking away from the centre can only lead to enslavement and total restriction, for there can be no freedom far from the centre. What is in store for you if you withdraw form the light and warmth of the sun? Darkness, cold and death. And the sun symbolizes the initiatic confraternity. The Psalmist says, 'I walk before the Lord in the land of the living.' and this 'land of the living' is the true confraternity, the sun, for in the sun dwell the noblest, most luminous of beings. That which we call sunlight is the vibrations, emanations and radiations of these incandescent beings. The light that illuminates the planets comes not from the sun itself but from the sun's inhabitants. The sun is a richly fertile, cultivated land, a very advanced civilization, and it is the inhabitants of this land that project light out into space. All this will one day be discovered by scientists, but initiates have known it for ages, for they have travelled in their etheric bodies into every region of space and visited the sun and the other planets. Believe me or not, as you please, but I am telling you the truth.

It is a great mistake to think that to belong to an initiatic contraternity implies that you have to restrict yourself and forfeit your freedom; on the contrary, only in such a confraternity will man find freedom and happiness. True self-realization can be achieved only in the one true brotherhood, the Great White Brotherhood which exists in the higher world and of which our own Brotherhood here on earth is nor more than a reflection. Also, if you think that it depends on your decision to belong or not to belong to that great Brotherhood, that too is an illusion. Some people may say that they do not want belong to, but the truth is that they would not be accepted. If they were worthy to join it, they would be eager to do so, but it is not all comers who can be accepted just as they are. Each one has to work for years and years and prove that they are worthy before being allowed to join this confraternity. Perhaps you will say, 'But I have never done anything to earn it, and yet I have been accepted as a member of the Universal White Brotherhood.' Yes, but the Brotherhood here on earth is no more than a vestibule; it is not yet the Holy of Holies. It is much more difficult to be accepted into the Brotherhood on high, but once you are accepted your name is inscribed in heaven and you receive all the gifts and all the help you need every day; just as the employees of a company here on earth receive a salary, family allowances, and so on.

Perhaps you are thinking, 'Where on earth does he get all that?' Well, you have read the Gospels: surely you remember that Jesus said, 'See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.' Once your name is written in the book of life you will not be forgotten. You will be given strength, health and joy. You will feel that support, advice and guidance are bestowed on you, and even if you do have to endure trials and difficulties, you will find either that they will not last so long as they used to or that you are stronger and more able to deal with them. This is the Gospel, the living Gospel; and it is up to you now to make the necessary effort to enter this fortress, this secret place, for once you are there you will be safe. There is a Sanskrit text that says, 'A pilgrim has reached the far bank of the river, an arhat is born, a new dvija, a saviour of the world,' and in Christianity this idea is expressed by the quest for the Holy Grail. In one form or another, all religions speak of this confraternity under the rulership of Christ.

Human beings look for a confraternity to join, of course, but never this one. They prefer to join a political confraternity and are ready to be massacred for an ideology that will soon be out of fashion and replaced by another one. They are not interested in putting themselves at the service of an ideal that would make them immortal and invinvible. But for heaven's sake, if they really want to shed their blood, why cannot they at least choose a cause that is eternal? They just do not use their brains; they sell their freedom for too little. All their brave words about the price of freedom are just that, words. The truth is that they do not care two hoots for their freedom, their life, their blood. Someone who really wants to save his life entrusts it to a bank that will never become insolvent; to the bank of the sun, not to a ship that is sinking because it has a hole in its hull. I was still very young when I realized that I should never achieve very much if I relied on my own freedom, my own will, and my own intelligence. This is why I did everything possible to enter the divine order of the Universal White Brotherhood. And if you, for your part, continue to believe that you will achieve great things on your own without this confraternity, I can prophesy that what you gain in this way will be far less than what you would gain by joining it.

To possess your own house and have money in the bank - is that your idea of success? If so, when it is time to depart for the next world you will see that you have worked in vain - or, rather, you have been working for the benefit of thieves. So acquire all the material possessions you want, but know that you will be obliged to leave them all behind; whereas the things you acquire through your spiritual work will always be yours, and you will take them with you into the next world. Wherever you go, your capital, your wealth, all your precious stones will go with you and will benefit the whole world. You will probably think that what I am saying is very difficult to understand; it is as though I were speaking an unknown language. You would all understand me if I talked about higher mathematics, but people no longer understand the language I speak, although it seems to me that nothing could be clearer.

It is not a sign of intelligence and freedom to refuse to submit to the great laws of the Universal White Brotherhood. The Gospels tell us that we are all obliged to serve a master. If we refuse to serve Christ and the light, we shall be obliged to serve the devil and the powers of darkness. This is a law. People say, 'Oh, you know, this thing about Christ and the light is not for me. I cannot accept that.' Well, if that is your attitude, you too will be unable to avoid falling into the power of dark forces. Those who seek to be free in their own way cannot find true freedom; they will find only slavery. They are influenced and controlled by other entities. Their ignorance is such that they are easily hoodwinked into thinking that they are following their own wishes and making their own decisions, while in fact they are working for others. Human beings are like children; they just do not understand. When small children want to be free, they are liable to do all kinds of stupid and dangerous things that will restrict their freedom even more. Young people - and adults, too, for that matter - have no more understanding of freedom than a baby. Only the wise know that if you want to be free you have to impose limitations on yourself. Others, on the pretext that they want to be free, let their wild beasts out of their cages, and then they are torn apart and devoured by them.

I happened to switch on the television yesterday, and what did I see? Four hairy ruffians who looked like animals, screaming and gesticulating incoherently. This, apparently, was a concert. Never have I heard anything so repulsive and discordant. But the audience - mostly young boys and girls - were wildly enthusiastic, clapping and jumping up and down and twisting about in hideous contortions. I could not help feeling sad at the sight. I thought to myself, 'My God, how can anyone understand human nature today? What is it in man's soul that has the power to estrange him from beauty to such an extent? How can four such villainous creatures be such a popular success? I am not so strict and narrow-minded as to condemn young people for wanting to express their vitality and joy, but there was no joy here at all; the movements which should have been an expression of vitality were no more than horrible, unsightly contortions. Wild animals! Yes, the doors of their cages had been flung wide open, and they were prowling about, devouring whatever good there was in those so-called musicians while the crowd looked on and applauded.

Seeing this, I almost lost hope of ever leading human beings to something beautiful and meaning ful. They are going to have to go all the way, they are going to have to touch bottom. How can people like that understand the magnificent laws of nature? They have never done any work on themselves; they do not even know that there is work to be done. The only thing they know is how to open the cages of their own wild animals. And they call that freedom, liberation. Yes, they are liberated, independent - unleashed.

Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov

Thread: From Synarchy to Shambhala