Transcription
I don't usually do this, but I'm gonna steal something. There is something, I don't even know what it is, at the museum, across the street from here, and I've heard that it is extremely valuable. I'm just going to take it.
It turns out that I'm not supposed to steal. Like, this commandment about not stealing, that's what was here. Why would they stick this in this museum and have this laser light protection system on it? That's exactly what we're going to find out today. This commandment is incredibly important and relevant to your and everybody's life. We're going to investigate exactly why right now.
So in this episode, we're talking about not committing spiritual theft, and that the command "Don't steal" is in the Bible. I mean, that's how we came to it here. It was in the Ten Commandments.
I've got to tell you something about the Bible. The Bible always has layers to it. That's why it's important. There's other books that can tell you good things. What the Bible does, according to Swedenborg, is it's got the natural level and then the spiritual level and then the celestial or heavenly level all stacked on top of each other. So there's a single command like "Don't steal" that has these different layers that apply to different parts of you and different phases in your life. So there's like a... it's like a pyramid of good stuff. It's a pyramid of wisdom. Jesus Christ, when he was in the world, he was starting to open that up for people. Because everybody knew "thou shalt not steal," but he started to say like, oh, you know, there's more in there. So what we're looking at in this episode is the more that's in there. But you can't just leave the literal level alone. You can't just toss it out. You can't just... It's like, you talk about shallow stuff and deep stuff. It's not like, oh yeah, nobody needs that shallow part of the ocean. That's where like a ton of the species live. That's where you go on vacations. So there's a shallow and the deep and they co-exist.
So we're going to start just talking about "don't steal." There's a command from God that says don't steal, and it just means on the first level, don't steal anything. Have you ever been stolen from? Let me give you a story. When I was little, when I was around fourth grade, there was this game that came out. It's called Magic Cards, or it's called Magic the Gathering. And in this game, you had like a deck of cards (stop me if you've heard this) but it wasn't like fours and fives and sixes. It was like creatures that you could summon or spells you could cast and you tried to collect a deck of cards and your friend would have the other one and you'd try to, like, beat each other by having the right creatures and spells and everything. And the way that you got more cards... Believe me, this was the coolest thing around then. I don't know, I don't know what year it was. Um, the way you got more cards was, it was random. You had to go to the store, and you could buy a little pack with like 15 cards in it, and you didn't know what you were going to get. You can't say, I want this card and this card. You didn't know what was going to be in there.
I remember one time I was at the store with my mom and my friend, and I bought this pack, and I was excited because I was a kid, so I opened it up in the store, and I looked in there and was like, Oh. There's good cards in here. Now there was one that was named the Serrah Angel. I forget what she did, but she was good, and I knew that she was good. And there were a few others. And I was like, "This is such a good pack!" And I was so excited because as a kid, I showed it to the guy who ran the store. I said, "Look at this! Look what I got in here!" And there was another kid in the store who was older than me. And he was like, "Can I see that? Can I see what cards you got?" And I was like, "Yeah, sure, you can see that." And so I gave him it, and he kind of was looking through, and then gave it back to me. And I was like, okay. And then I went, I was going home, driving home with my friend and my mom, and I looked at my cards again. Dude, he stole them. Not all of them, but the good ones. He went through, snuck those good ones out of there, and I didn't have them. I was... I remember I was throwing this fit in the back of the car, because man, those were my cards. Obviously, I didn't starve because I didn't have those cards. There's, there's stealing that can hurt people a lot more than that. Although, if you're watching, kid, can I have my cards back, please?
There's much more serious stealing. Human society cannot function if you steal. It's just not the way it works. So that's the literal level of the commandment.
But what I don't want you to think is that the internal sense of the commandment is just kind of the sneakier versions of stealing. This is from Swedenborg's Doctrine of Life, number 80. "In earthly terms, theft means not only theft and robbery, but also cheating and taking other people's assets by some pretext." And then in Revelation Explained, "Stealing here does not just mean blatant stealing. It also means subtle forms of stealing, like usury, or taking advantage of people by various types of fraud or cunning, which either look legal or are done secretly so that no one knows. This sort of exploitation may be engaged in by money managers of large and small accounts, by businessmen, or by judges who make justice a commodity by selling their decisions." So it's not like, oh, the outer level of this commandment is don't go and grab something from someone or snatch their purse, but the inner level is like white-collar... No, anything, including corruption, anything that takes intellectual property, all that is about taking possessions from people. That's all just on the first level. Don't do that. You've started the journey. And this is something that it's not just in the Ten Commandments God is constantly talking about, don't do that. Don't steal that stuff. Leviticus. "You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him." (Magic cards.) "For I, the Lord, love justice. I hate robbery and wrong." "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." So stealing isn't good. That's the first layer.
However, there's more to people than their possessions, and there's a kind of theft you can do that doesn't touch anybody's assets, but steals something even more valuable from them, and that's the spiritual meaning of this commandment. So don't steal people's regular stuff. That's layer one. Layer two is don't steal their spiritual stuff. "Spiritually understood, theft means depriving others of the truths of their faith and the good actions motivated by their goodwill." There's physical wealth, but there's also spiritual wealth. You have stuff that occupies a certain part of your consciousness. These are the principles that you hold sacred and that lead you to good actions in your life. Somebody might have that it's important to pray in their spiritual piggy bank, that they... it's something that's in their mind, they use it, it brings some good results. And most importantly, God can actually use that to bring them closer to him. Maybe it's, uh, you know, the eightfold path is in there. Maybe it's "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." These are things that really guide somebody's actions day to day. That's your spiritual bank account. Like, how much money you have in your bank account? Because what matters more is how much is in here. Because when you die, there's no more... all the wealth is gone. But, but the wealth you had in here is still there, and that determines the kind of person you are, the kind of life you live after death. But this can be messed with. "The reason you shall not steal has this symbolism, is due to stealing being a symbol for taking away someone's spiritual values. The spiritual meaning of riches and wealth is an awareness of what is good and what is true. These values are basically anything that has to do with our faith and our goodwill toward others, and therefore they relate to our spiritual life. Taking these away from someone is the spiritual meaning of stealing." If you're ridiculing somebody's beliefs, if you're mocking them, if you're trying to convince them that something that is actually true that they believe, if you're trying to... "No, it's not really true. Believe this falsity instead." Or you're trying to... something that is actually evil, you convince them that it's good. All of that is the theft of their spiritual riches. This is destroying this store of goodness and truth that is their spiritual wealth that God uses to lead them to him. When you steal from somebody, everything that they've saved up, you're just destroying it. So, God gives the command, don't do that. Make sure that this doesn't happen. Because God understands how important this... Yes, I realize this is a piggy bank, but this symbolizes your spiritual goodness and truth you have stored up in you. God understands that this is a really important part of what makes you who you are. "Our religion is absolutely central to our nature and everything else about us derives from that center." And then further in Secrets of Heaven 25, quoting Isaiah, "'A crushed reed he does not break, and smoldering flax he does not quench. He propels judgment toward truth.' In other words, [what that means is] the Lord does not break our illusions or extinguish our cravings, but bends them toward truth and goodness." So even if somebody's got some beliefs in here that are not totally accurate, they can still do good, and God is not going to smash that. He's just going to slowly move it, change it, because it works well enough to get you to heaven. So that's an important process. That's the means by which God is trying to accomplish the purpose of creation in everyone, which is a heaven from the human race. So don't mess with that. Spiritual stealing messes with that. It's kind of like you're, you're getting in between God and that person, or you're, you're kind of playing God, or taking God's place when you do that.
Which actually, that then gets us to the inmost meaning of this commandment. Hey, thanks for watching. I hope you're enjoying the program. I hope that you find the perspective that's in it refreshing, a nice break from everything else. We need your help. There's no big corporate interest in making content like the content we make. We entirely depend on donations. We're a not for profit. If you don't say, I want this message in the world, I'm going to donate, it goes away. So please consider. There's a link right in the description. Any contribution you can make is a way to not only make sure you can keep seeing our stuff, but make sure the next person comes across it on the internet, and it changes their life, like I've heard from so many people, and like the way that it's changed my life as well. So support us, please. It means the world to us. It's how we can do what we do. Okay, back to the show.
Okay, so in the inmost meaning of the commandment "Thou shalt not steal, you don't steal" is talking about: don't steal from God. What are you talking about? How, how am I gonna pull that? You think about Ocean's Eleven and oh, they can barely... all these guys have to get together to pull off a heist from a casino. How many George Cloonies does it take to steal from God? What are you talking about, "steal from God"? And also, stealing from God, this layer of the Ten Commandments... The first two, they were mainly about don't hurt your neighbor, don't steal your neighbor's things, don't mess up your neighbor's mind. Of course, you can't do that and love doing it without hurting yourself, too. But this third one, don't steal from God, this protection is there so that we don't mess ourselves up. God will be okay. But this is how you steal from God. Don't do it, but this is how you do it. "You shall not steal, symbolizes not taking away anyone's spiritual values, [we already know that] or attributing to oneself what belongs to the Lord... All of our spiritual values, everything related to our faith and our goodwill toward others, come solely from the Lord. Absolutely none of them come from ourselves. Accordingly, stealing is also a symbol for attributing to ourselves what belongs to the Lord."
This could be the most out-there idea in Swedenborg, and it was one that took him a long time to get used to. Some people might be right there, but the idea that the stuff in you -- I'm talking about, like, your good ideas, and your thoughts, and your ability to have intelligence, and the love you have for people and all that -- that comes from somewhere. And in this case, the good stuff, the love that moves you and is actually genuine, and the true ideas, that is, God is handing you those things. I mean, perpetually, but the credit for the making of those was God. God does that and gives it to you. So, if you're displaying God's characteristics, if you're displaying kindness, generosity, talent, skill, any kind of... anything that trends toward perfection, and you say... and you use that to pump yourself up above other people and say, "Look what I did," that's stealing from God. Because God gave you that. You would be nothing without it, no offense. I would be nothing without it as well. God is never going to rub that in your face. But, if you do that, if you say, this is my stuff, it will make it so you're not happy. You cannot be happy in that state. Because, there's a particular state of happiness, there's only one state of happiness, that lasts and increases the more you go on, and that is called heaven. And heaven is a state of mind in which you love to do useful things for people. So you enjoy just the act in the process of making life better for someone, finding ways to serve people. That is not the only thing you enjoy, but that's the main, that's the best thing. That's the thing that your life revolves around. That's called heaven. As soon as you focus your life on yourself... You can do that, that's fine, but you're not in heaven. Like that's not, you don't get that happiness of heaven. That's why angels even are very keenly aware of this "You shall not steal" commandment in its inmost meaning. Angels, by the way, are just people like you and I who have lived both kinds of lives. Meaning, when they were people on this earth, they did the ego thing. They were trying to live that life where you're like, Ah, this person's pretty good, but am I better? Can I outdo them? I want everything to serve me. It's not that great. They've seen the heavenly life too, and they want that more. Here, this is what Swedenborg says about it. "Angels themselves openly admit that on their own they have no wisdom or understanding. They even become upset if others attribute any to them. They know and sense that to take credit for it would be to deny the divine his divinity and lay claim to what is theirs, which would be to commit the crime of spiritual theft." So they don't want to do it. Angels in heaven -- I'm talking about people in the afterlife who have continued to grow in love and wisdom and are in the highest state that human beings can get in -- they don't want to steal from God. And it's not because, God's right here, he's gonna, like, he's coming down with the hammer of justice on us. He'll know! It's because they understand that it's detrimental, not to the Lord, but to their own happiness. "Angels also say that everything of their own is evil and false, whether they inherited it or acquired it by their life and deeds in the world. But the Lord withholds them from it and anchors them in goodness and truth." Remember, angels, these are, like, the best kind of people. They're the people that people go and meet in near-death experiences and say, This being was so full of love and light. Those people say, Hey, without God lifting me up, but for the grace of God, there go I. "People who do not acknowledge this [this is why this is so important to understand] cannot enjoy the light of wisdom and understanding that radiates from the Lord, which means that they cannot enjoy goodness and truth." Because if you're not aware of how things really work, how can you enjoy the light of truth? The whole thing, the whole reason that anything exists -- I'm talking about the whole world, and I'm talking about all of divine order, and all the commandments that God gives to you -- according to Swedenborg, the function of all these is the primary goal of creation, which is what Swedenborg calls a heaven from the human race. Reality was designed with the intent that human beings would be deeply and profoundly happy in a mutually-loving, interdependent community, which is the whole human race and God together. And the way that you get there is through not stealing from people. That, that is one of the main ways in which this can happen. And this is not just something that happens when you're off in the afterlife. Right now, heaven is something you can be in right now. All it takes is not stealing on these three levels. Because to do any of those is not just because it says it's bad in the book, but because it really messes things up. And that's the only reason why God would care to tell you about it, because it's going to have an impact on you, and the divine intent is that you should be happy. That is one of the main ways in which this can happen.
So today we learned that there are three layers of meaning in this commandment not to steal. The first one is: don't steal. Don't take people's stuff. Don't do it in a sneaky way. Don't do it in a direct way. Leave people's possessions for them, that they're theirs. The second layer, though, that's within that is: don't steal goodness and truth out of people's minds. So if people have concepts that they believe that are pointing them towards love, pointing them towards God, and they're using them to live a good life, don't mess that up. Don't take that from them. And the third layer, going all the way deep into the core of this, is: don't steal from God. The good things you can do, the abilities you have, even your life, that comes from God. So acknowledge that and use it in the way that God would want you to use it. That's not stealing from God. That's a lot of rules. Why have them? Oh, it's because, like everything that the Divine does, it's for your happiness. If we do these things, it opens up and unclogs the happiness pathways in us. I'm going to end reading a little excerpt from Swedenborg's Doctrine of Life, which talks about this. "The reason we love honesty to the extent that we turn our backs on theft as a sin is that theft is also deception. And deception and honesty are two opposite things. This means that to the extent that we are not devoted to deception, we are devoted to honesty. Honesty also means integrity, fairness, faithfulness and morality. On our own, we cannot be devoted to these, so as to love them for what they are, for their own sake. But if we turn our backs on deception, guile, and trickery as sins, we have a devotion to these virtues that comes not from ourselves, but from the Lord. If we fail to turn our backs on evils because they are sins, the cravings of our evils clog the deeper levels of our earthly mind, on the side where our will resides, and are like a thick veil, like black clouds beneath the spiritual mind, preventing it from opening. However, as soon as we turn our backs on evils, because they are sins, the Lord flows in from heaven, takes the veil away, dispels the cloud, and opens the spiritual mind, thereby admitting us to heaven." And heaven is happiness. That's the really valuable thing. That's why this is worth putting up in a museum because it's gonna get you to heaven.