Unknown Teacher.
Subject: “Be Great or Be Useful.”
Received by Oscar.
Teacher: “It’s only fair that shelter and food
should be universally provided for everybody as a birth right. However, at this time, this idea would bring chaos, and in
the span of one generation it could bring the total collapse of civilization. The idea is a good one, but it is not the right
moment to implement it if we consider the current moral level of the majority of the population.
“All human beings must accept the responsibility for
contributing to society in some way. Even those who lack the ideal physical or metal attributes can find a function to fulfill,
to help retain the level of civilization. Altruism and compassion are valuable. Loving service to others should not be forgotten,
but the young must be educated in such a way that they learn the value of work as a civilizing agent and as an expression
of the self.
“Work has two purposes that are equally important: to
serve as a generator of income by producing what is required for the satisfaction of material needs; and to provide a service
to the group – our personal value to society. Using these two attributes several occupations of your modern civilization
can easily be identified as useless. At the same time, many occupations considered as unimportant and of little worth in today's
world, can be re-evaluated. Many among you are busy in activities that are only good to make money, but don’t provide
any added value for the group. Others work tirelessly without any kind of recognition. The difference is that the first group
could disappear without consequences for the future, while the absence of the second group would be immediately noticed.
“The danger of the current situation – the selfish
pursuit of fortune without concern about producing something useful, together with the underestimation of certain roles so
very valuable to society – is that future generations focus their efforts towards satisfying their ego instead of trying
to do something to leave a better world for those who come after. The mindset after the horror of the Second World War was
to improve the situation of those times, but today’s civilization is dangerously focused on the satisfaction of pleasures
for the self and the achievement of immediate and temporal goals. This is the reason why you can observe a regression in morality
and spirituality in contrast with that of the nineteen-forties, fifties, and sixties.
“One of you once said, ‘Many are trying to be
great, but few are trying to be useful.’ Open your eyes and let the light of the Spirit within yourselves show the way.
World changes are born in the hearts of human beings and it is there that our Universal Father lives and waits to guide us.
Those who seek to know the Will of the Father become useful to their siblings and thus are really great in the eyes of God.”
John
