The True Witness:
Metaphysical 9th Commandment and 9th Law of Prosperity

As we studied previously the 1st Four Commandments of Moses and the 1st Four Laws of Prosperity give us the rules for the right relationship with Spirit. To refresh your memory they are:

1. God and I are One.
2. Worship no False Idols or Graven Images, instead Put Spirit First.
3. Thou shalt not take the “I am” name of Spirit, thy God, in vain.
4. It is always the Sabbath Day. We honor it by Consciously spending time with Spirit in thought and in deed.

Metaphysical 1st Four Laws of Prosperity are as follows:

1. Thou Shalt look to no other Source but Spirit for thy Supply.
2. Thou Shalt make no Mental Images of Lack.
3. Thou Shalt not speak the Word of Lack or Limitation; thus, taking the “I Am” Name of Spirit in Vain.
4. Let Go and Let God Do it.

The Last 6th Metaphysical Commandments give us practical instructions in living a happy, healthy life, and staying in right relationship with each other and with life in general.

The next 4 Metaphysical Commandments that we have thus far are:

5. Recognize Spirit as the Only Cause, 1st Principle in two Polarities, thinking and feeling. When we have this recognition our days will be long and blessed.
6. No one can seem to hurt You but Yourself: but, even You cannot do that for Energy, which you are, cannot be created nor destroyed.
7. Thou Shalt not commit Adultery by turning away in any way from Spirit. As well, thou shalt not Covet anything that is not Yours for there is an inexhaustible Source that will come to You and fit You much better.
8. Without the correct Consciousness, Thou canst not Steal.

5. Thou Shalt dealt Honorably with God, or Spirit, and with all human instruments, through which Spirit is manifested in You.
6. Thou Shalt not take Thy Wealth Out of Circulation.
7. Thou Shalt not debase Thy Wealth to vile or evil uses, learning to use it wisely is a challenge.
8. Thou Shalt not Seek Something for Nothing.

We have finally reached the place where we can go deeper into this study of the Laws of Life. I am not certain but this Commandment, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” Exodus 20:16; could be the most important of all the Commandments, when we properly understand it.

First, the obvious meaning is very important, although as always, it is only the beginning. It means simply “Do not tell lies about people.” It seems very obvious; but, even the best of people at times screw it up. Take politics for example. Many people have a slight tendency to excessive criticism of the other side! Have you noticed that, especially around election time? In England, people “stand” for parliament; but in America, they run for Congress. Something is different. As soon as a person runs for mayor, or governor, or president, it seems in this country he or she is accused of every foul thing the opposing party can find about him or her. If this continues, one day people with a high sense of honor will no longer run for office at all. It won't be worth it. Thus, it is very important not to attack people in politics in an unfair way. Now I don't mean to say that we can not criticize Mr. Jones' policies; but, we can not say he is a crook or a wife beater, especially if we have seen an interaction with Mrs. Jones and know quite well that it is probably the other way around!

A generation or two ago, it was the custom for ministers of different religions to vilify each other. The Episcopalians were told just where the Baptists were going, and most Baptists already knew where the Episcopalians were going! The 7th Day Adventists and Catholics did not have great things to say about one another. Read some of the old sermons, if you don't believe me. Fortunately this practice does not go on so much today. At least not openly from the pulpit. Yet, even privately, we have to apply this principle of not bearing false witness right throughout our lives. It is a very important practice because whatever you say about another person will happen to you. That is the Law of Karma or The Law of Being. If you lie about another person, that is an unpleasant word, but I am using it anyway because it is the right word in this case; someone will lie about you. Jesus told us this in the 7th Chapter of Matthew, verses 1 and 2. He said, “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again,”.

What about slander, backbiting, or gossip? There has been a terrific amount of suffering and injustice in the world caused just by malicious gossip, usually untrue or distorted. And remember, the person listening, is just as bad as the speaker. If there is no listener, there can be no gossip. Some ministers will say that we shall be punished by Spirit for bearing false witness; but, that is not the truth, we are not punished by Spirit, but rather by the Law of Being, I just told you what Jesus said, “...as ye mete, so shall it be meted unto you.” That is the Law of Karma, the Law of Being, plain and simple.

Now all that I have just talked about are the obvious or surface meaning of this commandment. “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” But let's look at the deeper, more metaphysical meaning. The real or Fundamental meaning is that you always express what you are. You cannot be one thing and express another. Emerson says, “What you are shouts so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.” It is a wonderful saying. We can fool a few people for a little while; but sooner or later, what we are comes out, and sensible people mentally place us where we belong.

So once again, “Thou shalt not” really means “You Can not.” As long as we are a witness to error, we are bearing false testimony, and our business is to witness to the Truth of Being.

What is “The Truth of Being”? The Truth of Being is health, harmony, joy, freedom of expression, dominion.

Are we witnessing to that? Probably not yet. We all have limitations of some kind, some difficulty, some fault of character. So to that extent each one of us is bearing false witness, and it is because of this that we have troubles and difficulties. We have dominion over all things; yet, we are witnessing to limitations, poverty, depression, pain, all boiling down to fear.

The very rich people are just as full of fear as the poor people. 50 % I suspect of the people, who consult me, have money, and 50 % are hard up. I think on a whole the ones who are poor are better off. You see, those who are poor think that if only they could make ends meet, they'd be OK; but, the rich don't even have that easy answer. They already have the money but are miserable in spite of it. The poor man fears his financial limitations. The rich man fears that he will lose his money or the government will take it away. Both are witnessing to limitation.

People are also witnessing to mental limitations. Men and women, even today, especially our young people, do not realize more than fraction of their potentialities. Without reading a single new book, there is not a single person, who could not go right out and do some very wonderful, worthwhile thing. The problem is they don't have it in their consciousness that they can do it. We need a vision. Where there is no vision, the people will perish. It is just another way of bearing false witness.

Again, the Bible says, “Thou shalt not bear false witness”; but, as long as we are demonstrating or expressing limited bodies, sickness, what we call middle or old age, or are in possession of anything but perfect health, perfect freedom, perfect happiness, we are bearing false witness. It may be a fact that a person's body is giving indications of being sick but that person is not his body. The body is part of that persons' life experience; but, that person is much more than the body. To say that the person is sick is actually a lie. Bearing false witness. yet, to recognize that the body is sick is a fact. Webster's Dictionary defines a fact as an actual occurrence. You may add two and two and get five, but five is not the truth. Carrying this concept to prosperity, we can say that the fact is that the pocketbook is empty right now; but, that is not the same as saying “I am Poor.” The truth is that I am a child of God and I am filled with and surrounded with abundance of all kinds. Our circumstances will tell us at any given time just how much of God or Spirit we are willing to let flow through us. Life does not happen to us, it happens through us. Yet let us not add to the problem and beat ourselves up. Who of us has the consciousness of the Buddha, of Jesus? Even Mother Theresa had her doubts. Each of us needs to spend time really looking at ourselves in the mirror, not just a peek, really looking and saying, “Am I a true Divine Being?” “Am I the full expression of Spirit's Man?”

You will be bearing true witness to your neighbor when you are regenerated in soul; for, when the soul is regenerated, the body will be as well. What is regeneration? Generation means creating; regeneration means recreating. It does not mean patching up the old. It means generating or creating a new body. That was Jesus' message; but, few of us got it.

Once a bishop traveling in Africa visited a native village in the middle of the Congo where there was a missionary settlement. His job was to baptize the apparently sound Orthodox Native Christians living there. He questioned them through an interpreter on their catechism and on what they had learned. They all had the answers down pat. The Bishop was thrilled and he baptized and confirmed them one and all. That night he was awakened by a light outside his hut and the strong smell of burning flesh. He and the missionary looked outside and found that the converts had built a bonfire and were sacrificing two pigeons to the white Gods who had recently confirmed them. Had they really understood the prayer book. To them the Bishop was just one more Heathen God. They had not gotten the Bishops' way of thinking at all and really did it matter? Was there own Spirituality all that wrong?

The Goal of Christ's message has always been regeneration, not death and burial in a beautiful funeral memorial setting. It means the building of a new soul, not the correcting of an old rickety one, not the fixing of an old building with new clapboards or a new stove. The way of regeneration is to pull down the old way of thinking. We must begin with a change in the soul, not with anything in the outer world. Of course we may need to change our conduct, we may need figuratively to wash our clothes, bathe ourselves. If we are doing anything wrong, we must quit. If we have any moral fault, we must clean it up. We must start by cleansing our life. We must stop thinking negatively. We must stop speaking critically. We go through the ritual of baptism; and, we recognize that we may be full of imperfections, but with the help of Spirit, cleaning them up is possible. Regeneration ultimately means realizing our oneness with Spirit. We revise our ideas about everything beginning with God. You were most likely as I was brought up to believe that God was an old man far away in a place called Heaven. We know from Jesus that that is not true. “Heaven is as close as hands and feet, as close as breathing.” God is inside us. We are God. Revise your idea of your business, whatever it is. Realize that our primary function is to be of service to our community. Revise your idea of time. Remember that Spirit is outside the calendar and we dwell in eternity. So we revise all our old ideas. This is bearing true witness. And when we bear true witness to our neighbor of what we are, we change him as well. When Jesus overcame death, he made it possible for us to do it. We are divine beings and so is our neighbor. We are one with Spirit and have all its qualities. When we truly know that, we bear true witness. Thus the 9th Metaphysical Commandment is that “To bear True Witness is to bear Truthfulness and that Truthfulness is that we are One with Spirit and all that Spirit has manifested.”

The 9th Commandment of Prosperity is “Thou Shalt not Bear False Witness against the Source of Thy Wealth.” Being here on Earth in these bodies we are living in a strange paradox.

We are Spiritual Travelers, moving through eternity, experiencing life in as many forms as possible. Since there is no time in eternity, we stay in any given experience as long as we want to or need to so we can totally learn what we want to learn. We are God's image and likeness, a triumph of Spiritual Perfection, often moving amid conditions of poverty, disease, and even death or dying. These conditions are recognized by our physical senses and are therefore accepted as the truth of life. But when we go beyond the five senses and learn that Life is much more than what we can see, touch, taste, hear, and smell, we experience life differently. Then we know that they are only real, if our consciousness accepts them as such. That is the message of Jesus, or Joshua Bar Joseph, he saw no sin, or disease, or poverty, or death. He merely recognized that the people who were experiencing these events in their lives believed that they were real and so they experienced them as real. He helped them realize the truth of themselves. Again and again, he said, “Your faith has healed you, your faith has made you whole.”

One more thing, our Society, our world, places much emphasis on evil; but, evil is a lie about the truth of God or Spirit. Think about it, what does evil spell backwards? Live. When you and I believe in any way that lack and poverty are real, we have aligned ourselves with the lie, with evil, and we are “Bearing False Witness Against the Source of Our Wealth”.

It takes a great deal of trust and faith to stick to the truth of the wonderful world of the love and abundance of “The Ultimate”, when facts and appearances of our five senses often tell us something different. But, if we look at our world through our Spiritual eyes, we will see its beauty, we will see its love. Jesus taught us not to resist evil but to overcome it with good. Remember that whatever we give energy and attention to, will grow. That is why the war on Poverty in this country did not work. We tried to fight the lie instead of affirming, living , and loving the truth. Even our present financial recession is a result of the collective lie of our mass consciousness. Let's stop giving it power.

You and I cannot change the world until we change ourselves. Our job is to hold the truth of Spirit's presence in all things. When you read about trouble in the world, remind yourself that the light of Spirit is present in all things and send light to that situation. As you do this you are following the 9th Commandment of Prosperity: “Thou shalt not Bear False Witness to the Source of thy Wealth.”

Namaste,

Barbara