The Processean concept of Responsibility relates closely to the famous first line of The Dhammapada All that we are is the result of what we have thought. It was the foundational axiom of the whole thing that what we are is not something that has happened as an accident, or from temptation, or from the malefic activities of an evil galactic emperor. We have, says Logic One “chosen to be human as part of our journey, we have taken on the limitations of a human existence and therefore become subject to its laws. We have chosen for a period to limit the extent of our choice......So let us be quite clear that EVERYTHING that happens to us, is, on some level or other, our choice, our decision, and therefore our responsibility.”

That notion always underlay Processean teachings, practices, and lifestyle. Most especially, it was applied to the tortured labyrinths of the unconscious mind, which we had ourselves produced. Unmaking all of that interlocking structure and releasing the soul trapped within it, along with its spiritual powers, was a prime Processean goal. Our understanding was that we had produced this gridlock for ourselves, to avoid our sense of our own responsibility as well as the concomitant sense of GOD: for if a person has a godlike sense of his or her own nature and power, then awareness of Godliness is not far away.

Thus, Robert is told here, “lack of (money) is an equally effective limitation against such responsibility.” And by limitations, we meant, according to Logic Two, that we could, “limit the scope of our responsibility - or at least the scope of our AWARENESS of our responsibility. We no longer see the full extent of our true function and purpose in life. We see no further than the bounds of our limitations.” Thus, to lack money, or brains, or legs, was to have chosen to be both powerless in those areas and also to have chosen to be unaware of our powerlessness.

In private, I have often defended this teaching. There are Gnostic and Hermetic traditions that accept it, in principle if not in the mind-numbing specificity that The Process preached, so it does have at least some intellectual respectability. But the thing I found most, when I was able to hold the notion clearly and calmly in my mind, was a sense of empowerment. It was, as any practising magician could tell you, a case of the power of suggestion. To believe yourself to be ultimately omnipotent was to confer on yourself a sense of power that could, at worst, get through a cold day out on the street selling magazines. And, at best, it could help you face the people you didn’t like or that you feared, and thus also face the nastier side of your own nature.

Dialogue VI

1. Tell me more about Purpose.

It is the most misunderstood of all concepts, and therefore the most invalidated. It is beset by irony and contradiction. After receiving information and power, beings always come back with the same response; “But now I have no purpose. You have taken it away from me.”

This is because they have been given purpose where they had only hope, ambition and aspiration, and they cannot recognise it. They have to see these last as purpose, and real purpose they see as mere pointless and directionless activity.

Even when purpose is defined for them and they see it consciously, the unconscious, the occupying power, cries out in protest from both sides of its own conflict.

2. Why is this?

Purpose is the enemy of unconscious conflict, which is true purposelessness, being power turned against itself. The fantastic protest of purposefulness that the unconscious goes in for should give an indication of this.

3. What is the function of Purpose?

You mean, of course; what is its purpose?

To feed information that is calculated to bring a fulfilment of purpose as opposed to purposelessness.

Its prime message to you would be ‘detach from the unconscious’ (which is the enemy of purpose), ‘reabsorb the energy you have squandered in conflict, thereby starving and thus eliminating the conflict, and redirect that energy towards resuming and maintaining a flow of information and power, and validation between you and GOD.’

4. What is Intention?

Intention is always with Purpose. They work hand in glove. Without Intention, Purpose cannot exist, and without Purpose, Intention has no direction or manifestation. Intention’s purpose is the creation of Purpose.

5. And what is Money?

Money is the most solid manifestation of physical responsibility. Through it there is unlimited scope for taking responsibility on a purely material level. On the other hand, lack of it is an equally effective limitation against such responsibility. If you are to fulfil your purpose you must have money.

And money is the prime spiritual trap. The adage ‘Money is the root of all evil’ is the classic example of using spiritual demands to restrict the scope of physical responsibility, and therefore maintain a state of purposelessness.

6. Tell me about Redemption.

Redemption is the freedom from the stalemate of the exclusion of GOD.

A being redeems FOR GOD the energy he is squandering in conflict. A being redeems his contact WITH GOD, he redeems his awareness OF GOD. GOD redeems the being, who by his own efforts has uncreated the vicious circle of his unconscious conflicts and redeemed in effect his true purpose.