The meaning of the New Age is cooperation. It is absurd to wait for governments to do everything.
All the religious, social, philosophical, occultist, spiritualistic groups, etc., they must COOPERATE for the common good.
Where there is cooperation there is inevitable progress, where cooperation is excluded, failure is inevitable. Organizations that exploit the fellow being and do not cooperate are doomed to catastrophe.
Trusts and foreign monopolies are hated by the working classes precisely because instead of cooperating, they exploit. The end of those organizations is absolutely certain.
In the world of commerce, the system of competition must be changed to that of cooperation. Competition is lack of intelligence. Competition leads to unnecessary conflicts between businesspeople, those conflicts do not benefit anyone and they harm everyone.
It is urgent to change the unintelligent system of competition for that of intelligent cooperation. That way all businesspeople benefit.
Samael Aun Weor
The organizations which are advanced in thought must teach cooperation by example. Every human organization can cooperate in one way or another for the common good. We are a family and we should not lead tormented miserable lives because that is absurd.
Let the businesspeople cooperate instead of tormenting themselves with competition, let men of science cooperate, instead of making weapons, let religions cooperate to teach conscious charity in practice, let doctors cooperate associating to serve better, etc., etc., etc.
Cooperation brings economic benefit, cooperation brings peace, bread, fruitful and creative work.
Free trade unions, those that are not sold like prostitutes to the highest bidder, can and should cooperate.
Let the unions open public canteens, workshops, polytechnics, etc., where workers’ children can learn occupations to make a living.
Let the fees of the unionised serve to technically train the children of the workers. Let the fee be used to open cheap places to eat, etc.
It is urgent to put an end to the traitorous leaders, to those who sell themselves to the masters of capital, to those who betray their comrades.
Trade unions must purify themselves to cooperate. At present in many countries around the world unions cannot cooperate because they are controlled by treasonous leaders.
It is absurd to think of Civilization excluding conscious cooperation.
Competition is not civilization. Competition is barbarism, where cooperation reigns there is no need to fear the increase of the population, where there is no cooperation the increase of population turns life into a hell with all the frightful horror of inevitable competition in all kinds of things.
Some nations have been concerned about the problem of the increasing population but have not been concerned with organizing social life on the intelligent basis of cooperation.
The result of such a course of action is hunger, misery, competition in all kinds of things, social conflicts, strikes, revolutions of blood and liqour, etc., etc., etc.
The exchanging of self and others is the foundation of human cooperation.
Shantideva said:
“One who wishes to protect oneself and others quickly should practice exchanging oneself for others, which is a great mystery.
“If even at a small danger fear arises on account of great attachment to oneself, why should one not abhor that self like a terrifying enemy? One who kills birds, fish, and deer, and sets up an ambush with the desire to quell illness, thirst, and hunger, One, who kills one’s Father and Mother and steals the property of The Three Jewels for the sake of profit and respect, will become fuel in the Avichi Hell.
“What wise person would desire, protect, and venerate such a self? Who would not see it as an enemy, and who would respect it?
“If, out of concern for oneself, one thinks: ‘if I give it away, what shall I enjoy?’ This is a fiendish state. If out of concern for others one thinks: ‘if I enjoy it, what shall I give away?’ This is a divine state.
“Upon harming another for one’s own sake, one is burnt in hells and the like; but upon afflicting oneself for the sake of others, one has success in everything.
“The desire for self-aggrandizement leads to a miserable state of existence, low status, and stupidity. By transferring that same desire to someone else, one obtains a fortunate state of existence, respect, and wisdom.
“By ordering another around for ones own sake, one experiences the position of a servant and the like; but by ordering oneself around for the sake of others, one experiences the position of a master and the like.
“All those who are unhappy in the world are so as a result of their desire for their own happiness. All those who are happy in the world are so as a result of their desire for the happiness of others.
“Enough of such talk! Note the difference between the fool who seeks his own benefit, and the sage who works for the benefit of others.
“One, who does not exchange his own happiness for the suffering of others, surely does not achieve Buddhahood. How could one find happiness even in the cycle of existence?
“Not to mention the next life, even in this life, a desired goal of a servant who does not do his work, and of a master who does not pay out the wages, cannot be accomplished.
“Forsaking the generation of mutual happiness and the felicity of present and future happiness, deluded people take on tremendous suffering because of harming one another.
“If all the harm, fear, and suffering in the world occur due to grasping onto the self, what use is that great demon to me?
“Without forsaking one’s own self, one cannot avoid suffering, just as without avoiding the fire one cannot avoid being burned.
“Therefore, in order to alleviate my own suffering and to alleviate the suffering of others, I give myself up to others, and I accept others as my own self.
“O mind, make this resolve: ‘I am bound to others.’ From now on you must not be concerned with anything but the welfare of all sentient beings.
“It is inappropriate to seek one’s own welfare with the eyes and so on that are dedicated to others. It is inappropriate to pour one’s own benefit with hands that are dedicated to others.
“Therefore, becoming subservient to sentient beings, and snatching away whatever you see on this body, use it for the well being of others.”
Really the only ‘I’ that we Gnostics must accept as ours is the ‘I’ of the neighbour. The fellow being’s suffering, the pain of others.
The Lions of the Law, the Lords of Karma, do not have ‘I’, but consider as ‘I’ each person, each fellow being, each creature. They, being so perfect, have adapted themselves to the self of every other person in the world and full of pain exclaim :
“I am a thief, I am a fornicator, I am an adulterer, I owe a lot of Karma.”
The great beings adopt as their own self the self of the neighbor.
No teacher of humanity says: “I am perfect, I am holy, I am powerful,” etc., the perfect only say: “Each one of us is an evil snail amidst the bosom of the Father.”
Jesus the Christ said:
“Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to yourself.”
Really one is astonished before the tormentors, they don’t want to be tormented in any way. What happens to them? Why do they torment? You need to be asleep to torment your fellow being … they are really asleep, they have the Consciousness deeply asleep, that’s all.
The exchanging of the self and others leads us to conscious cooperation.
If we do not want the neighbor businessperson to harm us, we should not harm him, do not do to another what we do not want another to do to us, learning to cooperate is intelligence.
The exchanging of the self with others makes us understand the need for conscious cooperation.
Having union and cooperation, competition disappears, when competition ceases to exist, there is peace, abundance and total progress for all.
Samael Aun Weor
