What is the potential for the awakening of the Russian nation, the Russian people, and a true change in this nation? If you step back and take a neutral look at the mindset of most Russians, you will see that they all have a particular tension in their minds. Many are not aware of it, because they have become so used to it that they think this is just the way life is. Many, think that all other people are like that as well, and this is the only way to be as a human being. You will see that most Russians are very quick to take offense, they are almost always on the defense, on the defensive, they are almost waiting for some insult, something that other people do to them that is not right. They are ready to go into this defensive posture, which can range from pure defensiveness, to more aggressive means of interacting with other people, whether it is with each other or with non-Russians, but there is this tension.
You can even see this, when you look at the Russian leaders whenever they speak out in some international venue, or in some international forum. You will see even recently, how there has been a certain tension in Putin, in the Foreign Minister, the Defence Minister. Where they have spoken out about those who criticize Russia, who are always criticizing Russia. This shows you that the Russians are always feeling criticized. They are always feeling that someone is out to criticize them.
The question is, is the rest of the world sitting there watching everything that the Russians do and ready to criticize them at every opportunity? Or, is it that the Russians feel this way about the rest of the world? Again, which came first, the chicken or the egg? Again, it does not matter what came first.
What matters is what is the mindset of the Russian people, and how does it affect the Russian people? Can you be happy, can you be at peace, can you be content if you are always on the defensive. If you feel that everybody else is out to get you, out to criticize you, you feel that you always have to be on guard, you cannot trust anybody because you never know when they will criticize you. How can you be at peace with this mindset? Well, the answer is of course that you cannot, and so the question is whether people want to be at peace, whether they see this as a desirable goal.
There are of course certain nations that feel threatened by Russia. Ukraine is the most obvious example today. It is clear that the majority of the people in Ukraine are very uncertain about what the Russians will do, are doing, and have been doing since 2014 in the eastern provinces. If you go a little further away to countries that are not as close to Russia, you can certainly say that they are not looking to criticize Russia. They have no particular desire to criticize Russia. They would in fact prefer that they never had to say anything about Russian actions. How could this happen? How could you come to a point, where what we have called the modern democracies would never have to say anything about what Russia is doing internationally?
Well that would happen very simply, if Russia started acting in a non-aggressive way. If Russia started acting towards Western democracies, the way Western democracies act towards each other, then why would these Western democracies criticize Russia more than they criticize each other? This is not trying to portray that the modern democracies are one big happy family, that there are not differences and sometimes conflicts. But you rarely see a country like Norway or Denmark, criticize what Spain or Italy or Greece are doing.
Why is that? Because these countries are not taking aggressive actions against other countries. They are not seeking to undermine their democracies, they are not threatening them militarily. They are not sending war planes into their airspace, sending spies into their country, infiltrating their computer systems, they are not doing any of this. They are acting in a very simple way. It is a way that is found in all religions of the world, including the Eastern Orthodox Church. It is simply this: “Do unto others what you want them to do unto you.” Or rather: “Don’t do to others what you don’t want them to do to you.” Now, you may say: “Ah, this is just some religious mumbo jumbo.” But it is not. It is a “natural law.” It is a natural, or we would say rather a “spiritual law” that guides human interactions.
The universe is the cosmic mirror. The earth is a reality simulator. What does the reality simulator do? It mirrors back to you physical circumstances that are a reflection of your state of consciousness. Whatever you send into the mirror, the mirror sends back to you in the form of physical circumstances. It is very simple.
What a group of people, a nation or otherwise, carry in their identity, mental and emotional bodies and project onto the base energy, the matter light will out-picture it in the form of physical circumstances. However, part of what the cosmic mirror mirrors back to you, is not just physical circumstances. Because even though you may create a certain physical circumstance, you are not looking at that physical circumstance in a neutral way. You are looking at the physical circumstance through the very consciousness that you are projecting out.
What you see going on in the relationship between Russia and the modern democracies is very simple. The Russian government, to some degree the Russian people, but first of all the leaders of Russia, are projecting a certain image of Russia and a certain image of other nations. Now, if the universal mirror worked exactly on a one-to-one basis, then it would be so that all other nations would be hostile, would be aggressive towards Russia. This is in fact what you saw during the Cold War. The Soviet Union was very hostile towards other nations, constantly seeking to undermine them, without having direct war. As a result, the other nations felt that they had to respond in kind.
You can go back to the Cold War and say that the United States was exposed to a certain aggressive espionage from the Soviet Union. It certainly gave as it got, it certainly returned the favor (so to speak) and it was also engaged in espionage, this of course is to some degree still the case with the United States.
The vast majority of the modern democracies are not taking hostile actions against Russia, they do not have a hostile attitude towards Russia. There are some in the intelligence and defense community in the United States who have such an attitude, and are taking various actions. They are doing this because they see that they cannot relax and treat Russia the way they treat democratic nations. If Russia stopped performing any aggressive actions towards other nations, then even the United States would also stop any hostile actions towards Russia.
The vast majority of the modern democracies want only one thing: cooperation on an equal basis with Russia. They have no desire to put Russia down, they have no desire to exploit Russia, they only have a desire to raise the standard of living of the Russian people to the same standard they have in their own countries. This is a fact. If you told this to most Russians, they would disbelieve it, they would refuse to believe it, they would say it is naive, it is not true. But it is true, this is the mindset of the modern democracies.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was a collective sigh of relief. There was a genuine hope that the cold war would be over, that it would be possible for the modern democracies to have the same relationship with Russia, as they had with each other. Why is this? Well, it is because these nations have to varying degrees, but to a quite high degree, embodied the principle: “Do unto others what you want others to do to you.” This applies first of all, to their own people. Treat your own people the way you want to be treated. Give them all equal rights, give them all equal opportunity, give them freedom of speech, freedom of the press, political and economic freedoms. Treat people the way you want to be treated. Then, when you have applied this to your own people, you can naturally apply it and you will naturally apply it, to how you treat other nations.
The only exception is if you feel that other nations are hostile towards you. Therefore you cannot trust them not to take advantage of you. Then you will have to be more careful, stand back, be on guard and not fully engage this other nation the same way as you would engage a nation that you do trust. It is very simple, if the Russian nation started to act in a way that was trustworthy, then they would gain the trust of the modern democracies, they would treat Russia as they treat each other. It is very simple.
You can take a simple look at the modern democracies, Western Europe, Canada, to a large degree the United States, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, to some degree Japan, other nations around the world. You can look at these nations and you can see that in all of them, the average person has a better standard of living than the average Russian. You can ask yourself why this is? You may see that, again, there are certain natural laws, spiritual laws for how the economy works. It again relates to: “Do unto others what you want them to do unto you.”
When you go back in time, you can go back to the feudal societies of Europe, the serfdom of Russia, you can go to other nations and see the same thing. You can even go to nations and see the same thing today. You will see that when the leadership of a nation does not apply the principle of treating its people as they want to be treated, there is a limit to what kind of prosperity and affluence can be created in that nation.
You go back to the feudal societies and you can see that the Russian land owners had great wealth compared to the population, but the population had virtually nothing. So, it was not really a great scale for comparison. If you look at it today, you can see that they did not actually have great wealth. The reason for this was that in the kind of societies you had that were mainly agricultural societies, there was a limit to how much wealth could actually be created in those societies.
Now, as countries moved into the democratic era and started treating their people according to spiritual principles: “Do unto others as you want them do unto you,” their economies grew to a much higher level and you see how this led to a greater and greater prosperity. In many of the democratic nations, the standard of living of the average person is still growing, is still increasing.
The United States is an exception, because the power elite of the United States has managed to steal wealth away from the population and concentrate it in their own hands by manipulating the financial system. That is why the standard of living of many Americans is no longer growing but is actually shrinking. In most of the modern democracies, the standard of living is still increasing. This shows you that when a nation gives freedom and human rights to its people, prosperity increases. Yet, there does come a point where a nation has gone as far as it can go internally. From now on the growth and prosperity will slow down, it can still increase, but it will not be as much.
What then can take a nation to a higher step? Well, it is of course that the nation starts trading with other nations. You are not only treating your own people right, you are also treating other people right. What you see, is that you have a group of nations in the world that are the affluent nations. Why are they affluent? Because they are treating each other with equal respect for their rights. Nobody is trying to deliberately exploit other nations, there are some international corporations that are, but in general the democratic nations are not seeking to exploit other nations. They were a hundred or two hundred years ago, but they are not today.
There has been a real change, bringing these countries in alignment with spiritual principles. The principle that you activate when you do this, is the principle that Jesus described in his parable about the three servants who received certain numbers of talents from their master, who then went away. When the master came back, he asked the servants what they had done with the talents. Two of the servants had multiplied the talents and they received more as a reward. Whereas one servant had buried the talents in the ground, and from him was taken even what he had. This is a spiritual principle. When you multiply your talents by doing something that benefits others, you will receive more.
When a nation trades with another nation, both of the nations when they treat each other fairly and with equal rights, with respect and without exploitation, both of the nations will increase their affluence. They are not only multiplying their own talents, they are multiplying each other’s talents. This is simply a spiritual principle, it works as unfailingly as the law of gravity.
It is simply a fact of life that there is a group of nations in the world who have aligned themselves with this principle. They may not be conscious of what they are doing, they may not understand why, but they have aligned themselves with this principle. Most of them have done this out of a sense of what is right, what is the right thing to do. This has increased their affluence, their prosperity and it has been shared with the people, so that the people’s prosperity has also been increased.
Again, you may ask the average citizen in these nations, even most of the leaders in these nations, and they would not be able to explain this. Nevertheless, they have started treating each other this way, and they would treat other people the same way if they felt that they could trust to get the same treatment back. You cannot expect nations to be unintelligent. You cannot expect them to trade with another nation when they are repeatedly cheated by that nation and then continue to trust that nation. This is an unrealistic expectation.
Again, it applies to the principle “to do unto others.” If you are constantly being suspicious of other people, treating them in inconsistent or unfair ways, not keeping your word, not keeping appointments, not keeping agreements. If you treat other nations this way and at the same time you expect these nations to trust you, then you have an unrealistic expectation. The Russian leadership and many among the Russian people, have an unrealistic expectation regarding their relationship to other people. This goes back to the programming during Soviet times that Russia is a special nation, which has a special role in the world, that the Russians are superior people and deserve to be treated in a special way.
This attitude comes from the manipulators. Regardless of where it comes from, just take this attitude: “We are special people, we are superior and other people should realize this and treat us accordingly.” Just take this attitude and compare it to the principle of “doing unto others what you want them to do to you.”
Is it realistic that other people will treat you the way you think they should treat you? Nay! That is not the principle, it is not the principle that if you project that you are superior and deserve special treatment, then all other people should give you that special treatment. That is not the principle. The principle is that if you treat other people fairly, they will treat you fairly according to a neutral observation.
Take a look at world history, at all of the conflicts that there have been between various groups of people, whether you call them nations or something else. Look at these conflicts, what is the cause of most of these conflicts? It is that two different groups of people have different perception filters. They each expect that the other group is going to treat them according to the way they see themselves.
So, if Russians see themselves as being superior people and Russia as a special nation that deserve to be treated in a certain way by other nations, this is what the Russian people expect. Of course, democratic nations have a different perception filter and they are saying: “Nobody is special, nobody deserves special treatment, everybody deserves the same treatment as what they are giving to others.”
If you demand to be treated a certain way and take offense immediately when you are not treated that way, you are not following the principle “to do unto others.” You are not grasping what this principle is all about. You cannot want to be special and be in alignment with this most fundamental principle for human interactions. You cannot treat yourself as being special and treat other people as being inferior and expect them to accept this.
The modern affluent nations have brought themselves into alignment with this spiritual law, “do unto others.” They are not looking down upon Russia but they are not looking up to Russia either. They are saying, we will apply the same standard to Russia that we would apply to all other nations, including ourselves and each other. You behave like a trustworthy, responsible nation and we will treat you that way. You behave as a nation that is not trustworthy that does not keep your word, and we will of course have to step back. We cannot treat you as an equal when you are not behaving as an equal.
Do do you not see? Many Russians cannot see, but when you think Russia is special or superior, when you think the Russian people deserve special treatment, when you take offense when you do not get that treatment, you are not behaving as an equal, you are not treating other people equally, you are not treating them according to the principle of “doing unto others.”
It is understandable during Soviet times that the Russian people had a certain perception filter that they were absolutely convinced that this was the only way to look at life. It is understandable, not in the sense that it was acceptable, but it is understandable because they had no frame of reference from outside of Russia. They had no news, they had no experience of how other countries were. You could understand that they could believe that all other people looked at Russia the same way that they looked at themselves.
There were of course, possibilities for shattering this, or questioning this perception filter because there was a certain interaction between Russia and Soviet Republics, and even Warsaw countries. It would have been possible for Russians, and of course some achieved this, but very few achieved this, to realize that other Soviet states do not look at Russia the way Russia looks at itself. Most of the former Soviet Republics considered Russia an occupier of their independent nation. They did not consider themselves as being under the Russian nation or the Russian people. They did not consider themselves as being inferior, nor for that matter superior. They wanted to live their own life and they felt that they had been occupied by Russia. Which is why you see that when the Soviet Union was dissolved, many of these nations pulled back, demanded autonomy and aligned themselves with nations that respected democratic rights and freedoms.
Nevertheless, during Soviet times it was understandable that the Russian people did not see an alternative to their way of looking at themselves. Today, with the greater communication, the greater interaction, of course Russian people have a far greater opportunity to realize that other nations, other people do not look at Russians the way you look at yourselves. Many Russians have of course realized this. Many of the people who have traveled, who have done business with people in other nations, they have realized this. They have started to make changes, both physical changes but also adjusting their attitude towards other nations.
There is a momentum building in the collective consciousness of Russia. Where there is more of a willingness to compare Russia to other nations, look at how people are living in other nations, and start considering what it would take for the Russian people to have that same standard of living. It is clear that this momentum is building. Gradually, but it is building.
The spiritual people have contributed to this, you have especially contributed if you have been willing to challenge your own perception of the Russian mindset. Because, unless you transcend the mindset yourself, how can you pull up on the collective?
Higher awareness does not have a pessimistic view of Russia. It sees that there is a building momentum that is bringing Russia closer and closer to a series of shifts. Some have already happened, others can happen in the not too distant future. Higher awareness also of course, sees that there is a considerable opposition to this. The opposition comes partly from the Russian people who are not willing to reconsider their attitude, partly from the Russian leadership. There is an older generation who grew up during Soviet times, who have accepted their life, their lot in life, their station in life, they are just hoping that things will not get worse. They are hoping that they can maintain what they consider a normal standard of living, for the rest of their lives.
Some of these people will not be willing to change their attitude in this lifetime. That is why one of the factors that is holding back the changes in Russian society, is these people. Unfortunately, the only realistic outcome is that they pass away, they are no longer pulling down on the collective when they are not in physical embodiment.
Then of course you have the leadership. There is a power elite of people in Russia who are running almost every aspect of the Russian economy, based on the principle of raw greed that it is never enough for them, never enough.
What you can do, if you are willing to take a look at this? It is that you can look at the actions of these leaders. First of all, of course you can look at Putin, who has not been willing to change, has manipulated through this change of the Russian constitution so that he can run for office and stay in office until 2036. He has been willing to manipulate the Russian constitution in order to keep himself in the position he has.
Now, many people in Russia believe that Putin is ultimately in control. He is the strong man that rules Russia, not necessarily with the iron fist of Stalin but certainly with a firm hand. The reality is that Putin is largely a front figure who is doing the hard political work that the real power elite behind the scenes do not want to do, because they want only to extract money from the economy. They do not even want to engage in politics, because where is the money in that? Not enough for them to bother with.
You have this power elite, and what you see of course, is what you can see in every country that has an authoritarian or a dictatorial rule. Every country that is ruled by a power elite throughout history, you will see their reign cannot endure indefinitely. There will come a period where there is a rising tension in the collective consciousness. Even though it may seem as if the power elite still has a firm grasp on the country, they are feeling the tension, they are feeling threatened. How can you tell? By their actions. Look, for example, how they are suppressing free speech, freedom of the press, any kind of dissent. Anyone who speaks out against them is put down. This becomes more and more brutal. Just look at the reaction over the last few years to any kind of demonstrations and dissidence.
Look at this objectively. It has been stated by competent medical personnel in Western nations that Navalny was poisoned with Novichok, a nerve agent developed during Soviet times by the Soviet government, controlled by the Soviet government. If you take an objective look at this, there is no reason to doubt this. The question is simply, who has access to this nerve agent, strictly controlled by the Russian state? Well, there are two possibilities here. Either someone else got a hold of this agent from the Russian government, which means the Russian government is not really in control, is not really competent of keeping track of their poisons. Or the other option is that it was someone from the Russian government with the approval of the Russian leadership, who poisoned Navalny. There are really no other realistic scenarios here.
When Putin then says that if the Russian government had wanted to kill Navalny, they would have succeeded, it really is not a credible statement, but it shows you this increasing tension, this increasing desperation. When you see the way demonstrators have been brutally put down by the police, you also see the increasing tension. This is a government treating its own people with unnecessary brutality. It is unnecessary to achieve the goal of keeping public order. It is done in order to discourage or scare other people from objecting to the government.
If you look at it historically, the more brutal a government becomes, the more it creates opposition to itself. Even though such a government may survive for a time, they always fall, they cannot survive indefinitely. You can look at the past and see some of these brutal regimes that have survived for quite a long time, but in today’s age, no regime can survive as long as they could in the past. The more brutal they become, the more they shorten their own lifespan. The brutality is always a sign of desperation.
What you can realize here, is that there is a power elite ruling Russia and what is the consequence? Well, what is the Russian people’s attitude towards other nations? Why is there this suspicion in the Russian people about what other nations will do to them? Why is there this quickness to take offense, to almost want to be offended, to almost look for a reason to be offended and go into a defensive posture and perhaps even strike back aggressively?
Why is this there in the collective consciousness? Well, it is there because the manipulators who are attempting to control the Russian people, who have controlled the Russian people through the Czarist era and the communist era, and who are controlling them today as well, they are trying to do everything they can to create a barrier between the Russian people and other people outside of Russia. They want the Russian people to remain suspicious of other people, they use all means available to them, including making the Russian people feel they are special, or making them feel that everybody else is out to get them.
There is a very simple mechanism that comes into play in authoritarian or dictatorial governments. When you have the kind of power that most Russians think that Putin has, you would say from a neutral perspective that Putin should be able to solve all problems in Russia. After all, he has all the power. There is nobody in Russia who can really object to what Putin wants to do. So, Putin has the power to solve every problem in Russia. Yet, you can of course, observe that he has not solved every problem in Russia.
This leaves what you might call an explanation problem. How does Putin explain to the Russian people that he cannot solve all of their problems, even though they have allowed him to gain all power? Well, he explains this very simply, by saying there is an international conspiracy to put down Russia, to limit Russia, to isolate Russia, to take over Russia and take power away from Putin. This is the simple explanation. The power elite in Russia are using Putin to create this completely artificial tension between Russia and other nations. It only has the purpose of keeping the Russian people trapped in thinking there is nothing they can do to improve their situation beyond certain limits.
A nation transcends authoritarian rule, has greater freedom and democracy, meaning also greater economic freedom, and prosperity increases. This can only continue to increase, when the prosperity is shared with the population so that the standard of living of all people is increased. If a nation whether democratic or not, allows a small power elite to concentrate wealth in their own hands, then the increase in affluence and prosperity will decline.
How could the standard of living of the Russian people be raised? Well, you might say, you would have to have more affluence, you would have to have more money in the Russian economy. The reality is that you already have the money in the Russian economy to significantly improve the standard of living of all of the people. The money is there but it is concentrated in the hands of the power elite, the oligarchs, and certain government representatives. How could the prosperity of the average Russian be increased? Well, only if there was a more equal distribution of wealth. This would mean that the power elite would lose their position, where they can siphon off the majority of the wealth coming from the natural resources.
If you look at a country like Norway, you will see that a number of years ago they discovered large oil reserves and they have been using those oil reserves. But they set up a system, so that all people in Norway share the wealth from these oil revenues. This is not the only way it can be done. But the fact of the matter is that there is enough wealth in the Russian economy to significantly improve the wealth or the standard of living of all Russians but it would have to be distributed equally, and that is of course what the power elite does not want to happen. That is why they are maintaining a certain mindset in the Russian population, a certain suspiciousness towards others.
That is also why they do not want Russia to cooperate with other nations as an equal. They want Russia to be special, so they can continue to have the kind of position that nobody can have in a modern democracy.
This is simply facts. If you find yourself reacting to this, it is because you have not freed yourself from the precise mindset that has been programmed into the Russian collective consciousness by the manipulators. Again, if you are a spiritual student, why would you want to be affected by a mindset created by the manipulators? How can you expect to serve two masters, as Jesus said. How can you expect to follow any spiritual teaching and reach higher awareness, if you maintain a mindset created by the manipulators? The mindset of the manipulators cannot enter the realm of higher awareness. As long as you allow it in your four lower bodies, you cannot enter the realm of higher awareness. You must transcend it in order to ascend. There is no other way.
How will Russia truly move forward? Only when a critical mass of people are willing to be honest and look at Russian society, compare it to other nations and say: “Why don’t we have what other nations have manifested?” “What is it that is preventing us from having the standard of living that we see in the West?” If you look at a Western nation and see that here are workers, who are not any more skilled than Russian workers, who are not particularly working harder than Russian workers. Or you see people with education who are not better educated than people in Russia, yet these people in the West have a standard of living that are several times higher than people in Russia. Then you must ask yourself: “Why don’t we have this. We obviously deserve it. We are as skilled and as willing to work as other people. Why don’t we have the reward for our labor and our skills?”
The honest answer is that it is being taken away from you. It is being taken away not just because there is a power elite, but because the Russian people are allowing that power elite to run the country the way they are doing. Why are they allowing this? Because of the attitude that boils down to the need to be honest and say: Have we as the Russian people, dared to look with brutal honesty at our nation and dared to acknowledge: “This is not the kind of nation we want to live in. This is not the kind of society we want to live in. We will to have something better than this.”
What is lacking in the Russian people is the willpower to demand a better standard of living. You do not even have to go out and challenge the authorities. You do not have to say: “We want to get rid of Putin.” You just have to say: “Putin, we want a better standard of living, and you who have all the power, it is your job to give it to us. So, do your job.” There has to be that firm decision, that firm will that we will no longer accept that we are far behind other nations. But hat requires the honesty to recognize that you are behind other nations. How will you catch up until you acknowledge that you need to catch up? If you think what you have is all you have, or if you think that it is no worse than what other nations have. If you continue to live in this illusion, this lack of determination, this lack of realism, how will you improve? How can you improve? “If nothing changes, nothing will change.”
Many among the Russian people are feeling disempowered. You are FEELING disempowered. This does not mean you are disempowered, you are feeling disempowered. Why is the power elite still in power? Not because you are disempowered but because you are feeling disempowered. What is their first priority? To continue to keep you feeling disempowered.
You look at the system and you say: “What can I do. I am just one person, I have no power. What can I do against corruption. What can I do about Putin?” You are right. You alone can do nothing. But a critical mass of the people in Russia, united in demanding better living conditions, you can do much, much more than you think, much more than the power elite thinks. But it has to start with a determination, the will to do better, the will to improve and the will to no longer accept status quo.
My question is: “Do you who are spiritual students, do you have the will to change?” Then you can be the forerunners, the catalyst for change. It will not happen overnight but it will happen. If you have the willpower to take command over your own state of consciousness and transcend the attitudes, the mindsets in the collective consciousness that are deliberately engineered by the manipulators to keep the Russian people as their serfs, as their slaves. If you are willing to transcend it, then it will be transcended.