Higher awareness seeks to work with governments around the world, with people in the governments who are open to the ideas of how to apply wisdom to governing. Naturally, higher awareness is willing to offer assistance to any nation in the world who is open to it. Higher awareness is willing to extend assistance to the people in Ukraine and to the leaders of Ukraine now and in the future. How many times in history does a nation have such an opportunity to rebuild itself based on a new view, a higher view?

The fear of knowledge and responsibility

It has been said that wisdom is the principal thing and with all thy getting, get understanding. Yet, so many people do not want to know better. It has been said: “If people knew better, they would do better.” There is, in a sense, in the collective consciousness of earth, a certain realization that with knowledge comes responsibility. When you know, you cannot ignore what you know and continue to live the same way. So there is a certain awareness that knowledge brings the responsibility to change. The manipulators are quite aware of this. And therefore, they seek to put people in a state where they actually fear knowledge. They do not want knowledge. Because they are afraid of what changes they would have to make if they received and acknowledged the knowledge that they do not have now. If people knew better, they would do better. But those who do not want to do better will then close their minds, so they will not come to know better.

This is what you see in the larger group of Russian people going back to the Kievan Rus. They are people who do not want to know better. You see that in the Soviet Union. You see it today in Russia, where so many people do not want to know what is happening in the war. There is a certain group of people in Ukraine who want to maintain their fragile sense of equilibrium. And in order to maintain it, what do they do? Well, they resist knowing better. They do not want to know. They do not want to open their minds to anything new.

You will, of course, see this all around the world, in many, many parts of the world. But we are talking specifically here about Ukraine. There is a certain percentage of the population who do not want to know better. They decided, most of them at a fairly early stage in their lives before they even fully reached adulthood, that now they knew everything they wanted to know. Now, they just wanted to live the rest of their lives with a certain sense of knowledge, a certain level of understanding so that they could maintain that equilibrium that there was nothing they could do. There was no way they could change their personal lives or change their nation.

It is part of the victim consciousness. Because how do you come to see yourself as a victim? Well, it can only be because there is something you do not know. You do not know how to take charge of your life and change your situation. And why do you not know this? Because you do not want to know. Because if you did know, you would have to make a decision, or many decisions, about how you want to change your life. And you do not want to change your life, so the easiest way to not change your life is to not know. And of course, free will is free will. If people want to close their minds, they have a right to close their minds. But of course, this does not mean that the rest of the universe, including other people on earth, have to comply with that. Naturally, when there are many, many people in the world who are increasing their knowledge, their understanding, their wisdom, it will pull up on everybody. And therefore, it will, in a sense, precipitate circumstances that force people to come to know what they do not know.

The reality check

If you look at the collective consciousness of Ukraine, there was, especially in the eastern parts, the more Russian-leaning parts, many, many people who were in that state of not wanting to know. And in a sense, they had this illusion, this dream that somehow they thought that Russia was a better country than Ukraine. And that they themselves, and certainly parts of Ukraine, maybe all of Ukraine, would be better off by being a part of Russia. And they did not want to know whether that was true or not. They wanted to live in the illusion, just as many people in Russia wanted to live in the illusion that Putin was the kind of leader that Russia needed.

What has happened now is, of course, that this state of mind has been challenged by reality, by physical circumstances that people cannot ignore. And this has forced many people to reconsider their view of Russia. This centers around the question: “How can Russia, which they saw as being a benevolent nation, do what these people have seen that Russia has done in Ukraine?” There were people, mostly elderly people, who welcomed the Russian soldiers and who were thinking it was long overdue that they would come in and take over Ukraine. And yet, those people have now seen how these same Russian soldiers came into their houses and stole everything that they could carry away. Or they bombed their houses with artillery. Or they destroyed roads, killed their family members, stole their food, left them with no water, electricity and food.

And this has, of course, forced them to consider the question: “How could Russia do this to us? If they were a friendly nation, if they were here to liberate us, how could they do this to us?” Of course, the war itself will also eventually, over time, force those among the Russian people who are in this state of mind to consider: “Well, if Putin was the kind of leader that we thought he was, how could he do this to Russia? How could he do this to us?” Many people in Russia are not there, but they will be eventually.

Reorientation towards the West

Back to Ukraine. Again, there is a considerable opportunity hidden within the tragedy that is still unfolding. The opportunity here is that there are now a lot of people in Ukraine who have either been forced to or who have voluntarily reevaluated their view of Russia, and the relationship between Ukraine and Russia. The opportunity here is that this can create a shift in the collective consciousness, where Ukraine as a nation shifts and decides in a decisive manner to reorient itself towards the West, towards Europe. And this is, for a variety of reasons, the most constructive and, in a way, the only realistic way forward for Ukraine.

It is clear that given what Russia has done, a majority of the Ukrainian people would never vote to forge a closer tie to Russia, forge some kind of cooperation with Russia. And it is clear also from what Russia has done to destroy the civilian infrastructure of Ukraine that Russia will not be willing to take responsibility for its actions and help rebuild Ukraine after the war. From an economic, purely pragmatic economic standpoint, the only realistic future for Ukraine is to reorient itself or orient itself towards the West, become part of the European Union and eventually part of NATO, so that its future can be secured against another attack.

There are, of course, people in Ukraine who have already made this shift, who made it a long time ago. But there has been this division in the collective consciousness of Ukraine. There has been this doubt, this wondering whether it would be better for Ukraine to orient towards Russia or towards the West. And there has been a substantial part of the people who have felt that Russia was the better option. And this division in the collective consciousness has held back the growth of Ukraine as a nation. Therefore, it is not a matter of a certain percentage of the Ukrainian population forcing a reorientation towards the West. It is not a matter of even a majority voting for this. Because in order for Ukraine to be successful, there needs to be that shift so that a large majority of the population accept that this is the better option.

And this will require some work on the part of, not only the people of Ukraine–who have relatives who may still, or at least before the war had their doubts–but also the government of Ukraine. There is a responsibility to work with the people to bring them to shift their consciousness. You may say: “Well, some have already been forced by Russia.” Well, yes, but being forced is not quite the same as making a decision where you truly shift your consciousness. People have been forced to ask the question: “How could Russia do this to us?”

But some of these people do not necessarily trust that the government in Kiev would do any better. This needs to be demonstrated to them. And it needs to be demonstrated that the government is willing to listen to them. And this will be a challenge, because so many people in Ukraine have already shifted and realized that we are done with Russia, we need to move towards the West. But they need to recognize that there is a percentage of people who have not yet shifted and they need help in making that transition. For some, it will be impossible. They are too old and unwilling to change. But for many it will be possible to help them understand what is the better future for themselves and for Ukraine as a whole.

Again, this requires this emergence, this development of a sense of togetherness, a sense of community, a sense that we are one people, we are one nation and we are moving forward together. This cannot be forced, but it can emerge when there is an openness for it. And when there is a willingness to recognize that what seems obvious to a majority of Ukrainians still does not seem obvious to all. And therefore, some work needs to be done. This is not said to in any way blame anyone, including the government. This is a new situation not faced before. And the government has good conditions, the good people to do this, to start this process and to let it work its way as Ukraine’s future unfolds.

Leaving totalitarian consciousness behind

This is important because what Ukraine has the opportunity to do here is to move away from the victim consciousness, but which is also part of a larger consciousness of totalitarianism, dictatorships. There is a certain mindset, a certain vortex in the collective consciousness in totalitarian nations that it is perfectly acceptable to force people. In a totalitarian dictatorship you have a power elite, often one dictator, but certainly a group of people who feel that they are right for whatever reason. It can be all kinds of different things you see throughout history. They are right. Therefore, they can see what is best for the nation, even for the people, they think. And therefore, they have a right to force the population. They do not need to try and persuade people. They have the right to force them. And the people should comply or: “We have a right to imprison them, put them in concentration camps, send them off to Siberia, kill them, whatever we can do. Because we must beat down any kind of challenge to us, because we are right.” There are still remnants of this in the Ukrainian collective consciousness, because there have been politicians who thought this way. Some of them are still alive, of course, a few even in office. There is a need to overcome this.

Democracy cannot be based on force

There is a need to recognize that in a democratic nation, a fully democratic nation, you are not forcing a minority. A democracy is not the dictatorship of the majority. It is based on recognizing that people are different, that people have a right to be different and that we cannot force them beyond certain limits. Of course, you have to have some coherence and unity in the nation, but the use of force is not acceptable in a democracy.

It needs to be voluntary. There needs to be the consent of the governed. Now, even a dictator has to some degree the consent of the governed, but it is a very different equation in a democracy. This is an important realization. And there are many leaders in Ukraine who have already made it or are ready to make it. There are many people in Ukraine who have made it and are ready to make it. There can be that recognition of the need to address the people, especially in the eastern part, who have not made that transition in consciousness.

A democracy is a much more demanding form of government than a dictatorship, because in a dictatorship the people do not need to make decisions. There are many people in Eastern Ukraine, especially, who do not want to make decisions. They are, of course, found everywhere, but the biggest concentration of them in the eastern part. And there needs to be that recognition that these people will need some help and assistance, because we cannot allow them to feel that they are forced. We have to show them that there is a difference between a dictatorial government and a democratic government.

Psychological information warfare against Ukrainians

Again, this has already begun, this is already to some degree in place. There needs to be a greater sense of unity, sense of oneness, a greater coherence in the Ukrainian population. Now, this will, of course, also require wisdom, where the people of Ukraine need to step up and recognize that they have been subjected to a psychological information warfare from Russia for a very long time, at least going back to the start of Putin’s reign.

This has been literally a war against the Ukrainian people. And although many have realized this, many are not aware of it. Again, there is a need to step up and expose this so that people can begin to see how many of the ideas, the beliefs, the claims that are made in Ukraine actually come from this Russian information warfare, not even calling it propaganda, because that has become a word that has been almost overused. But what it is, is a kind of information warfare. And it is aggressive. It is persistent. It is not necessarily that subtle once you begin to see it. But if you do not see it, it is difficult to expose. Of course, many people in Ukraine have seen it. But there needs to be more of an effort to expose this, so that people can realize that many of the divisions in Ukrainian society were actually artificially created by this information warfare from Russia.

It has been, in a way, fully as aggressive as the physical war you are seeing now. And it is, of course, ongoing. There are still people in Ukraine who are the instruments of this warfare and have been for years. And they are still trying to do their job, some of them laying a bit low right now, but ready to start again as soon as the war is over. This needs to be exposed so that the people stop believing in it. And therefore, they become obsolete. You do not need a witch hunt, although you do need a certain exposure. But you need the people to be alerted to the need to simply ignore this and see it for what it is, information warfare against them and their future.

Putin’s inconsistency

A dictatorship is primarily based on controlling people’s actions. What they do and do not do. But in order to do this, of course, they realize—the unaware forces behind dictatorships—that they also have to control people’s minds, what they can see, what they know and what they do not know. You can see this very clearly in Russia of how Putin is trying to prevent the Russian people from knowing what he and his army is doing in Ukraine. Now, you may be able to see the inconsistency, the contradiction in this.

Here you have a leader of a nation who has spent almost 20 years building this aura of infallibility. He knows what is best and he is always doing the right thing. He now decides to invade another country, whatever you want to call it. And yet he still decides that he does not want his own people to know what his forces are doing in that country. But you see, if Putin is infallible and he always does the right thing, he should be infallible in Ukraine and he should be doing the right thing in Ukraine. Why would he not want his own people to know what he is doing? You see the inconsistency? It is clearly because he knows that if the Russian people knew what is really happening in Ukraine, they would not approve of it, they would not agree with it. And therefore, he is in a bind. He feels compelled to do this, but he also feels compelled to try to keep knowledge of what he is doing from his own people. This is not wisdom. This is not understanding. It is the opposite. It is a lack of intelligence, a lack of wisdom.

Those who grasp the Flame of Wisdom can see this, can see right there the inconsistency. A leader who acts this way cannot be infallible, cannot be right. He cannot be in alignment with his own people. Right there, you see this shock-wave that has gone through the Russian collective consciousness, where really there is an impetus created by the war for people to reevaluate their view of Putin as a leader. But many people are frantically trying to avoid doing so. They are frantically trying to deny this need and come up with excuses and explanations for why they do not have to reevaluate their view of Putin, why Putin must be right, why it must be right what he is doing, even though they know and can see that it cannot be right.

If you could see the Russian collective consciousness, you would see this great upheaval. It has actually worked its way through the identity and mental levels. There is some clarity there, but few people have grasped it because of the enormous turmoil in the emotional realm that prevents people from consciously seeing and acknowledging the obvious. Because this is obvious. A great part of the wisdom flame is that wisdom is not something you believe in. It is not something you reason about intellectually. You do not analyze your way to wisdom. You can analyze your way to knowledge, but knowledge is not the same as wisdom. Wisdom is when you have a shift of consciousness and you see that this is true, not because of some intellectual argument, not because of some belief, not because of some claim from an authority, but because it is obvious. It is obvious. And this very inconsistency between the claims and the actions is obvious!

Seeing the obvious

With all thy getting, get understanding. Wisdom is the principal thing. Why is wisdom the principal thing? Because it enables you to see the obvious. And as long as you are not seeing the obvious, you are trapped and you can be controlled. You are trapped in what Jesus called the death consciousness. But when you acquire the understanding–and then the understanding can still be intellectual–but the intellectual understanding can bring about that steeper shift where you suddenly see the obvious beyond argumentation. Then you have wisdom. Then you are free. Then you cannot be controlled by the forces of this world, because your wisdom is beyond this world. It is beyond the duality consciousness. It is beyond arguing back and forth.

There is tremendous upheaval in the Russian collective consciousness because people are still trying to argue why they do not have to change. But, of course, a growing number—and the number is growing every day—of people have shifted and seen the obvious. And seeing the obvious is the principal thing in terms of raising your consciousness, raising your awareness. You might say that as you walk the path of raising awareness, for each time you step up to another level, you see something you did not see before and you see that it is obvious. This, of course, is also the difficulty. Those below a certain level of consciousness cannot see what you can see now and what is obvious to you.

You can look at Putin, as an example, and say that: “Why were there so many people before the war who thought he would never attack, he would never invade? Why were there even many in the Ukrainian government and military who thought this?” Well, it was because they have stepped up to a higher level of wisdom and they could see the obvious consequences of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. They could see the ramifications it would have even for Russia, even for Putin. And they thought because it was obvious to them, it would be obvious for Putin also. Because they thought: “Well, he used to be a rational person. He must still be a rational person.” But they did not realize that regardless of what he may have seemed to be, there are certain things that were never obvious to Putin. And that were never obvious to a large part of the people in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. And that are not obvious to most people in China and most people in the Middle East and in many other dictatorships around the world.

The fundamental shift in consciousness

You could say: “What creates the shift from a dictatorship to a democratic nation?” It is that a critical mass of the people suddenly see as obvious that people have rights and that no government can take those rights away or define those rights. When this becomes obvious to a critical mass of the population, then the nation can shift and become a democracy. Once you have made that shift, well, it is obvious to you that this is the way it is. But before people have made that shift, they cannot see it. You can try to reason with them. You could have tried to reason with Putin, as Macron in France tried to reason with him. But it has no impact, because he cannot see. He is blinded by his own state of mind, by his own dream of his own greatness as this great historical leader of Russia. And he cannot see what was obvious to most other people, at least in the democratic part of the world. He could not see it. You could not have made him see it by any kind of reasoning or argument.

That is the School of Hard Knocks. People are not willing to see. Of course, they could have seen it if they were willing. Putin could have seen it if he was willing, but he was not. Because he wanted to hold onto the dream of his own greatness, his own place in history. The School of Hard Knocks then brings about physical circumstances that people cannot deny or ignore. And it is a matter of how hard do the knocks have to become before people snap out of the denial and they acknowledge: “It is obvious that we have lost this war, that we cannot win this war?” A growing number of people in the Russian military and government apparatus have started recognizing this. Some in Putin’s inner circle have started recognizing it, but they have been reluctant to voice it to him, for he does not seem to have recognized it. There is, of course, upheaval in his psychology as well. The question is how many more hard knocks before the shift occurs? Perhaps this will not go on as long as some people fear.

What has been said here does not, of course, only apply to Ukraine, but will apply to many other nations who are in the process or who will be in the process in the future of switching from a dictatorial form of government to a democratic form of government. Eventually, wisdom will help people see the obvious.