5-4-98 SELF-EMPOWERMENT

We have forgotten the primary goal of education: to make each individual self-sufficient in each of the eight fields of living. Instead, business and economics increasingly dictate the content of school curriculums. Our colleges and universities have begun to focus primarily on training students for specialized careers in specialized industries.

We should be taught at every level of education is increased self-sufficiency in all avenues of life, but such an approach threatens all the varied service-oriented careers that take advantage of people's inadequacies and dependencies! In other words, too much self-sufficiency on the part of the general populace threatens the continued expansion of our economic system. It also threatens political and religious authorities that thrive on keeping the populace weak and dependent.

The growth of self-sufficiency depends on the right kind of education, an education honoring differences in approach and emphasis. The Art of Multi-Dimensional Living® is a paradigm that, if implemented, can create this prized self-sufficiency. Its eightfold recommendations are:

1. In the field of spiritual life, expose each student to the Eight Great Paths to GodÔ and the need for each individual to know and honor his or her own unique approach to finding God.

2. In the field of dharma or caste nature, educate each student in the rights and responsibilities of each of The Five Great Castes, and the importance of knowing one's own caste. Furthermore, learn how each caste differs in its approach to a number of moral and ethical questions. Study the three great social caste institutions and discover why each needs to be fully autonomous.

3. In the field of physical health, learn The Eightfold AyurvedaÔ and why generic recommendations in the field of health always fall short of the mark.

4. In the field of mental health, learn which of the eight approaches to stress-management is most useful for you.

5. In the field of relationships, quit relying on the various "relationship gurus" and their varying "universal set of guidelines" for effectively interacting with others. Realize that there are eight different styles of relating, none better than, but each quite different from, any of the others.

6. In the field of wealth or primal desire nature, recognize that there are eight fundamentally different types of motivating factors for different people. Learn to honor your own predominant source of motivation.

7. In the field of creative play, learn what type of avocations best fit your play nature. Then you will be able to regenerate and restore yourself quite effectively through your own unique form of play.

8. In the field of professional life, learn to differentiate the eight major career archetypes and pursue your own best type.

If you engage in these eight life-strategies, then you will be:

1. less dependent on spiritual and religious authorities
2. less reliant on outside moral and ethical guidance
3. more capable of acting as your own physician
4. more capable of acting as your own psychologist and psychiatrist
5. less dependent on the "relationship gurus"
6. less subject to external motivators
7. capable of rejuvenating play
8. capable of a satisfying career

You will be an individual who is free in the fullest sense of the term, since freedom includes not only freedom from, but also freedom to.

Believe me good people, there is a conspiracy in the world to deprive you of virtually every form of self-sufficiency. Tony Brown, in Empower the People, establishes his own version of the nature of this conspiracy, how it is maintained and by whom, and unique strategies for dealing with it.

Particularly insidious are the growing number of licensing laws, whose alleged purpose is to "protect" innocent consumers from quacks, but which actually keep each citizen from exercising his God given rights and creative talents, and turns government into an unwanted big brother. God forbid that we make each citizen responsible for selecting a product or service! If we allow that kind of self-sufficiency, then what role will be left for the governmental bureaucracies!