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im·pi·e·ty
imˈpīədē/
noun
noun: impiety; plural noun: impieties
- lack of piety or reverence, especially for a god.

   In today's world it is unfashionable to place any import on the concept of piety, whereas one thousand years ago the Catholic Church's teachings made it very important to be able to identify it should it exist anywhere. But they were ineffectual in the many incidences where it existed within the Papacy itself, and the upper echelons of its hierarchy. Impiety was not a thing that happened only within the Catholic faith however, it could be found in many other places and spiritual traditions throughout history. Regardless of any path's spiritual beliefs and conditions, the fact that they must at least in part exist on earth dictates that they all will have elements of impiety that can be found within them, this being a realm of dualism.

   Overall, impiety is merely one of the manifestations of the pride in a majority of the incidences of it happening. This is usually due to a desire of the prideful lower self attempting to gain the object of its desire, even if that requires steps that will not be interpreted in a necessary or forgiving way. It is worth mentioning that in a number of circumstances, a prideful desire can progress, becoming ever stronger in its pull at the lower self until it is exercising control over it unceasingly. At this point it can be called lust, regardless of the area of context or the type of desire being spoken of. Not all forms of lust are necessarily sexual in nature. A heroin addict constantly lusts after his next fix, and similarly, the alcoholic is often thinking ahead towards his next drink. Recognizing these distinctions can be useful and necessary in identifying what is happening and what is the cause of it in an individual's life.

   Socrates, who was taught the way of Eckankar by ancient adepts, was accused and brought to trial on charges of being guilty of refusing to recognize the gods recognized by the city state of Athens and introducing other, new divinities, an act that amounted to impiety which was a very generalized charge. It was likely that he had merely found new ways of expressing the qualities of the Nous, the Soul, and the words he used to refer to that state were taken to be newly created gods. He was also accused of corrupting the youth from having taught them about these new figures that were probably nothing more than qualities. The penalty demanded was death. He was found guilty and made to drink hemlock as a means of self execution. His followers urged him to flee, but he refused on principle and instead drank the poison and died. While not one of his writings exists, what we know of his life and his trial and death come only from the writings of his students, Plato and Xenophon.

   Sometimes people will begin a spiritual path that they are anything but dedicated or committed to. A majority of the time they will do this to uphold the illusion that they are serious to it and dedicated, as a child might adhere to their parent's religious choice although they would not willingly choose it for themselves, and perhaps maintain this until a point where they could free themselves from it. The parents, if they become aware of their child's non-acceptance of their religion would easily consider that to be a form of impiety, although perhaps not as severe as the quality that Catholics would consider to be the same thing within their faith. The specific definitions used in various religions can be somewhat different, or at the least generalized in a way that is more inclusive than that observed in other paths.

   Anytime a person is coerced into accepting a path against their will, this is an impious act on the part of the one perpetrating the coercion. This can be made to happen in a number of different ways, but most often a threat of a negative outcome, such as the Christian concept of hell, is used to make a person choose a religion that makes the claim of usually being the only way to avoid an eternity in that hell, which is in itself an utter illusion having no basis in truth. Any method of spirituality that does not practice the development of the ability to consciously leave the body to learn the spiritual principles, is inevitably one that has no way to deliver what it claims. The exteriorization from the body is literally the only way that one can experience and prove to themselves the verity or falseness of a religion and it's claims. This is the best way to prove the reality that exists in different levels of conscious awareness, and also the most efficient way to achieve an expansion of the individual awareness.

   Those who begin on a path that they do not truly believe, and to which they are not truly dedicated or committed, are at the very least choosing to follow an illusion and are disregarding that fact. In some cases this is done for both a financial gain as well as a psychological one, a way for a person to boost their own self-worth and thereby their ego so as to laud themselves over others that they deem themselves to be above. Any such perceptions are purely egoic and have no basis in fact. Even if such a behavior is adopted by one and that person does not place themselves, in their own opinions, above others, they have at the very least adopted an illusion as reality. This can be a situation where right discernment is of tantamount importance, and such skills are necessary to prevent being subdued by an illusion.

   When there is a lack of dedication on the individual's part, it will often be found also that they are lacking in defense against other potential attacks on them as well as simply adopting wrongful ideas and opinions that can stand in the way of that Soul's experiential growth towards awakening in Its own primal state of being beyond duality. Of course this causes the path that one is on to become one that can require much more development and because of such delays, take much longer in reaching goals within the lower realms of matter/energy and space/time.  The attacks that an undedicated person might find happening can be from any number of sources, from negative entities that see the lack of dedication as a weakness and an opening in the psychic space of the individual, as well as the sort that can sometimes come from relatives that are members of a religion and that take offense at the individual in question's lack of dedication or sincerity in that path, or from others who directly oppose that particular religion regardless of the reasons or context of their differing Ideas.

   One modern situation speaks of an impious action that happens often. That is the fact that many Christian churches will run credit checks on new members and seek to find out as much about their financial status as can be found. Regardless of any reason given publicly for this, it speaks of a desire to choose churchgoers who can afford to make weekly donations or tithes. It can be argued that economic status was in the past a very obvious thing, and one that has changed significantly in the last century, but now with the advent of computer technology, there are farther reaching tools that can open a view into one's private life and economic status as never before. In this way, religious egalitarianism is brought into question as to whether or not it is merely a cover for a more subversive aim, that of insuring an extended ability to collect monies for the church.

   The collection of money in a synagogue, mosque, or church has been a subject of debate for many centuries. As early as four-thousand years ago, Hinduism and later Buddhism formed ideas that forbade usury. In Judaism, parts of the Torah deal specifically with both interest and usury, words that at one time had the same meaning, and were things that were not to be allowed, but over time usury came to mean an exorbitant amount of interest. These same principles were also used in Christianity and form part of the Old Testament. Deuteronomy 23:19-20 reads:

“Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of any thing that is lent upon usury: Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury: that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all that thou settest thine hand to in the land whither thou goest to possess it” (King James Version).

   A strikingly similar passage is found here, where Exodus 22:25 states:

“If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury” (King James Version).

  In Leviticus 25:37 one finds:

“Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase”

   In Jeremiah 15:10, the Prophet complains that he is being cursed although he has never done anything such as take interest, meaning that such curses would be appropriate for him if he were someone who took interest. A particularly harsh statement is made in Ezekiel 18:13:

“Hath given forth upon interest, and hath taken increase: shall he then live? he shall not live: he hath done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon him.”

   In Mosaic law, when an Israelite needed to borrow, what he asked was to be freely lent to him, and no interest was to be charged, although interest might be taken of a foreigner (Exodus 22:25; Deuteronomy 23:19,20; Leviticus 25:35-38). The New Testament is somewhat vague on the subject of interest, but there are certain lines that speak against interest, such as this passage from Luke 6:35, where Jesus is reported to have said:

“But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil”

There are a great many varying interpretations of all of the verses in the Bible, and this causes groups of Christians to have somewhat different interpretations for what is right to do, and what is not. In Islam, Sharia law speaks against usury (Riba) and impermissible investments (Haraam).

   The other side of this, concerning churches in particular and usually Christian ones, is a new trend in churches beginning credit unions so as to help parishioners that are desperately in need of financial assistance. However it cannot be forgotten that banks and credit unions make money using a fee system for the payback of loans, especially payments that are made late. Thus does any church make profits from the loans given, the same as every bank in the world does. If they participate in fractional reserve banking, which is to say giving loans that exceed the amounts held in the bank based on the agreement that it will eventually be paid back in full and a profit thereby gained, this amounts to interest or usury, the loaning of money at unusually high rates of interest. The difference is in that the rate of interest may not necessarily be unusually high, but the fact remains that the money was loaned out when it in fact did not actually exist in the first place. This is a method of profiteering that bankers have used for many centuries and by the fact of its deception, can be viewed as another manifestation of impiety, one using the trusted position of a religion or religious organization to perpetrate a fraud upon its members, a fraud that financially benefits that organization.

   In Islam being that usury is unjust, it is not allowed, and this shows a difference between what is common and legal in Western banking practices, and the ways that Muslim banking is different. Rather than interest, Islamic financing is based on ownership of assets and the sharing of risk. These concepts, known as Musharakah and Mudarabah, serve to distinguish Islamic financing from Its Western counterpart, which is based on principles of interest, debt, and risk transfers. In the Western world of finance, a bank will receive interest for the risk it takes by loaning monies to a business, whereas in Islamic finance, a bank that provides money for a business will gain an agreed share in the profit/loss generated by the money loaned. This rids them of the necessity of interest payments and sharing the risk between the bank and the business concerned.

   While there is much difference between various religions and their views on the ideas of money and financing, there is quite a bit said on the issue of interest, most of it less than favorable. Christian churches and even churches within the Church of England's purview are opening credit unions for the purpose of helping the needy. Islam has definite restrictions within how Sharia Law regulates finance in general, and for this reason, i have been as yet unaware of a similar movement within Islam to set up a financial organization that is able to help the needy, but it cannot either be said that such a thing is impossible or will never happen. There are many varying opinions on the subject. Many of the incidences happening within finance worldwide provide opportunities for impiety to occur, even within those that specifically prohibit that. Thus is the lower nature of humanity, always so easily distracted or misled by its desires or greed.

   Regardless of which form of manifestation an impious act takes, and regardless of the area of the world, or culture, or religion that is in place at the time, most consider it to be a specifically bad idea as well as one that is fueled by the gains that a human's ego can make appear to be profitable to itself, often at a cost to another. Such prideful actions, along with their motivations, are for the most part found to be unacceptable overall, and are often viewed as an unfair action perpetrated upon others. When these things occur, the eyes of karma can always see them, and they are unable to deceive the powers that exist to pass out karmic lessons. For this reason there is absolutely no escape from the responsibility of the choices made and the true motivations for those choices that led to any such actions of impiety. As stated previously, these are always an act of pride, and by this fact it is shown that the Soul, Itself, is incapable of such an action, those being things that occur only in the worlds of duality.

   As Soul goes through Its various incarnations within the lower planes, It learns via direct experience the true nature of the choices Its lower selves make. Likewise It goes through the necessary experiences, which are only as tough to handle as that individual chose them to be for themselves. Such direct experiences are extremely hard to ignore and are equally hard to forget, and for this reason, the lessons hit home and very deeply. Eventually that Soul progresses and makes Its way beyond the influence of the emotions and the mind, attaining a place where the chains of these cannot reach and because of that, are utterly unable to hold that one to the lower realms. It is at this point that the first true taste of spiritual freedom is experienced, and while it must be re-won on a daily basis, and will always be challenged while one is alive in the body, this also spurs that Soul forward into achieving ever greater states of experience, consciousness, and being.

12.Impiety 2015 -2023 ad continuum © - Matt Sharpe

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