A viewer asks: “Who are Father God and Mother God? Are they an extension of the divine, or New Age phenomena (if the latter, who are they referring to)?”

This is a way that New Agers can describe God more in keeping with intuitive sensibilities that recoil from the trappings of a male patriarchy, which has become associated in the mind with the description of a harsh judgmental male God, all too ready to punish people. So it is a way of leveling the perception to acknowledge that human females have equal standing and value and are worthy of respect, to think of there being a Mother God as well as a Father God but, in a sense, this undercuts the idea of equivalence by maintaining the dichotomy, even at the divine level, and begs the question, “Does Mother God walk behind Father God? Does She defer to His decisions and rulings? Who has the most power? Who is the most lofty?” and so on. So we see such notions as simply a reflection of the flaws in human thinking and projecting them onto ideas of the divine.

There is metaphysical truth that the divine contains both gender characteristics, thus making them both divine, but yet with each favoring certain attributes more than others. There is nothing wrong with that happening for lesser beings, in the sense of extensions of the divine in the myriad of souls in existence, some of whom have a male orientation and some a female, and others more evenly balanced. That is done deliberately to create a wide variety of possibilities of uniqueness so no person is identical to anyone else, all are unique. Even with a great overlapping and a quite wide range of attributes rather than a narrow focus that is rigid and inflexible, having an array of capabilities allows people to adapt to many circumstances they might need to.

The viewer continues: “Sylvia Browne talked at great lengths about Father God and Mother God. She also described Heaven in much detail: Hall of Wisdom, Hall of Justice, Hall of Records, Hall of Research, Temple of Learning, the Temple of Mother God (Azna), the Temple of Father God, and more. She also delved into the topics of death and transition, describing the Other Side, our activities once there, the Council of Elders, and so on. Did Sylvia Browne truly connect with the divine realm, or was she influenced by interlopers?”

In actuality, both things happened for her. She was a true psychic who was able to channel her spirit guide, and thus become privy to much information about the workings of the universe. But, as is true of all channelers, she underestimated the need for scrupulous attention to safety and did become corrupted and her ideas distorted as a consequence. This was done tactically to introduce some false notions along the way, so much of the time she was talking to the divine level, but on occasion there would be an imposter who would step in to distort a certain concept in her thinking, and thus corrupt her following because they would see the whole as appealing and feel, intuitively, it is valid.

The divine connection and communication was, in addition, constrained by her level of understanding and knowledge she enjoyed. The divine cannot lead, so the burden is on the seeker of truth to know as much as possible about an issue at hand, and to think creatively about possibilities in explaining something that is poorly understood in order to gain a greater awareness of reality. If the channeler does not work at this, the channeled information will be meager in its value to extend the knowledge significantly further. So this is something to keep in mind, that as she pictured things in her thoughts about how the divine realm might work, this could not be overridden by the divine because she would often assume she was correct, that it was true, and the divine could not tell her otherwise and abrogate her free will choices to believe in what she wanted to believe. There is an art in doing channeling. People with strong beliefs and convictions can make poor channelers because the rigidity of their thinking works against them in providing barriers to receiving divine instruction and greater knowledge. So this was a factor in her work in only being able to advance so far in what she learned and how she described and relayed it to others.

A viewer asks: “Maybe you know the answer to this question, I don’t know. So, I have heard from some channeling you’ve done, that Creator or God will not support any requests to harm others. Everything we ask should be for a lofty purpose, otherwise it doesn’t get answered. When it comes to the enemy, who are they getting their support from? They’re able to do all kinds of evil but whose energy are they using? Is God allowing his energy to be used for evil by evil? I don’t understand this concept. I’m not trying to do evil to anyone, but I don’t understand how can evil be done to me if God isn’t supporting evil? Where is this energy coming from? Is there a separate consciousness that’s pure evil but not part of God?”

You are speaking many truths here but not getting the whole picture clearly in focus. What you are experiencing is the consequences of free will in action and free agency. Both are gifts from the divine bestowed to physical beings of all kinds as a part of a grand experiment in loosening the reins of divine control by allowing this greater freedom. The risk is that people can abuse the privilege if they begin taking things for granted, assume too much of their own self-importance, and begin to become self-serving, neglectful of others, or even cause harm by becoming too competitive and seek power and control over others to gain greater security and more rewards for themselves, for example. Such non‑divine actions are a kind of evil, and that can become a slippery slope quite quickly that encourages things to worsen because it seems to be rewarding to the perpetrator, who will have less and less self-restraint and can become more and more harmful to those around them.

You ask where the energy comes from as such things play out, even though they violate logic and reason from the perspective of someone in divine alignment, knowing clearly what is right and wrong and wants to stay in good graces with the divine and develops the self-discipline to follow the rules and be more helpful than harmful, and so on. The answer is that all are given energy as a minimal condition of the life force needed to keep going. This is done regardless of what a person does with their being, how in divine alignment they might be, and the actions they take in how they live their lives and what the consequences might be to others if they begin to act in an evil way. This is free will, all of which is allowed to happen. This is hard for people to understand, but you cannot have freedom without the possibility of people making mistakes or even willfully choosing to misbehave.

The challenge for humanity is to learn how to navigate wisely and well within their environment, which is, in actuality, a kind of free-for-all. The challenge has been through the ages in how to set up societal guidelines and a means of enforcement to cope with evildoers who overstep the boundaries and become a menace, and to do so justly and fairly, and especially in an incremental fashion to allow for human error and the need to learn one’s way along so all do not end up in prison as children before they figure out morality and how to control themselves. There needs to be enough give and take for the lessons to be learned, and forgiveness in the system so people can rise above their worst moments and bounce back to get in divine alignment once again, and continue forward with a renewed commitment to do better—that is a self-correcting, self-learning, and self‑motivated schema that can work quite well even with great freedom allowed by the participants.

What you are seeing in your current world is the worst possible circumstance when that self-balancing and self-regulating world has not yet been reached, because of the presence of evildoers in your midst setting a bad example and corrupting others to break the rules like they do, to cut corners, to be neglectful and self-serving, and many other unproductive strategies that create many problems, give rise to criminality, and with the unfairness at all levels of society imposed by corrupt thinking, it is harder and harder for people to live good lives without making many karmic missteps that come back to haunt them, and certainly harm themselves and those around them in many ways they do not realize until it is too late. The defect is not in the divine, the defect is in the system within which you find yourselves, having become distorted and out of alignment to such an extent many bad things happen that cannot be prevented, so even at the crude attempts at law enforcement and punishment are a poor source of compensation to the victims and their loved ones who are harmed by tragedy.

We agree totally that the current arrangement is unsatisfactory, so we are doing our best to explain why this has come about, but it also points to the solution, which is that all need to be in divine alignment or called out when they are not, and there needs to be a recommendation and, if necessary, a means to enforce a reconsideration about the decision to neglect their spiritual nature and the need for divine assistance when such things happen. What is needed, in other words, is greater wisdom in how to navigate and deal with life’s difficulties, so people will not throw up their hands in despair when something bad happens, but will rush in to see that things change through the application of divine wisdom to better guide those with poor judgment, and to have this done at all levels so all of the institutions are working together in harmony to promote things being fair and in a state of balance. There are many things needing to be done, so there are no end of opportunities for people to make the world a better place.

GetWisdom is bringing forth the wisdom needed to develop the art of living to a high level of attainment in being within divine alignment in all one does—that is hard only for the uneducated. When one understands the principles involved and the consequences of overstepping the boundaries, it becomes easier to be in divine alignment than not be, because you will understand that despite the appearance of a free for all there is an ultimate righting of wrongs done by the Law of Karma eventually, and once all have that learning clearly in mind, they will be quite reluctant to engage in misconduct because they know there will be, ultimately, a penalty for them in doing so. What is missing is a clarity of understanding here about how to make the system work the way it was intended.

The character of Darth Vader is so central to the entire saga of Star Wars, that it would not be a stretch to say that Star Wars was really the story of Darth Vader. In the movies actually written and directed by George Lucas, we see a young Anakin Skywalker mature to a highly skilled, but arrogant and power-hungry Jedi Knight who, tempted by the evil Palpatine, eventually embraces the dark side. Star Wars is a complete character journey and even analysis of a soul’s descent from good to evil, and then rehabilitation back to good. As a composite figure and cautionary tale about how power corrupts absolutely, how closely does the fall of Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader parallel the fall of the Archangel Lucifer?

You are seeing clearly a true parallel here, that the issue of power is the lure of imposing one’s will over others while being impervious to harm or a backlash, so one has the ultimate authority to achieve prominence and a secure perch and becomes untouchable. That is a dream of all tyrants, to be king of the hill, the ultimate overlord, but the image is a false one because a journey to power takes one away from the divine and not towards it, so it is an illusion only because it is removing energy and the power to be divine in the pursuit of folly, a kind of false god, and that is always what one finds in the mirror in achieving what is felt to be victory, to become an exalted leader through conquering others and subjugating them. It is a tenuous perch at best and the karmic penalties and obligations generated by applying tremendous negativity, causing much harm to others to gain the advantage, does not go unnoticed by the Law of Karma, and it will bring back around to you every bit of the suffering and difficulty you engineered through such a conquest, to gain greater and greater power by wielding it over others who were weaker, to gain the upper hand and have control over them. That will ultimately prove to be illusory and temporary at best; there will be a comeuppance and a fall from grace, and this is guaranteed to happen.

So there is a similar grand saga depicted in many periods of history discussing wars and counter-wars and dynasties that hold sway, conquer nations, and then fall or collapse from within at the hands of outside forces seeking the same privileges and using the same strategies but perhaps having greater numbers and become unstoppable, or the inner corruption from holding power leading to complacency and becoming too tempting a target creates a growing vulnerability, and eventually some outside agents or force will seek their destruction, wanting to take over in their place. The origin of such ideas and all such negativity with evil intention at its core is a mirror of the fall from grace of Lucifer and his cohort of angelic beings, who began to serve their own egos in wanting more and more special privileges and greater control of things as a kind of power to consolidate their position and parlay their achievements into more tangible rewards of a selfish kind, and gave rise to the iconic representation of serving the ego over divine truth and divine objectives for living, which are not solely about the self but achieving a balance of self-interest, self-accomplishment, and self-satisfaction with the needs of others and society as a whole, so that some personal goals also involve service.

You have many examples in human history of people who serve a greater good and become great as an individual in the doing—the famous martyrs, the humanitarians who gave their energy and time for a cause beyond themselves, or even sacrificed their lives while pursuing the upliftment of others and the righting of wrongs and were perhaps killed for their efforts by people corrupted in serving the darkness—all such stories are dramatic and very much on point in a representation of the kinds of issues at stake still for humanity, and which put you personally on the firing line here and now within your lives currently. Being close to the frontlines, you will see this play out within your lifetime—a grand turning point in the energies that will enable, once and for all, the conquest of evil, or its victory over truth which will lead to your demise and the disappearance of humanity from the Earth altogether—one or the other will happen and it will be ultimately traceable to whether you add your talents and energies to the cause of the divine or remain on the sidelines from failing to get the message or taking it seriously, that you are needed to be a force for good and not a bystander in such an important contest between good and evil.

In Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Yoda says to Luke Skywalker, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” What is Creator’s perspective?

This is a good illustration of why important divine principles are touched on again and again in popular culture with a depth of meaning and importance going far beyond their appearance in a fictional concoction done as entertainment, ostensibly. So you are quite correct about the fact that this entire series of productions in the Star Wars genre is here for a purpose, was divinely inspired, and divinely guided to reveal great truths about the meaning of life and the pursuit of victory for the light, for the forces of good against the forces of evil, that it is not a historical tale or a fictional future scenario that could never come to pass, but a time-honored struggle engaged in again and again at all levels of society by human beings wanting to serve the cause of the divine and being opposed by interlopers corrupting them and many around them, tempting them with evil choices and designs.

The greatest risk a human being can experience, setting them up for such outside corruption, is to be in a state of fear. The caution you quoted underrepresents the true dynamics and the dual mechanism in which it can undermine a human being and ultimately lead to their destruction. The depiction of fear as a corruption leading to anger and hatred deserves some further analysis. It is a quite human reaction when one is threatened, to become angry because they are being treated so unfairly as to put them in danger in some way, whether it is a physical assault that is looming or perhaps an attack on their reputation that could harm them materially in remaining an effective functioning member of a group or organization, a place of employment, and so forth. But the transition from righteous anger to hatred is going back down a slippery slope leading to further disempowerment, because it takes someone away from divine alignment in doing that, and will result in a weakening as well. If one turns into a perpetrator in response to an act of evil done against them, one is being lowered to the same level and the end result is they are no better than their aggressor who has wronged them. This is the problem in fighting fire with fire, responding in an overemotional way, which is often a consequence of feeling powerless and becomes the only weapon one can turn to in such situations, when there is a lack of belief and personal wherewithal, or a lack of resources to engage with others, to have strength in numbers or other strategies that could help to gain the upper hand without resorting to overstepping moral and ethical boundaries.

The second mechanism making fear such a personal danger, to put one’s future at risk, is that in a state of fear, you become disconnected from the divine because of the low state of vibration it creates within. It is actually a state of being that is incompatible with divine love because fear is a shrinking back, a shrinking away from love in fullest expression, and a disempowerment of major proportions. The application of love to someone in a state of fear cannot happen because the two are incompatible, so there must be a more indirect approach taken by the divine in wanting to help someone in that state of being. Being fearful may not weaken belief in the divine in all cases, but it greatly erodes belief in the self because someone in a state of terror becomes completely disempowered, so really, that extreme fear is a diagnostic indicator that one has become truly helpless, and the divine is then blocked from assisting because we cannot override a human choice to be diminished and to be powerless if that is what you choose to be. Even as a default mode from something forced on you of evil origins, it will not matter if you are deserving and innocent, what matters is the energy you are holding and how we can interact, what we can offer in the way of help and assistance, at least in a timely way. Helping someone overcome a state of helplessness can be a long-term major project in and of itself and is one of the greatest barriers to getting swift and timely divine assistance, when one might be in peril and time is of the essence.

Is there any parallel in the relationship between Anakin Skywalker and his mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi and the relationship between Lucifer and Michael the Archangel?

Inevitably, in any setting where there is a confrontation by beings who differ in their orientation and their relative divine alignment or corruption, as the case may be, this is a prescription for a drama of some kind to unfold. To someone in divine alignment, encountering someone who is evil and a threat to others will be seen clearly as a liability, and with an inner sense of some obligation to take action of some kind to deal with this menace in the spirit of wanting to help the greater good. So, at a minimum, an appeal to the divine will ensue and there may well be guidance to do something personally, and that is because you are in a do-it-yourself world, you are supposed to run things, to be in charge, and to attend to all the problems that arise, including the problem of evil. That is why you were created to fix it, to have within you the capability to counter evil with divine love and find ways to prevail through healing your opponent, raise them up so they will surrender their evil agenda, and begin to follow a better path.

People who have strayed from the divine path through seeking greater personal power will find many in better alignment who will take them on, confront them, and question what they are doing and how they are doing it, and this becomes a kind of test for both parties—for the corrupted individual, it becomes a test of strength and they will want to see if they can prevail and win out as the stronger party using power as the means, because it is what they have come to believe needs to be the goal, because it is the path to success; the person who is more in divine alignment will likely be the mentor, the one with greater life experience and a wiser judgment and ability to see right and wrong, and will be able to tell rather quickly that the person not in alignment who confronts them is using faulty reasoning and making an appeal to power for personal gain in some way that will not serve them in the end, and this needs to be countered by the wiser party, and that indeed can be quite a challenge, especially dealing with someone who is being difficult and unable to reason on the same level.

This is a risk to all because all have many teachers in life and the end result of their progress will be to what extent they hear and understand what their teachers are sharing with them, and can embrace the wisdom and put it to good use in adjusting their actions and their course in life, and in the doing reinforce the learning within to become the truth they are choosing to follow and, in effect, are becoming in harmony with the divine by doing so. To listen to others and be able to see the greater wisdom they hold, even if it seems to be a criticism or judgment in some respects because one has been out of alignment, and without realizing it, so there is a conflict of perspectives, a return to greater humility may allow someone with less experience, who is a bit too full of themselves, too cocky, and is overreaching, to step back, pause, and rein themselves in before making too great an error from which they might not recover.

The lesson in this is not to ignore the would-be teacher, nor to conquer and subdue them and eliminate them as competition, thinking one has outdone them and deserves to gain the upper ground and be in a dominant position of authority, but to understand that one will always be on a learning path and you will never be done if you aspire to greatness of a true sort. So if you exhaust the resources of a teacher and begin to feel there is nothing more to learn from them, all that means is you need to find a better teacher, because there will always be someone of greater attainment, greater knowledge, and wisdom, who will be able to teach you many things you still do not fully grasp, and that is the best way to proceed in life, not to conquer someone who threatens your superiority but learn from them what makes them strong, and if it is based on divine wisdom, adopt it oneself and you will not only become their equivalent in strength but may be catapulted to even greater accomplishments, insight, and growth in wisdom yourself, taking you far beyond your would-be competitor who in actuality can be a servant in an endless journey of learning and growth.

Negative karma is many things, but principally its purpose is to incentivize the being to “somehow” escape the suffering it entails. The divine goal and hope are that the being will be incentivized to pursue greater divine alignment and wisdom, rather than greater levels of power along with greater levels of cunning and skill to more successfully pursue, maintain, and further power over circumstances and other beings. Does karma create the incentive to pursue a solution, but cannot dictate on its own just what solution, and what path, the being will pursue? Is that left up to the free will choice of the being? What is Creator’s perspective?

We would say this is largely correct, that is why there are many circumstances that arise which appear to be a punishment in the return of a karmic consequence for a rash act or misjudgment. This is simply an automatic readjustment to force those involved to recalibrate their life in a way to repay an obligation of some kind because they will begin to feel the pinch, and then must take steps to heal what is wrong or risk compounding it in some way. So this is not an arbitrary black or white, all or nothing, life in bliss or a death sentence imposed by an angry God, but a greatly refined and nuanced reshaping of energetic possibilities and choices brought into play that motivate people to take action that will further their life journey, hopefully with an improved direction through positive choices rather than a continued or even greater decline in surrendering to false solutions, weak actions, or even greater corruption in the choices to respond.

Life is a test, every day, in every way, because karma is always a factor in everything that happens, if not the karma of an individual existence in what is happening at the moment with the looping of time bringing energies back around to be a source of influence, then the broader culture, the environment, the location one is in and everything about it, and others one interacts with and their personal karma that will create dilemmas for them as well in having to respond to a challenge that occurs. This testing is a seasoning, it is a process of maturation through being in the flow and flux of energies directly oneself with all that entails, putting oneself at risk, in fact, by going on record with all that happens, showing forever how well you did, how well you handled yourself, because it will be possible to trace the thread of existence through all the ups and downs, and this will be on file.

Again the purpose is not to shame or punish, but to assist the self as well as others with greater understanding and the resources to always have a way to find the truth of things because the truth is always recorded, whether good, bad, or ugly, and is independent of bias or prejudice or ignorance of the participants. It is the duty of the Law of Karma to teach all, what they miss along the way by returning the truth to them in some form so a person will reckon with past errors and make a course correction for the better, or suffer a greater penalty until they do, finally one day, figure out a better way to respond. There is always a path to divine alignment available to everyone, the challenge is to be able to see it and have the wherewithal to take that path as it will not always be the easiest one at first.

Norman Douglas said: “Never take a solemn oath. People might think you mean it.” This would be especially true if it was a “witnessed” event. What is Creator’s perspective?

This quote, although humorous and fairly cynical, contains many truths. It speaks to the uneven nature of human beings, that many are compromised, corrupted, and have an incomplete understanding of who they are and what matters and is quite important in governing their choices as they live their lives. It reflects as well, that the taking of oaths is a serious business, that people will expect them to be honored, and it is a mark against you if you do not do this, and in some cases there may be legal ramifications and potential punishment when high-level responsibilities are given to a person in trust and only secured by the oath they take. Some oaths, therefore, are more complicated with more at stake and greater obligation than others, but we can tell you the Law of Karma sees all that you do, and to the Law of Karma an oath is an oath and must be honored or will cause a stain on your soul if you do not live up to your obligations, even in small matters, so there will be a karmic penalty of some kind for any misdeed, big or small. It is also a test of character and something that is much prized universally, to honor one’s oaths as obligations, so anyone seen as breaking an oath, a solemn promise, in effect, may be judged harshly and it will be a significant liability harming their reputation and potentially, future treatment by others, who may be quick to spread the word, and that stain on a person’s reputation might cost them dearly in losing the trust of their fellow citizens.

So this quote cleverly encompasses the all too real state of affairs, that humans are not reliable oath keepers but rather quite prone to be selfish and to serve their self-interests above the needs of others with respect to oaths they might have taken, which would require a higher standard of conduct than the person is willing or capable of maintaining on a lifelong basis. Sadly, it is all too true, that many people cannot be counted on to be steadfast and reliable in maintaining high standards of conduct. So the idea of a solemn oath is to put on record someone has taken a pledge to honor that commitment and thereby declaring publically their willingness to put all on the line, at least with respect to their reputation as well as any legal implications, and because of the challenges it represents to do so, and maintain it successfully, will be very much to a person’s credit and they will be rightly honored for their service if they can maintain their integrity and follow through.

Dr. Viktor Frankl wrote: “Every one of us knows somehow that the content of his life is somehow preserved and saved.” If the taking of an oath is an affirmative deed that becomes recorded for all of time in the akashic records, one can never get away from it completely, and at the very least, the event will always be in the recorded history of the soul. What is Creator’s perspective?

This comment from Frankl is quite perceptive and a deep awareness of the truth of what we teach about the akashic records being a repository of all that takes place, throughout the universe in fact; it is indelible and will persist for all of time. This is yet another reason that life is serious business, even with the frivolities and the ineptitude, and at times reckless and cavalier attitude of the young, lacking maturity and wisdom, who get themselves in trouble taking on more than they can handle and not having the strength of character as yet to follow through and honor commitments, and so forth. As a light being, you are fully aware of the value of failure as a learning opportunity, but this does not mean no one cares about failing or that failing is viewed positively. That is just a consolation prize, so to speak, that it is one of the best teachers, to undergo failure, and in fact it is the pain it causes that drives home the lesson all too often. So it is obviously not the best choice or path to growth and learning, to be too casual about the possibility of failure, knowing that there will be second chances in most cases and a future opportunity to prevail and do better.

Those who do things carefully and in earnest, and have a passionate commitment to living in divine alignment, will excel and will achieve far greater accomplishments than those who might be reckless or indifferent to the possibility of failure. The very fact they might not feel as bad about the consequences may well be a demonstration of incomplete development and maturity, so this is not to be trivialized by ignoring the realities of failure and its consequences nor one’s personal responsibility, and perhaps a duty to others to make amends who might be harmed in some way indirectly by one’s failings. All of those consequences are a reflection on the character and divine alignment of the individual, so it is an indicator of relative progress and attainment. Whether a person is even sensitive to where they stand is yet another indicator of their discernment, degree of wisdom they enjoy, and the level of capability they have developed to deal with life and meet its challenges with success, or at least acceptable levels of accomplishment commensurate with their experience level and past history.

It is good to know the universe works this way, that everything goes on record. It is a time-proven system to keep things honest and provide a level playing field, as this is another way of leveling things out so wrongdoers do not gain an unfair advantage by cutting corners, so to speak, in an attempt to get ahead. Eventually, it will all come out in the open and anything taken away from others unfairly to gain a personal advantage will be seen for what it is, a kind of cheating, and there will be a day of reckoning, and the Law of Karma will enact a penalty for all who do so. Promises in the form of an oath become quite important given that reality, that there will be nowhere to hide if one fails to live up to their promises.

Frankl wrote: “It goes without saying that the realization of attitudinal values, the achievement of meaning through suffering, can take place only when the suffering is unavoidable.” What is Creator’s perspective?

This reflects a partial truth, that suffering contains within it an assumption of responsibility on the part of the sufferer. If it is truly unavoidable, as was the case for concentration camp inmates, doing the best one can in the face of adversity is noble, and will, indeed, enrich the soul although through a ghastly means and necessity imposed by others. The extent to which one can rise to the occasion is a mark of character, spiritual alignment, and inner strength. The deeper meaning is the suffering itself as a learning opportunity, so it is not only to be simply endured but is a teachable moment in the effects of negativity on the soul and all parts of the being, because all can be compromised, wounded, and altered thereafter to be out of alignment and dysfunctional.

There is much to be learned from going through the trials and tribulations of physical existence—that is the hidden wisdom in this experiment. You learn by doing, not by studying the thoughts of others and observing things from a distance. Only by facing the fire personally can you truly learn about the necessity of divine alignment in the face of evil, and how to respond to the challenge effectively, and what it takes within to do so. Those principles are easily recounted, the tools and attributes that will be necessary, but it is another to cultivate and allow their expression from deep within the being to embody them, and bring them into a full manifestation with one’s energy when one is on the firing line and may well get a reprisal that is painful or even lethal. That takes courage and is quite a different thing from the challenges to the scholar, who only needs time and a quiet place to study, to carry out their role. It is the doer who takes risks and will learn and grow by the doing. That is what the sufferer gains from their plight; it is not wasted even though it is dreadful and unpleasant—the learning will be equally powerful.