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8 April 2025
All
the World's A Stage,
So
Said Shakespeare
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their
entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.”
Part II
As mentioned in our first essay on Shakespeare’s
world stage, the real writer of As You Like It
left out important facts in his play. Last time,
we considered briefly the acts which every human
experiences after death and prior to rebirth. Now,
let us consider more deeply the most important
“players” who do not act but stand behind the
scenes on stage in our outer world life.
You and I are the actors passing through the seven
stages mentioned – during physical existence as
well as between lives. But, to get a sense of the
Big Picture, we must pause to consider the
Producer and Director and others.
You see, we think we run and control our own
lives. But, that is really far from the truth. We
believe so because we only see the surface of
things – while the essence of existence is hidden
from our limited vision.
Humans have become more and more materialistically
oriented over the centuries, and have long since
lost reverence and awareness of the spirit world.
Oh, we may for moments allow ourselves to enjoy
movies or films which entertain ghosts or goblins,
witchcraft or magic. But with the reign of faith
in science, we generally say, “This cannot be so.
Someone had quite an imagination to come up with
this story.”
Ah, but was it just a story. Any more than your
life and my own are “just stories.”
Our plays in seven acts upon the outer stage – are
actually laid out to a large degree before we are
born. Our Souls with perfect understanding provide
for the talents and flaws, opportunities and
challenges which we express during our coming tour
of physicality. Assuredly, those aspects of our
lives are based on recent lives and allow us free
will – however limited it may be – in the present
passage.
So, we have helped quite unconsciously to “write”
our current dramas. Then, we have some leeway how
our lives unfold. But for the most part, that is
in the “how” rather than in the “what” which
occurs.
“How can this be so?” you may be asking. “It is my
life, I do what and when I wish. Don’t I?”
But, do you?
Do we really have control? Do we really know what
we are doing and where we are heading? If we don’t
know whence we came, how can we really understand
our roles in the present play, the acts yet to
come, and the finale far ahead?
Then to get even more “technical,” we should seek
to realize that we are in fact puppets on stage.
We can draw an analogy to our own situations by
considering geopolitical situations past and
present.
There is a fascinating scene in Oliver Stone’s
film called Nixon. In it, Richard Nixon
makes a late-night, unannounced visit to the
Lincoln Memorial and talks with a group of young
people. After trying to discuss football, the
conversation turns to Vietnam. Nixon says that he
wants, “peace with honor,” but it can require
fighting and dying.
One young woman asks the US President, supposedly
the most powerful man in the world, “You say you
want to end the war, so why don’t you stop this
war?”
Nixon became flustered when the woman inferred
that he was powerless within the 'system' to stop
the war: “Whaťt's the point of being president?
You're powerless!”
If the “most powerful man” (actor on the world
stage) was unable to end an unpopular and wasteful
war, that might give us clues to the state of our
own powers. Do we have any? How much? How can they
be accessed?
If we step back in time a hundred years or so, we
can also be reminded of Abraham Lincoln passing
through a somewhat similar situation as Richard
Nixon. But Lincoln seems to have recognized his
limited role when he said, “I claim not to have
controlled events, but confess that events have
controlled me.”
Presidents Lincoln and Nixon surely thought they
had power – at least for some time. Those who
elected Lincoln and Nixon imagined similarly – as
Donald Trump and the present electorate do. But,
believe it or not, such are illusory ideas. Those
are illusions because all of us, including
presidents, potentates and popes, are only players
not directors on the world stage. Real
Powers-That-Be are quite invisible to common view.
Even Jesus Christ said as much that He wielded
power only as an instrument. “I can do nothing of
myself.” John 5
So, are the rest of us any different than Abraham
Lincoln, Richard Nixon and Jesus Christ? Well,
certainly not in regard to our roles on the world
stage – even though they are minor compared to
those three seemingly powerful beings.
Production and Direction of the world stage as
well as our own local venues are in fact overseen
by the Great Ones. Though they are unseen and
largely unrecognized, They are the Cloud of
Witnesses, the Rishis, the Hierarchy – the True
Directors of Planet Earth. Standing alongside them
are the Lords of Karma who insure that Divine
Justice rules in personal scenes as well as larger
dramas.
Rebirth and Karma place us in the right time,
place and stage. Then, angels and devas act as
Stage Managers to funnel the force needed to build
and maintain our forms and to do our duties from
moment to moment. It is as if they feed us the
lines – so to speak – to fulfill our roles. All
the while, the greater and lesser Directors of
Karma and Justice govern our actions. Then, the
Great Producer aka the Grand Architect of the
Universe stands beyond all observing how the show
meets intentions.
When we play our role as intended, life flows
freely and happily. When otherwise, we fall into
illness and injury, distress and divorce, mayhem
and madness. Those may not be scripted
occurrences, but are fallout from what amounts to
poor performances. We need to learn, however
ineptly, to play our parts clearly and believably.
Not as we wish them to be, but as they are
“written upon the Greater Scripts of Life.”
Since humans tend to learn their roles slowly,
many, many repeat performances are required on our
benighted planet. Fortunately, the Producer,
Directors, and Stage Managers are in no hurry.
Those are patient, loving, forgiving Beings Who
have limitless time on their side and thus on our
own. “ With the Lord one day is like a
thousand years, and a thousand years like one
day.” 2 Peter 3
Comments always
welcome at theportableschool at gmail dot com.
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