TRANSCRIPT

What I have found in myself is that the more that you pursue higher ideals - higher spiritual virtues, higher moral codes of conduct - the higher risk you are at of being a hypocrite, if you do not fulfill and commit those ideals in your heart and live by them and personify what you are teaching or what you are feeling.

“Nothing You Do Matters Unless What You Do Matters”
I’m Amadon DellErba and this is “Get Real or Die Trying”
What up, tribe. Welcome to Episode 12 of my Get Real or Die Trying podcast. Today I'm talking about hypocrisy. This is an interesting subject because I think most human beings when they're thinking about hypocrisy, they think about everybody else who's a hypocrite, or how hypocrisy is such a large part of the religious organizations and institutions of this world, or how hypocrisy is somewhere else in the macro world - other than in themselves, in the micro reality of their existence.

I wanted to talk about hypocrisy because I think we're all hypocrites in some way. And I know for myself personally, it's been revealed to me in different ways over the last few weeks, of my own hypocrisy. And it's not something to be afraid of going into the exploration of how you may be a hypocrite in your life. We're all hypocrites. I mean, a very simple, crude example is, if you're in an argument with somebody and you say, “Don't interrupt me”, what are the chances that you interrupted them? You know, you did, so you're a hypocrite in that moment. So it's not like an uncommon, huge mark against your soul, but it is something that I think we need to evaluate as human beings within ourselves - hypocrisy.

You know, the root word of that is a Greek word, and it comes from being an actor and, this show’s about getting real, and just being real and how to be real. And it's interesting because, what I have found in myself is that the more that you pursue higher ideals - higher spiritual virtues, higher moral codes of conduct - the higher risk you are at of being a hypocrite, if you do not fulfill and commit those ideals in your heart and live by them and personify what you are teaching or what you are feeling.

The interesting thing is, there's a difference between somebody who has the internal process of committing to living morally in their moral ideals and their spiritual ideals...and they don't voice those to anybody else, but it's an internal, personal commitment. And so, when they're hypocrites, it may not be as obvious because they haven't voiced it. But it is those who voice their ideals, who voice the standards that they wish to live by, want to live by, who are at higher risk of being a hypocrite because they've set the standard and then the possibility of failure is, is recognizable and seen by others. And we all fail. We're all human.

And so, we're all in this pursuit to self-mastery, we're all on this pursuit to better ourselves, to refine ourselves, to perfect ourselves. I shouldn't say we all, because many, many people aren't, but I am, and it's not easy. It's not easy to wake up, to analyze yourself, and to have a very large, long list of areas that you failed in meeting the mark that you wished to meet, and that you also wish others to meet around you, and you try to help others meet. And so, accountability and responsibility are two of the biggest things that I've been focusing on in my own life as far as my spiritual walk and becoming more real. And in becoming more real, I have to come toe to toe with the hypocrite in me. When am I saying to my brothers and sisters around me, “Do this” or “Don't do this”, but I do it. When am I saying, “Think like this, act like this, pursue this” but I don't act like this, I don't think like this, and I don't pursue it - whatever it is, we all do it.

So it's better to be admitting, admitting to yourself that you're a hypocrite, than to be self righteous and deny it. And in being real, I think that there's such a repulsiveness and unattraction to a lot of religious figures in the world because of the conduct of history, because what's gone on throughout time and the hypocrisy that is associated so greatly with the evolutionary dogmatic religions of today… and the people in those institutions who represent that religious lifestyle, who represent the belief system, are complete hypocrites. Therefore, someone who is searching or looking or trying to explore and live by a truth are repelled.

Are people repelled from doing good in general and setting moral standards and setting higher standards because they're afraid of failing and being a hypocrite? I think so. I think I realized that when you proclaim something publicly, or you proclaim something to your loved ones - your husband, your wife, your family, your friends, your coworkers, your comrades - that you want to live a certain way, that you want to conduct yourself a certain way… and you make your moral and spiritual code and ideals known, it is very easy then to be spotted when you miss those. And it's very easy to be identified when you fail to meet those standards. So it does take courage. That actually is the attraction of a religious lifestyle for many people who are trying to pursue bettering themselves, leveling up, optimizing their potential, living in it. The attraction of that religious structure is that there are people to help hold you accountable. There's a system. Now you don't have to be in a church, you don't have to be in a religious structure, to be held accountable. But what you do have to do is you have to voice, and you have to set, and you have to proclaim your goals. And you have to voice your ideals, and you have to want to live a certain way.

And so, make the way that you want to live known to the ones around you so they can help you feel accountable. And the more and more I do that, the more and more I actually can feel like a hypocrite at the end of the day, because I'm not living the way that I want to live all the time. We all make mistakes. But, you know, it's easy to be a narcissist. It's easy to function in self absorption. It's easy to function in self-righteousness. It's easy to think that you know more than somebody else, that you're better than somebody else, because of a little bit of spiritual wisdom or truth or knowledge that you've attained along the way.

And it's interesting because it's easy to think that you're so unique from everybody else. It's easy to think that you're special and that nobody else understands or has suffered like you, or has the experience like you. And by doing that, by separating ourselves from the rest of humanity - like we're some unique and special and rare human being going through a process - we think that we get a pass. And I say we, I'm talking about myself. This is self-analysis here. This is, this is a common trait in, I think, a lot of people. How do we separate ourselves? How do we think we're special? What is it that we think our own personal process of ascending is so unique from everybody else's, but it's actually not because we're all striving for similar spiritual goals. How they manifest and interpret in our personality every day is different - yes. How we suffer and internalize our choices is different - yes. But do we all suffer? Yes. Do we all make mistakes? Yes. Do we all fail? Yes. Do we all want to do it better the next day? Maybe not. And that is the difference between a conscious person who is striving for self mastery of the soul, heart, and mind, and somebody who's not.

You see, when you start becoming conscious of the mistakes you're making, conscious of failing to meet the standards that you want to meet, you then are on the path to growing. It's okay to wake up and feel like you failed. It's okay to go to bed at night and feel like you failed, because I do all the time, because I've set high standards. Now, it's not okay to pretend like I didn't fail. It's not okay to pretend like I have it all together. It's not okay to pretend like I've achieved something that I haven't achieved. The only thing that I have achieved is the consciousness to try to achieve. The only thing - I'll say it again for you - the only thing that I have achieved is the consciousness to try and achieve something.

You see, most people don't set goals or these ideals and pursue them because it's too hard. They either fool themselves that they're already there - they've already arrived and they already have this state of being, they've already maintained some type of spiritual status, they've already overcome some lower emotion so they don't have to pursue it - or they don't even try altogether because it's too hard. Once you proclaim a spiritual value that you want to live by, you are then faced with a constant and never ending feeling of not meeting that mark. Are you man enough to live like that? Are you ascended enough to live like that? Are you willing and courageous enough to choose a lifestyle of pursuit?

You see my goals I will probably never attain in this life. That's not easy. It's not easy to live that way, but it is rewarding. And it is the constant pursuit of greatness. You see, if my goal was to just build my little house, my two car garage, get my PhD, work for 30 years in some professional field that I chose and then retire, make this X amount of money and do this, I could meet those goals. Those are tangible, practically simple goals. But if my goals are very high spiritual standards of living that are a constant refining and pursuit in God-consciousness, in self control on the daily, that I'm going to fail on the daily. And that is a difficult lifestyle to choose to live in, but it is a necessary lifestyle. It is the lifestyle of the future. It is the lifestyle of ascended beings on this planet who want to live with accountability to their brothers and their sisters around them. It is the lifestyle that you must live, if you want to be an inhabitant of this planet that is conscious and isn't just taking and hurting and destructing, but is rather giving, contributing to the whole.

And so, you know, I don't know how to say it, but when you pursue realness, you pursue a lifestyle of realization. And realizations can be painful and most oftentimes are, but they can also be alleviating. And so you have to just choose to accept agony and ecstasy in life. You have to choose to accept that pursuing any type of great mental spiritual state of being is also coming toe to toe with your own hypocrisy, your own weakness, your own attempt and then failure to meet the marks and the standards that you want to meet as a soul.

I want to talk about Jesus, the man, the Creator Son who walked this planet. Now, most people's, billions of people's understandings of Jesus on this planet is very limited - it's beautiful, but limited. And I say limited because my understanding is based off of The URANTIA Book which presents Jesus as a much more vast and cosmic, cosmic Creator Son of this universe. He's one Creator Son. One Creator Son of 700,000 plus. God didn't just have one kid. He had many, and they all created intelligent, inhabited universes. So Jesus Christ Michael of this planet that we are on, our Creator Son of this planet who came and walked this planet as a perfect ascended man, as an example to all of us to live our lives, you know, he was not a hypocrite. So I want to read a quote from The URANTIA Book about Jesus. This is from paper 100 in The URANTIA Book:

“The unfailing kindness of Jesus touched the hearts of men, but his stalwart strength of character amazed his followers. He was truly sincere. There was nothing of the hypocrite in him. He was free from affectation. He was always so refreshingly genuine. He never stooped to pretense and he never resorted to shamming. He lived the truth, even as he taught it, he was the truth. He was constrained to proclaim saving truth to his generation. Even though such sincerity sometimes caused pain, he was unquestioningly loyal to all truth.”

So that line right there, “...such sincerity sometimes caused pain…”, that's something that a lot of people don't want to accept. Coming back to the concept of being real...a lot of people who are on their little pretend, spiritual acts… doing their yoga… they want to act like being spiritual means you're not in pain ever, that you’re just all bliss and all you have to do is meditate, do your yoga, fricking put a crystal in the blender and drink it… whatever the heck it is that people want to pretend is being spiritual. But spirituality, my friends - when you truly walk a path of spirituality - accompanied with that is a lot of pain, internal pain for failing to meet the standards you want to meet, and pain for what you then observe around you because your consciousness expands and you're in pain from the lack of love, and brotherly and sisterly love, from the fellow beings around you that you're trying to pursue and live by and engage in. You're in pain because you start seeing the world without the rose colored glasses on; you start seeing what's going on. But you also start seeing the hypocrisy within your own self.

And so I see it in myself and it pains me. Do you have courage to go within? ask yourself how you're a hypocrite? And maybe you're not a hypocrite, but I think we all are. And again, it's interesting to me that those who pursue a lifestyle of trying to refine themselves in the highest spiritual manner, and then share that - teach that spiritual living to somebody else - those people are actually at the highest risk of being hypocrites, because they have to personify the teachings. They have to live by them and that's not easy. But it's worth the pursuit. So being real is like, look, this is who I am… this is who I am right here, and this is who I want to be. Okay? And I'm okay with who I want to be being up here that I have to ascend to that point. I'm okay with proclaiming who I want to be.

Am I okay with not being who I want to be? Not all the time. Is it hard to not be who I want to be every single day, to walk with grace and humility that I want to? No, it actually sucks pretty hard to fail, but if I keep the goal of who I want to be, and I see that, and I'm always in pursuit of that, and I'm trying, and I don't lower the bar because I'm tired of suffering and not being who I want to be. And I keep who I want to be in my mind's eye and my heart’s eye, and the vision is there and I keep pursuing it...that's all I can do. That's all that God actually asks of us, is to be in pursuit of that; to be willing to fail and overcome.

There's billions of mistakes, my friends, that we're going to make throughout eternity. And so we make the mistake, we learn from it. Hopefully we don't make the mistake again. The hypocrisy within all of ourselves is when we think that we've attained something that we haven't attained and we pretend. And it's easy to do that when you aren't a secure person, and when your security and your sense of worth comes from the facade that you've created about yourself, which I talked about a few episodes back. When you drop the facade and you are raw, and you're real, and you're honest with who and what you are - the blunders, the beauty, in everything - and you accept yourself for who you are, others can then accept and respect you for who you are.

Respect comes from being real, from being honest. You don't gain respect by putting on a dance show for somebody, and by being...having an illusion that you have it all together. You gain respect by being an example, and by personifying the life and the teachings that you want to live.

So, my friends, hypocrisy...we all have it. It’s deep within us. How do we identify it? I bet you the easiest way to identify it is to ask someone you trust and love to identify it for you. That's how. Because we're blind, we're blind to our own way of doing things, we're blind to our subconscious, we're blind to our conscious, we're blind to it all and how we act and relate. But we're not blind if somebody else with eyes reveals it to us, says, “this is how you're doing it…” and that's okay. Be thankful for them and the correction. Be thankful you have somebody in your life who can do that and can help you grow, help you ascend. I'm thankful for my elders. So thankful. In the moment, it may not feel good to be cut open and carved out and have that ugly, cancerous toxins cut out of my soul and my body. It's not a fun process. It's not a fun process at all, but I'm grateful for it.

So I thank my elders each and every day, starting with my parents. You see, I'm blessed to have my actual biological parents be my spiritual elders, to be far, far more ascended than me - Gabriel of Urantia and Niánn Emerson Chase - and to help point out things to me, to carve out the wrong in me, to see my weakness, to point it out so I can see my weakness. Not everybody is blessed to have parents that are like that. So it may not be your parents, but find your spiritual elders, find those who see you and see your potential and can help you meet it.

And if you just want to live your life and be mediocre and surround yourselves with people who don't confront you or challenge you, that's fine. But if you study history and you study great people and you study spiritual leaders throughout time, and anyone who's accomplished anything, they surrounded themselves with people who challenged them. They surrounded themselves with people who were smarter than them, wiser than them, everything more than them, so that they could always be in pursuit of that, to grow into it.

So challenge yourself, quit hanging out with people who bring you down, quit hanging out with people who make you feel like you're amazing all the time when you're not amazing all the time. We all can be amazing in moments, we can all tap into the beauty and share that. But there are times when we're not amazing. In those times, we need to be confronted. We need to be told we're not being amazing. And it's okay. That's the beauty of life. That's when the hypocrisy stops. So, go forth with the consciousness of being willing to look into the mirror and see the flaws, see the blunders, and be okay with them, and to pursue overcoming them.

I'm Amadon DellErba. This is Get Real or Die Trying, my friends. Nothing you do matters unless what you do matters. It's the pursuit to self-mastery. This episode was called Hypocrisy, Episode 12.

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