Thursday, December 7, 2023

But I AM Entitled

By Steve Beckow

Posted on December 7, 2023

But I AM entitled!

I’m staring at this huge vein of entitlement that I have. White, male, college-educated, lives in a supposedly democratic country, on and on. I’m entitled.

You may say, well, just wake up. But it goes far deeper than the conscious mind.

I described these earlier as automatic behavior patterns that are habitual. They’re the precipitate of our core issues, or vasanas, the residue. (1)

It takes considerable concentration and commitment to catch ourselves acting one out. And even more to raise it to awareness, acknowledge it, and then stop acting on it.

One element of entitlement is complaining. I caught myself acting entitled at the drug store a few hours ago, when I shared that I’d purchased 40 batteries from Costco, whose best-before date was March 2025, and not one of the forty worked.

It wasn’t what I said. It was the sense of entitlement I felt below what I said. Following those instincts, one ends up a snob. Uhhhh…. I’d better check that one out!

***

The ultimate mystery here is that our society gets across the message, in movies and television, that no one likes a snob. And yet people choose to be snobbish. And not just lords and ladies. Celebrities, financiers, academics, even doctors.

The only explanation for that that I can find, when I consult my own memory bank, is that snobbishness feels good. Feeling important, feeling needed, feeling able all feel good. And we seek the pleasurable, feel-good feelings.

One of the themes of Eddie Murphy’s Coming to America was a young African prince, who had everything, and yet continually rose above temptation and saw beyond the ephemeral feel-good moment. Most of us have as many temptations we yield to as some people have bottles of liquor. We’re entitled. We don’t rise above temptation. We cater to it.

I haven’t risen above temptation, I say snacking on a bowl of chocolate ice cream. I’m not detached. I give in to the temptation to consider myself entitled to respect, good service, a reliable product, whatever.

And I attempt to force my will on the other person … and predictably everything goes off the rails. And I look stupid. And I eat crow.

But I do it again and again. Just a bit better at it. Until I don’t.

Arrogance, self-righteousness, privilege all feel good. Hermann Goering, before his execution, said, “Oh well. I had twelve good years.” Can you imagine? He felt good by and while murdering millions. That’s how deeply some people want to feel good, to enjoy themselves on a purely physical level (possessions, experiences, adventures), no matter how many people they harm. Unrestrained pleasure-seeking.

Our desire to feel good, to enjoy ourselves, to feel pleasure, if we don’t weigh it against our reasons for being here, sends us off on one “scenic detour” after another. And then we … OK, I … wonder why I’m ineffectual.

***

Entitlement is constrictive, constraining, densifying. It’s insulting to the person we’re being entitled with. It invites short-term resistance and long-term karma. It has no relationship to love, which is on a different plane of consciousness. (2)

I really have to get so sick of it and myself for going that route that I stop the minute I catch a whiff of it.

Or laugh about it. Or love it and apologize to it for giving it such a miserable assignment. Or ask the Mother to repurpose the energy. I could do a hundred things.

Of them all, the one that moves me to action is realizing that very soon I’ll be a CEO and it’ll be harder with all that wealth to do the work needed to end this behavior pattern.

My sense of entitlement could mushroom. And what used to hold me back will in large measure be absent. Things then will very much depend on which wolf I feed.

Do it now. Don’t play with your future and that of a lot of others. Do the work while it’s still manageable….

Footnotes

(1) See Vasanas: Preparing For Ascension by Clearing Old Issues at https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Vasanas-Preparing-for-Ascension-R8.pages.pdf

(2) Steve: The space that I call transformative love, what dimension is it?

Archangel Michael: It is the seventh dimension. (Archangel Michael in a personal reading with Steve Beckow through Linda Dillon, Jan. 20, 2016.)

Steve Beckow