DIGNITY

Our Culture understands little about these matters, so when we ask The Other Person for Our Gold back, she probably won’t know what we’re talking about. 

She  might say, “Last week you were opening doors for me and treating me like A  Princess, and this week you’re ignoring me.” 

People don’t understand the dynamics. 

It is only after you get Your Gold back that you can see The Gold of The Other Person. 

When The Time is Right, when you are Ready to Bear The Weight, You Must Get  Your Gold Back. 

If you can do it with Dignity and Tact, that’s Best. 

But you MUST get  it back, one way or another.  

When you are struck, when Gold is being exchanged, sit quietly until The Smoke  clears and You See Where You Are.

If you can talk this out with The Person Holding  Your Gold — with all the Dignity and Intelligence you can muster — it’s a beautiful  way of affirming what is going on. It may be risky, but it is well worth the effort.  

One reason we hesitate to carry Our Own Gold is that it is Dangerously Close to God.  

Our Gold has Godlike characteristics, and it is difficult to bear The Weight of it.  

In Indian culture, there’s a time-honored custom that you have the right to go to  another person — a man, a woman, a stranger — and ask him or her to be The Incarnation of God for you. 

There are Strict Laws governing this. 

If the person agrees to  be The Incarnation of God for you, you must never pester him. 

You must never put  a heavy weight on him — it’s weighty enough as it is. 

And you must not engage in  any other kind of relationship with that person. 

You don’t become friends, and you  don’t Marry Him. 

The Person becomes a kind of Patron Saint for You.  

J. Krishnamurti was a wonderful man. 

Lots of people put Gold on him. 

One  afternoon, he and I went for a walk in Ojai, California, and a little old lady was  kneeling alongside the path. 

We just walked by. 

Later he told me, 

“She has put the  image of God on me. 

She knows what she’s doing. 

She never talks or asks anything of me. 

But when I go for a walk, she somehow knows where I’m going to be,  and she’s always there.” 

What was most touching was his attitude. 

If she needed  this, he would do it.

This is the original meaning of the terms Godfather and Godmother. That person  is The Carrier of Godlike qualities for you. 

Nowadays we think of a Godparent as the  one who will take care of us materially in case our parents are not able to see it  through. 

But the original meaning was of someone who carries the subtle part of  your life — a parent in an interior, Godlike way. It’s a wonderful custom. 

Most parents are worn out just seeing their child through to physical maturity.

We need  someone else who isn’t bothered with Authority Issues, like “How much is my allowance this week?” 

Being a Godparent was originally a quiet arrangement for holding a child’s Gold.  

When I was sixteen, two years after meeting Thor, I desperately needed someone like that. 

So I appointed a Godmother and Godfather, and those two people  saved My Life. 

They knew instinctively the duties of this need, and they fulfilled  them. 

My godmother died when I was twenty-two, and I wasn’t ready to give her  up. It was the most difficult loss of My Life. 

I was forced to take my Gold back before I was ready. My Godfather lived until I was in my fifties, and by then I was  ready to let him go.  

I love the idea of Godparents. 

Sometimes Young People come circling around  me, and I bring up This Language. “Do you want a Godfather?” 

If it fits, we work out  the necessary rules. “You may have this out of me, and you must not ask that.”  

These are the old Godparent laws. It’s a version of the incarnation of God in Indian  custom.    

Sometimes Gold is Dark    

I love India, but being there can be challenging, sometimes even dreadful. During  one visit, I nearly sank in The Darkness.  

An Indian friend and I went to Calcutta. He wanted to see his father, who lived  in a politically sensitive zone near The City, where foreigners were not allowed. 

So I  said, “Please go. I’ll stay in Calcutta while you visit him.” 

My Friend tried to help me  get a hotel, but there were no good ones, so I ended up in a sleazy hotel in a dark  part of town. 

Because he was so anxious to see His Father, once he got me settled, I  encouraged him to go.  

Within hours, a woman on the street thrust a dead baby into my hands, children  with amputated limbs poked their stumps into my ribs begging for money, and lepers and corpses were lying in the streets where I walked. 

It was too much for me,  and I didn’t know how to get away from it. 

Normally I could just go to my room  and hole up. As an introvert, that isn’t difficult for me. 

But my room in that hotel  had paper-thin walls, and someone was actually dying in the room on one side,  people were screaming and fighting in the room on the other side, and there was a  nightlong political rally in the square outside my window. 

I just couldn’t take it. 

I  had more in me than I could hold, and I started falling to pieces.  

Gold comes in many varieties. Sometimes our Gold is bright, but at other times  it is heavy and difficult, and seems anything but Golden. 

I had no friends and no  telephone, and couldn’t cope. 

Then I remembered the custom I’d witnessed with  Krishna-murti. 

I needed to ask someone to be the incarnation of God for me,  someone with whom I could share my burden.  

I went to a park nearby to look for a candidate. 

After standing still and observing  many people for about twenty minutes, I selected a middle-aged man who was  wearing traditional Indian garb. 

I felt a particular respect for him. He walked with  great Dignity. I continued to watch him closely.  

Finally, trembling, I went up to him and asked, “Sir, do you speak English?”  

“Yes.”  

“Will you be The Incarnation of God for me?” 

It was the second sentence I  spoke to that Man.  

And, God bless him, he said, “Yes.” 

I told him who I was and how frightened and burdened I was feeling, and that I  was unable to stand it. I poured out my misery, and he just listened without saying  a word. 

Finally I wound down and apologized for splashing all over him. 

I felt so  much better. 

I had my feet under me again.  

I thanked him, and then I asked, “And Who Are You?”  

He told me his name. I said, “Yes, and Who Are You?” 

He said, “I am a Roman  Catholic Preist.” 

There are very few Catholic Preists in India, and I had picked one  to be The Incarnation of God for me. 

He had listened, heard, and understood. Then  we bowed to each other and went our separate ways. 

Because he did that for me,  neither of us will ever be the same again. He did exactly what I needed with a Grace  and a Dignity that lives with me to this day.    

Making the Exchange Conscious    

I’m astonished by the enormity of the transfers of Gold that I watch every day. It  goes on everywhere. 

Often when I give a talk, for example, I single out someone  and speak to him, putting Gold in his lap. 

I do this to nourish myself. 

I used to  think, 

“What kind of adolescent impostor am I?” 

But one day I was lecturing with  Marie Louise von Franz, one of Dr. Jung’s foremost disciples, and she cheerfully  said, “The only way I can lecture is to find somebody I like and talk to him.” What a  relief Occasionally after doing this, I tell the person, but mostly, I don’t.  

Generally we don’t exchange Gold well, and much of our depression and loneliness revolves around misunderstanding this exchange. We run around in a state  of guilt. 

“I’m a failure.” 

“This isn’t working.”

“What are they going to think about me?”

But when you understand the Transmission of Gold, you can honor it and not feel  guilty. You know something indirect is taking place. 

You can sense it, but you can’t  possess it yet. Just try to remember that it’s your Gold that is being held by  whomever or whatever. 

Knowing this gives you a certain Dignity, which we all desperately need.