PROPERTY AND PROPERTY RIGHTS
On Mars all property is considered as belonging to God, its Creator,
who provided it for the enfoldment and comfort of His creatures. No
individual lays claim to property in the sense that you Earth dwellers
do.
Through God's love does man inhabit a portion of the material universe,
but only for a season. Man comes into material being to express life
and acquire an individuality, after which he passes out of material
bondage, when his place is taken by another.
At man's transition he takes with him only character, nothing else. If
the things he has striven for during his material life have been but
chimeras: the material things of life: the fruits of the Earth, then in
that case he will find himself poor indeed. The only real wealth, the
only thing worth striving for, is a knowledge of God and His Kingdom.
And with us Martians a knowledge of God is the ultimate goal sought
for. Hence all material things to the Martian are but expedients, soon
to be forgotten.
Material wealth is an abstraction. Its usual evidence is the
possession of property, which may be money, land, goods or chattels, as
the case may be. In final analysis this concrete evidence of wealth is
not real.
Money is nothing more or less than a stamped token entitling the
possessor to so much human effort, for the real value behind money,
after all, is but so much human energy or force, varying according to
its quality and its worth.
Other forms of property such as goods and chattels, are the result of
human endeavor and may be secured by the exchange of money, or it may
be produced by the owner.
Wealth represented by lands, which were created by God for the benefit
of all humankind, and not for the individual, is the so-called
right-secured by barter, exchange or inheritance, to use or withhold
from use, at the caprice of the owner--of a certain piece or portion of
the planet. Under a legal fiction the title to land extends to the
center of the Earth and to infinity in an opposite direction!
The text: "Thou shalt earn thy bread by the sweat of thy brow" has a
deep significance to one who has come into a knowledge of Truth.
Drones have no place in the Divine Plan. It is not only essential but
mandatory, that each one do his part for the common good. The
non-producing rich man is as much a drone as is the vagabond who
neither toils nor spins. The Biblical test concerning the difficulty
of the rich man getting into Heaven means that it is impossible for a
drone or parasite to get into harmony with God.
The possession of wealth is not in itself sinful, but the possession of
wealth is a corollary to selfishness. He who is unselfish will spurn
wealth. The individual who accumulates beyond his needs sins against
Heaven when he locks up his goods in strong boxes. The act of hoarding
deprives some creature of his just portion, for God has planned there
should be sufficient for all who make the effort, and a system that
permits an unequal distribution of God's gifts is in opposition to the
Divine Plan, and doubly pernicious is a church organization that
permits it.
Only after Christ has taken up His abode in the hearts of the people of
your Earth will surcease come to the suffering millions on your planet.
Happiness and selfishness are so diametrically opposed that the former
is impossible unless the latter is eliminated from your world, for only
real happiness comes after complete surrender to God. Surrender to God
means subordination to His will. His will on Earth must be done as it
is in Heaven. All must be self-conscious of this. If God's will was
adhered to on your Earth what a different place it would be! Instead of
a shambles it would be a paradise, the brotherhood of man and the
Fatherhood of God a fact instead of the dream of a few.
God loves all His creatures, both evolutionary and non-evolutionary.
His love is infinite in extent. We are all His children. Everything
has been provided for us. It is only man's selfishness that deprives
any creature of his just dues. Man suffers want on account of his lack
of faith in God! Before man lost his faith in God he walked and
communed with angels. He could do it now if he would but listen to the
Voice Within--if he would only open his heart to Christ, for help is
ready whenever one asks for it in sincerity and faith.
One of the sources of great injustice to the majority of the
inhabitants of your Earth is the belief in the dogma of Divine Right.
This dogma includes not only the absurdity of the Divine Right of
kings, but the Divine Right to the ownership of goods and land through
the Creator's favoritism for a few.
This dogma is the mother of untold misery and suffering. Out of this
ungodly theory has evolved your shameful caste system; your shameful
economic ideas.
Your ancient feudal system of government has been but little improved
upon today over its primitive status, for you still draw well-defined
lines of class distinction between God's children--lines of demarcation
based on wealth and natal origin. With your inhabitants, communal
standing and social distinction is proportionate to the wealth of the
possessor or to the wealth or social standing of ancestors.
The monstrous heresy of Divine Right is an invention of the powers of
darkness and must be eliminated from your world root and branch before
your progress forward is assured. God plays no favorites. His love is
showered upon all alike. His gifts are for all His children. It was
never the Divine intent that a favored few should bask in the sunshine
of His grace while the majority suffered want and deprivation. These
false ideas have been the procurers of darkness: of the Stygian gloom
now overshadowing your Earth.
Spiritual darkness has not always covered your Earth. In primitive
times--ages ago--eras whose history has been lost to you, man on your
Earth was in harmony with his Creator. This was in the Golden Age when
man and the angels of God walked hand in hand; when man communed with
God, and when the Christ spirit was abiding in the hearts of the
people. In this age man was spiritually developed to a degree almost
unbelievable by you.
Then the time came when man listened to the temptor (his baser self),
and through the workings of the law of Atavism man degenerated almost
to the level of his animal prototype.
This incident in your world's history is the source of the legend of
the "Fall of Man" in the "Garden of Eden." Man disobeyed God by
listening to self, by giving himself over to his selfish desires. He
slew his brother, figuratively speaking, when he abandoned himself to
selfish ends and took advantage of his fellowman. He has been guilty
of that sin ever since. IT IS NOW INHERENT IN HIS MAKE-UP; THIS
SELFISH INSTINCT MUST BE ELIMINATED BEFORE HE CAN AGAIN FIND THE
FATHER'S KINGDOM.
No fences or other evidences of individual ownership surround the
millions of homes on Mars. No lines of demarcation divide one plot of
land from another. The millions of beautiful homes--beautiful in their
simplicity, for over-ornamentation such as the dwellers of your Earth
practise, is not tolerated on our planet--belong to the Commonwealth.
The same are allotted to the individual as a life tenure only.
The same custom prevails in the matter of personal property. Should a
Martian have use for a flying machine, also used by another, or other
kind of property for personal use, he does not ask the use of same in
the spirit that your Earth dwellers borrow from one another. Use of
the needed article is requested with the idea that it belongs to the
community: that all material possessions are the common property of the
entire race.
THE MILLIONS OF MARTIANS LIVE AS ONE FAMILY. IT IS THIS SOLIDARITY,
THIS FILIAL CONSIDERATION THAT ONE HOLDS FOR THE OTHER THAT HAS MADE
THE STUPENDOUS AND GIGANTIC PUBLIC WORKS ON MARS POSSIBLE.
In the absence of a universal unity of purpose intelligent life on Mars
would have become extinct centuries ago, when the last remnants of its
oceans and seas dried up and a planetary irrigation system became
necessary in order to utilize the frozen Polar moisture.