You say you never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He’s not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And say do you want to make a deal?

Bob Dylan “Just Like a Rolling Stone 

Deal is a word that is used as either a verb or a noun. As a verb, it usually means to distribute or pass out something. As a noun, a “deal” is the result of a negotiation, or discussion of various kinds that results in some form of a contract or a “deal”.

Cooperate is another word that is used as either a verb or a noun. As a verb it means to work in harmony to create a benefit of and for the whole. As a noun it is a process of collaboration, teamwork.

The difference between cooperation and deal is enormous, and needs to be clearly understood.

The Deal
Deal making, by whatever process of inter-face one wants to use, from negotiation to imposition, is and has been for untold centuries, the primary architectural tool of Intelligence used in our materialistic, one dimensional, illusory system of reality. In such systems, the dominant operational view and natural driving force underpinning this structure of Life is competition. Competition is a struggle or battle for survival, in which the most fit survive thus guaranteeing the continued evolution of the “best”.

The trees in the garden rained flowers.
Children ran there joyously.
They gathered the flowers
Each to himself.
Now there were some
Who gathered great heaps —
Having opportunity and skill —
Until, behold, only chance blossoms
Remained for the feeble.
Then a little spindling tutor
Ran importantly to the father, crying:
“Pray, come hither!
See this unjust thing in your garden!”
But when the father had surveyed,
He admonished the tutor:
“Not so, small sage!
This thing is just.
For, look you,
Are not they who possess the flowers
Stronger, bolder, shrewder
Than they who have none?
Why should the strong —
The beautiful strong —
Why should they not have the flowers?”
Upon reflection, the tutor bowed to the ground,
“My lord,” he said,
“The stars are displaced
By this towering wisdom.”
Stephen Crane

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In the lower Kingdoms, Mineral, Plant and Animal, this system appears rational in terms of the objectives of the Plan. Human Beings, however are not animals. In the Human Kingdom this ages old raging struggle which is between the powerful, mostly alpha males, and the remainder of the humans is irrational. It makes no sense in terms of Human evolution which concerns free will and consciousness rather than the forms.

This system has been and continues to be a huge boulder in the path of Human evolution. The animal system of competition lies at the root of all of the many departments of our human-generated, materialistic, one dimensional systems: Justice, Economics, Defense, Business, Government, and, amazingly, Religion.

In all such areas of life, “deal making” is a basic competitive skill. Practically from birth, this skill is taught and fostered through the system of competition in which working for personal rewards is the goal. The superior deal makers survive or get all the “flowers” or, more realistically, the power to rule over the flowerless ones.

We have a largely ignored and/or easily manipulated façade of “laws and regulations” that Humanity has generated over the centuries in the effort to govern the products or the deals of human inter-actions. These provide the general population with an illusion of legality and order. It is behind this façade that the superior dealmakers and their aspirants, or more clearly, lickspittles and sycophants operate.

A deal can be anything anybody wants it to be. In any “deal”, in spite of all kinds of torturous legalese, there is no iron clad proposition that indicates that the “deal” actually is or needs to be in any way moral, or just, or fair, or honest, or an equitable agreement, or free of small or large lies, or “misrepresentations”, or coercion, and manipulation.

As the ancient saying goes, Caveat Emptor, “let the buyer beware”. “The Devil”, as they say, “is in the details.”

As in “deals” made between alpha animals and the lesser members of their herds, human “deals” come with outright or implied threats of dire consequences, retribution, or violence of some form or other if one refuses to or does not want to participate in the deal. For example, “We will protect your store from vandals (who happen to work for us) for a small fee of X number of dollars a month.”, or the kind of deal that a confessed criminal makes to the prosecutors to get a reduced sentence in turn for supplying information in the effort to catch other criminals. And for one other example, slaves are offered the deal of being slaves or dead.

The big issue here is that in the present Human Kingdom deals happen in a system that is already dead-ended, literally. How can you have a free will in a system in which the only real guarantee is that you are going to be dead, real soon? Where is the freedom in that?

The only guarantee in such a system is that you are going to be dead sooner or later and nothing that you do, say or think really matters. The whole point of living becomes to “get it while it’s hot!” “Make hay while the sun shines!” It’s enough to make us insane, enough to make us actually believe and to buy into the Delusion Deal.

The down payment is our Humanity, our dignity, our free will, and our actual lives. Precisely Wordsworth’s point,

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

Cooperation
Cooperation can only happen in the presence of free will. And free will can only happen in living infinite multidimensional systems. So far, although it has taken eons more of suffering and learning the hard way than it should have, we, that is Humanity, have managed to keep the Planet from falling into the dark, bottomless maw of the delusions of separation and competition which were foisted upon humanity by the Retrogressors “from the beginning.” And, although in 1942, we were very close to blowing ourselves up in an atomic holocaust, the sane among us managed to use their free will to register and comprehend the formulas for atomic energy before the Dark Forces. Thus, as we have done from the beginning, we were able to triumph, and we are here now.

The Path of the Heart
It is true that another architectural energy, what we call cooperation, has from the beginning, been available. This principle of evolution has been used over these centuries to construct uncountable manifestations of coherence, harmony, and beauty. These manifestations were mostly in the fields we call art; however, recently, in what was a mega leap forward in the system we call government, we managed to manifest what we call democracy. And very recently, in moving toward the elimination of one of the most ancient of the retrogressive lies, we have made huge strides in manifesting the equality of women and men. I could make a long list here, but you get the idea.

Cooperation, as it is used in the illusory one dimensional concept of life on Earth, simply means that we are doing what we agreed to or are told to do. Within the restrictions of any “deal” or contract, we are being directed at some level by the alpha Deal Makers. When we do what we need to do to, when we “get along, stay employed, or even alive in many cases, by going along” we are not free.

This is not cooperation. Such behavior is the result of coercion, often very subtle systemic coercion, and the first victim is free will.

When we are cooperating we are advancing the evolution of the Common Good and the General Welfare of the entire planet. Any effort that advances the Common Good and General Welfare is necessarily a cooperative effort. There is no competition over results. There are no “winners” because there are no “losers”.

In true cooperation Humanity and the entire planet does not win, it evolves into a greater understanding and ability to manifest that understanding in forms that serve the whole. Systems that harm and destroy one segment of humanity or the planet for the illusionary benefit of another more deserving, superior segment are not founded in cooperation. They are born in the ancient and evil illusion of separation and competition.

There are no winners. There are no losers. Such concepts are the delusions of a consciousness imprisoned in the illusions of fear and death.

There is evolution. Through reincarnation, self initiated expression, and experience, no unit of consciousness fails or flunks. Each one learns and unfolds into Reality.

Brotherhood, not only of humans but of the Cosmos, is the path of heart, the path of harmony or cooperation and the only road to Freedom.

This road, paved with love, is known as The Middle Way.

Tom Carney
August, 2018