BE GRATEFUL

What does it mean to be grateful? To be grateful is more than saying thank you. Gratitude is the recognition that your existence and your achievements are not entirely yours. Before you arrived, something was already here. Before you learned to speak, somebody had already spoken. Before you learned to walk, somebody had already built the ground on which you walk.

Before you learned to think, generations of human beings had already struggled, discovered, failed, created and preserved knowledge. And before humanity did any of these things— Nature was already here. The air you breathe was here. The water you drink was here. The earth beneath your feet was here. The sun was here. Rain was here.

Seeds were here. Reproduction was here. Life was already participating in the process that eventually produced you. So when we say "Give God the glory," I want to ask a question that religion has too often answered before allowing us to think: Who is God? And perhaps even more importantly: Who is the Most High?

The Bible gives us a remarkable statement in Psalm 82: There it is. You are gods. And we are the children of the Most High. But who is the Most High? Religious traditions have given different answers. They have given the Most High different names. They have described gods in different forms. They have built temples, churches, mosques and shrines around their understanding of the divine.

But before any of those names existed— Nature was already here. The earth was already producing. The sun was already shining. Rain was already falling. Living things were already reproducing. Death was already returning matter to the earth. The mystery of existence was already surrounding humanity. And perhaps what we have called God throughout history has often been the name we gave to the part of Nature we did not yet understand.

As knowledge advances, some mysteries become ordinary knowledge. What once appeared supernatural can become natural. What once required a miracle can become technology. What once required divine explanation can eventually receive a scientific explanation. But the discovery does not create the thing. Light does not create what was already in the darkness. Light merely allows us to see it.

That is why I do not believe that humanity should be ashamed of changing its understanding. What is true does not become true because we believe it. What is false does not become true because our ancestors believed it. Time tests both. And that is why gratitude must begin with Nature. Not because Nature needs our worship.

But because we are its offspring. But there is another god you must learn to appreciate. Yourself. Learn to praise yourself. Not because you are perfect. Not because everything you have done is worthy of praise. But because you must learn to recognize your own participation. You survived things. You learned things. You created things. You changed things. You helped people.

You made mistakes. You corrected some of them. You became somebody you were not before. Give yourself the glory for the parts that truly belong to you. Even the gods of religious stories often declare their own greatness. Why should you be ashamed of acknowledging yours? The story you tell people about yourself matters. The narrative you give people will influence what they accept or dispute about you.

And sometimes it is better to contradict yourself than to surrender your identity to other people's imagination. Because if you refuse to tell your own story, people will write one for you. And they may write one that you cannot recognize. The Advocate of the Apostate describes itself as a text calling people to "rediscover their own divine power."

That is not an invitation to become arrogant. It is an invitation to stop pretending that the divine is always somewhere else. Then there are the people fate brings across your path. Be grateful for the good ones. Appreciate what they contributed. But also learn to appreciate the difficult ones—not because their cruelty was good, but because your experience with them became part of what you learned. There is a difference between appreciating an experience and calling the thing that caused the experience good.

Do not call cruelty kindness. Do not call oppression justice. Do not call evil good simply because something useful was learned from it. Instead say: "What happened to me was wrong, but I will decide what I make of it." That is the beginning of godhood. Because you cannot always choose what happens to you.

But you can sometimes choose what happens because it happened to you. And that is where gratitude becomes more than an emotion. It becomes a philosophy.

Psalm 82 does not merely say: "Ye are gods." It continues: "And all of you are children of the most High." Then comes the word that changes the direction of the passage: "But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes." Why? Because human beings have a tendency to define gods through what they possess.

Princes. Kings. Mighty men. Powerful men. These are names humans give to beings they consider superior. But read the beginning of the Psalm. "God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods." And then: "Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy." "Deliver the poor and needy."

This is a very different definition of godhood. A god is not merely someone who possesses power. A god is someone who participates. Someone who can affect the environment. Someone who can defend. Someone who can create. Someone who can destroy. Someone who can alter what happens next. And this is where the word "but" becomes important.

You are gods— but you can die like men. You can possess enormous potential— but you can still waste it. You can inherit the Most High— but you can still become passive. You can call yourself a god— but if you spend your life merely competing for possessions, status and recognition, you may never discover what your godhood was for.

The problem is not that gods die. The problem is that gods can live without ever participating meaningfully. They can become like princes—high-minded, possessive, competitive, obsessed with what belongs to them. And that is why the Advocate of the Apostate asks questions such as "The God Who Was Always You" and "Guard Your Glory." Perhaps the real apostasy is not merely leaving a religion.

Perhaps it is leaving behind the belief that your power must always come from somewhere outside yourself. People have tried to explain our origin through dust and fire. One tradition speaks of humanity emerging from dust. Another speaks of beings created from fire. But look at Nature. Dust is Nature. Fire is Nature. Earth is Nature. Water is Nature. The man who plants the seed is Nature. The woman who carries the child is Nature.

The child is Nature. The womb is Nature. The food that nourishes the body is Nature. The elements that eventually make up the body are Nature. So whether our ancestors described our origin through dust, fire, breath, water, clay or some other sacred image, we can see something underneath all those stories: We are products of Nature's processes.

And when we die, we do not disappear from Nature. We return. Burn the body. Bury the body. Nature receives it. The matter continues. But something else continues too. Our effects. Your body may be buried in the earth. But your deeds can be buried in memory. And memory does not necessarily age in the same way the body does.

A person can die at thirty and remain thirty forever in the memory of someone who loved them. A person can die as a child and remain a child in the memory of their parents. A person can die as a young person and remain young in an old photograph. But more importantly— your influence can outlive your image.

You can leave knowledge. Love. Fear. Trauma. Wisdom. Inventions. Children. Ideas. Institutions. Stories. And those things can continue changing the world after your body has returned to Nature.

Religions have offered many answers. Heaven. Hell. Judgment. Reward. Punishment. Reincarnation. Resurrection. But perhaps before we decide where the dead go, we should first examine what we can actually observe. When somebody dies, their body returns to Nature. But does everything they produced die? No. History proves otherwise. Socrates died. His questions survived. Aristotle died.

His ideas survived. Jesus died. The movement associated with his life survived and profoundly influenced civilization. Muhammad died. The movement associated with his teachings continued shaping societies across continents. Galileo died. His observations continued changing human understanding. Newton died. The mathematical framework he developed continued shaping science. Darwin died. His explanation of evolution continued transforming how humanity understands life.

Louis Pasteur died. The consequences of his scientific work remain embedded in modern biology and medicine. Nikola Tesla died. The electrical technologies he helped develop remain part of the modern world. The Wright brothers died. Human beings continue flying through the skies. Alan Turing died. We now live in a computational civilization. Tim Berners-Lee is alive, but the point is already visible in the World Wide Web: one human contribution can become a global environment that outlives generations.

So ask yourself: Did these people really disappear? Their bodies did. Their participation did not. They became part of what came after them. Maybe we have been looking for an afterlife exclusively in another world. But what if part of the afterlife is already visible? A teacher dies. The lesson remains. A mother dies. Her love remains in the child. A writer dies. The reader carries the words. An inventor dies. The invention continues working. A cruel person dies.

The trauma may remain. A tyrant dies. The political consequences may remain. A liberator dies. The freedom may remain. So perhaps the better question is not: "Where does the dead person go?" but: "What continues because that person lived?" That is a question history can answer. Perhaps heaven and hell are not only destinations. Perhaps they can also be conditions created by living beings. A person can make another person's life heavenly. A person can make another person's life hell. A loving parent can create an environment in which a child grows confidently. An abusive parent can create an environment in which a child grows frightened.

A teacher can open a door. Another teacher can close one. A government can create opportunity. Another can destroy it. A community can provide belonging. Another can create exclusion. So perhaps the angels and demons we have imagined as invisible beings can sometimes be understood through something much closer to us: the environments we create for one another.

The angel may be the person who creates an opportunity. The demon may be the person who destroys one. And sometimes the same human being can be both. This means that every life is producing an afterlife of some kind. You are creating something that may outlive you. The question is: What? Love? Knowledge? Opportunity? Healing? Fear? Trauma? Ignorance? Hatred? Creation? Destruction? That is why the question of death should lead us back to the question of life. Not: "How long will I exist?"

But: "What will exist because I did?" And that leads us into history. Because the world we inherited is an enormous harvest planted by people who are no longer here. Which brings us to the next question: What are we planting?

If you want to understand what remains after death, do not begin in heaven. Begin in history. Before electricity, there was a different world. Before modern medicine, there was a different world. Before aviation, there was a different world. Before computers, there was a different world. Before the internet, there was a different world. And human beings changed that world.

Socrates planted questions. Aristotle planted inquiry. Galileo planted observation. Newton planted mathematical understanding. Darwin planted a new understanding of life. Pasteur helped humanity understand an invisible biological world. Tesla helped humanity harness electricity. The Wright brothers helped humanity leave the ground. Turing helped lay foundations for modern computing. Others planted things that were far more destructive.

Genghis Khan. Christopher Columbus. Leopold II. Hitler. Stalin. Their bodies are gone too. But their consequences remain. And this gives us an uncomfortable truth: Death does not make a life harmless. A person can die and continue producing suffering. A person can die and continue producing freedom. A person can die and continue producing knowledge.

A person can die and continue producing ignorance. A person can die and continue producing love. A person can die and continue producing fear. The dead are not equally absent. This is why gratitude must also be directed toward the dead. We are constantly harvesting what other people planted. You use knowledge you did not discover. You use roads you did not build. You use technologies you did not invent. You read languages you did not create. You benefit from medical discoveries made by people who died long before you were born.

You live inside institutions created by generations before you. You are surrounded by the consequences of lives you never knew. And one day, other people will be surrounded by the consequences of yours. So perhaps the afterlife is not merely what happens to you after death. Perhaps it is also what happens because of you after death.

And that changes the meaning of immortality. You do not necessarily have to remain conscious forever to leave something eternal. Something you produce can continue without you.

And now we can return to one of the oldest observations of human civilization: "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest… shall not cease." We have often treated such words as religious promises. But look at Nature. It is also an observation. Seeds produce consequences. Actions produce consequences. Environments produce consequences. Human beings produce consequences.

So perhaps karma deserves another look. Not because we must accept every religious explanation attached to karma. But because the underlying observation is difficult to deny: We plant things, and things grow from what we plant. You plant kindness. You may produce trust. You plant hatred. You may produce hatred. You plant knowledge. You may produce understanding.

You plant ignorance. You may produce confusion. You create opportunity. Someone may use it. You destroy opportunity. Someone may spend years suffering because of it. That is karma that we can see. We do not necessarily need an invisible accountant keeping a supernatural ledger. Nature already contains consequences. This is where the traditional doctrine becomes more complicated. If everything we experience is simply the result of what we personally planted, what do we say about the child born into suffering? What did the child plant? What did the newborn choose? What previous decision can we honestly demonstrate that produced its circumstances? Perhaps fate is not punishment.

Perhaps fate is simply the soil into which we arrive. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our birthplace. We do not choose our generation. We do not choose the economic circumstances waiting for us. We do not choose every person who enters our lives. We inherit a world already under cultivation.

We are born into somebody else's harvest. And that is why I refuse to call a suffering child guilty simply because suffering exists. Perhaps the child is not harvesting its own seed. Perhaps it is harvesting something planted by people before it. But once we arrive in the garden, something changes. We become capable of planting. We become capable of modifying the environment. We become capable of creating opportunities. We become capable of blocking them. We become capable of destroying them. And this brings us back to the gods. We are the children of the Most High.

If we are gods, then we are also gardeners. And the angels and demons around us may not need to be invisible creatures. They can be the environments we create. A person who gives another person an opportunity becomes an angel in that person's environment. A person who deliberately destroys another person's opportunity can become a demon in that environment.

A teacher can become an angel. A tyrant can become a demon. A parent can become either. A government can become either. A society can become either. And sometimes one person can create heaven for one individual and hell for another. Because human beings are not simple. This is where I would challenge the common assumption about karma. Perhaps we have been too focused on: "I plant, therefore I must personally harvest." But look at Nature. A farmer may plant a tree and die before it bears fruit. His children eat the fruit. His grandchildren rest beneath its shade. People who never knew him may eventually enjoy what he planted.

The farmer planted. Someone else harvested. And this happens everywhere. A scientist plants knowledge. Another generation harvests it. A parent plants love. A child carries it forward. A teacher plants understanding. A student uses it decades later. An inventor plants a technology. Humanity harvests it. A tyrant plants hatred. Another generation may inherit it. A colonial system plants structures.

People centuries later may still live inside them. So perhaps karma is not: "The universe will personally pay you back." Perhaps karma is: "Nothing you introduce into the world is guaranteed to stop with you." Your actions enter the environment. The environment carries them. People carry them. Institutions carry them. Memory carries them. History carries them.

And eventually, someone harvests. Perhaps this is where we should revisit reincarnation. If a good person dies before seeing the result of their goodness, must that person be born again to receive it? I cannot claim to know that reincarnation is impossible. But neither can I claim that it has been demonstrated simply because ancient traditions teach it. And there is a serious question: If I am reborn but cannot remember my previous life, what exactly is being continued?

If the person cannot remember the life that supposedly produced the karma, how does that person consciously learn from it? Perhaps there are traditional answers. But we are allowed to ask questions. And perhaps there is another form of reincarnation already visible. A teacher dies. His knowledge is born again in the student. A mother dies.

Her love is born again in her children. A writer dies. Her ideas are born again in the reader. An inventor dies. His invention continues creating new possibilities. A person dies. But the consequences of that person's actions continue appearing in other people. Perhaps something can reincarnate without the individual consciousness reincarnating. Instead of asking only: "Who was I in my previous life?" ask: "What from previous lives is living through me?" Your language came from people before you. Your knowledge came from people before you. Your culture came from people before you. Your technology came from people before you. Your habits may have been inherited from people before you.

Your fears may have been inherited from people before you. Your opportunities may have been created by people before you. You are already carrying the past. And whatever you do now becomes part of what the future carries. That is a form of continuity we can actually observe. Here is where I must be careful—even with this sermon. I am not asking you to replace one religious authority with another. I am not saying: "Believe me because I have discovered the truth." No. There is a difference between what is true, what is false, and what is merely acceptable to the knowledge of a particular generation.

Aristotle did not become wrong when somebody centuries later disproved one of his claims. If that claim was false, it was already false. What changed was humanity's ability to see the error. And the same is true of truth. A truth can be rejected today. Time may reveal it tomorrow. Its rejection does not make it false.

Its acceptance does not make it true. Time tests both. This is why knowledge advances. Light does not suddenly make something that never existed appear. Light reveals what was already there. So when future generations discover something that proves one of our present ideas wrong, they have not necessarily destroyed truth. They may simply have increased the light.

And if something I say today cannot survive that light, then it should not survive. That is not a failure of Nature. It is a failure of my understanding. And there is another boundary we must never cross. To understand why somebody did something is not to declare that what they did was good. To understand religious history is not to accept every religious doctrine. To understand oppression is not to justify oppression. To understand cruelty is not to call cruelty kindness. To appreciate what a belief attempted to explain is not the same as accepting its explanation.

The Advocate of the Apostate describes itself as a "sacred fire" of inner rebellion and awakening, challenging religious obedience and directing the seeker toward the divine within. But even an apostate must be willing to examine his own conclusions. Otherwise, apostasy simply creates another dogma. The moment I say: "Everything I have said must be believed because I said it," I have rebuilt the very prison I claimed to escape.

So do not worship the messenger. Test the message. We cannot choose every seed that was planted before us. We cannot choose every circumstance into which we were born. We cannot choose every person we meet. We cannot choose every harvest that comes into our lives. But we can choose many of the seeds we plant. And we cannot always choose who will harvest them.

That is the responsibility of godhood. You may plant a tree and never sit beneath it. You may teach somebody who eventually becomes greater than you. You may give an opportunity to somebody who never remembers your name. You may create something that future generations use without knowing who made it. You may love somebody whose children inherit the effect of that love.

You may prevent a trauma from being passed into another generation. You may plant something whose harvest you will never see. Plant it anyway. Because the value of a seed is not determined by whether the farmer personally eats the fruit. Be grateful to Nature— because you came from it. Be grateful to yourself— because you are participating in it. Be grateful to the people who helped you— because some of their seeds became your harvest. Be grateful even for the lessons born from difficult experiences— without ever calling the harm itself good. Be grateful to the dead— because you are living inside their harvest.

Be grateful for knowledge— because somebody had to plant it before you could inherit it. Be grateful for truth— because it does not need your permission to remain true. And be grateful for the light— because every generation can see farther than the generation before it. But remember: Light does not create truth. It reveals it.

You were born into a garden you did not create. Some trees were planted before you. Some are beautiful. Some are poisonous. Some provide shade. Some cast darkness. Some produce food. Some produce suffering. But now you are here. And because you are here, you are no longer merely a harvest. You are also a farmer.

You can plant. You can remove. You can cultivate. You can destroy. You can create opportunity. You can block opportunity. You can become an angel in somebody's environment. You can become a demon. You can create heaven. You can create hell. You can leave behind knowledge. You can leave behind trauma. You can leave behind love.

You can leave behind fear. And one day— you will return to the Most High. Not as a prince. Not because of what you possessed. Not because of the title people gave you. But as what you always were: an offspring of Nature. A god who was given a temporary opportunity to participate. So before you return— ask yourself: What will exist because I was here?

And when the answer comes, make sure it is something for which another generation can be grateful. Be grateful. Be a god.

If Nature is the Most High, then we must abandon the idea that human beings are the only offspring of the Most High. The elephant is an offspring of Nature. The lion is an offspring of Nature. The cow is an offspring of Nature. The tree is an offspring of Nature. The river, the soil, the insects, the birds, the smallest organisms that live beneath our feet—all are expressions of the same Nature from which we emerged.

So when we say, "Ye are gods," we should not immediately turn the statement into another ladder. Humans above animals. Animals above plants. One race above another. One civilization above another. One person above another. That is precisely how the old hierarchies were constructed. But there is something else we must recognize. Although humans are not necessarily superior to everything else in Nature, humans possess the power to declare what superiority means.

That is a very different kind of power. The ant builds. The monkey builds. The bird builds. The beaver changes its environment. The elephant remembers, communicates and cares for its young. The cow feeds its offspring. None of these things are uniquely human. Yet humanity looks at the world and creates categories. We decide what intelligence means.

We decide what civilization means. We decide what progress means. We decide what is beautiful. We decide what is primitive. We decide what is sacred. We decide what is food. I eat beef because human society has established the cow as an animal that can be eaten. The cow did not participate in that decision.

It cannot stand before humanity and say: "This definition of my existence is unacceptable." Not because its life is less valuable. Not because humans have proven themselves morally superior. But because the cow does not presently possess the power necessary to impose a different definition upon human society. If one day cows somehow developed the capacity to organize, communicate their interests to us, resist us and establish rules concerning their own treatment, the relationship would change.

The question would no longer be merely what humans say about cows. The cow would have acquired another kind of power: the power to state otherwise. This is why power matters. Power does not automatically make a statement true. The conqueror can be wrong. The king can be wrong. The majority can be wrong. A civilization can be wrong.

A religion can be wrong. But without sufficient power, even a correct idea may remain unheard. This is one of the great tragedies of human history. A person can possess wisdom and remain powerless. A people can possess a rich culture and be conquered. A civilization can possess knowledge and have that knowledge dismissed. A person can know the truth about his own experience and still be unable to make the world acknowledge it.

Power determines, to a great extent, whose definition becomes socially effective. That is why conquest has always been more than the acquisition of land. The conqueror acquires territory. Then he acquires authority. Then he acquires the right to name. He can call his religion civilization and yours superstition. He can call his philosophy knowledge and yours primitive thought.

He can call his customs normal and yours barbaric. And if he possesses enough power, those definitions can survive long after the original conquest. This is what happened repeatedly through colonial history. The conqueror did not merely take African land. He also attempted to define African people. He could say: "This is primitive." "This is fetish."

"This is uncivilized." And because he possessed the power to impose those definitions, the definitions gained authority. But authority is not truth. The fact that one person has the power to name another does not mean the name describes reality. This is why the Apostate must learn to distinguish truth from dominance. A thing can dominate without being true.

A thing can be true without dominating. And this is why knowledge and power must eventually meet. Knowledge tells you what you believe is true. Power determines how much of that understanding you can bring into the world.

If power matters this much, then we must stop pretending that money is irrelevant. Money is not everything. But money is power. It can purchase time. It can purchase education. It can purchase mobility. It can purchase equipment. It can purchase access. It can protect a person from certain forms of dependence. It can turn an idea into a building.

It can turn knowledge into an institution. It can turn a person's private ability into something capable of affecting thousands of people. This does not mean that rich people are superior. A wealthy fool is still a fool. A rich criminal is still a criminal. A poor wise person may understand reality far better than a billionaire.

But wisdom without resources can remain trapped inside the person who possesses it. That is why the story in Ecclesiastes is so powerful. A poor wise man saves a city. His wisdom is real. His contribution is real. His achievement is real. Yet his poverty contributes to his being forgotten. The lesson is uncomfortable: The world does not always reward wisdom according to its value.

Therefore, I will not teach people to worship poverty. Poverty can be inherited. Poverty can be imposed. Poverty can result from exploitation. Poverty can result from circumstances. But when a person has the opportunity to improve his condition, there is no inherent virtue in refusing to do so. Seek money. Not because money makes you better.

Seek money because money can increase your ability to act. Seek power. Not because power makes you superior. Seek power because power increases your ability to determine what happens within your circumstances. Seek freedom. Not because freedom makes you greater than those who remain constrained. Seek freedom because without it, much of your potential remains subject to somebody else's will.

The slave is subject to the master. That is a fact of the slave's condition. But the existence of that condition does not mean the slave should make obedience his life's purpose. If freedom is possible, freedom should become the primary assignment. And when freedom is obtained, another assignment begins: What will you do with it?

This is where the meaning of godhood becomes practical. To call yourself a god while possessing no responsibility for your power is childish. Godhood is not a crown. It is participation. You affect something. You alter something. You cause something. You create consequences. A person with money can create employment. Or exploitation. A person with political power can create stability.

Or oppression. A person with knowledge can educate. Or manipulate. A person with influence can encourage people. Or deceive them. The acquisition of power is therefore not the conclusion. It is the beginning of responsibility. And this is why I say: Become powerful if you can. But don't become powerful merely to stand on another person's neck.

Become powerful enough that your existence cannot easily be dictated by someone else's definition of what you are allowed to be. Then use that power to create. That is the difference between possessing power and being an active god.

Human beings have spent centuries confusing power with superiority. Someone conquers a territory and declares himself its rightful ruler. Someone acquires wealth and declares himself more important. Someone wins a war and writes the history. Someone controls education and determines what children are taught. Someone controls religion and determines what is sacred. Someone controls the economy and determines who gets access to opportunity.

Someone controls language and determines what words are permitted to mean. Eventually, power becomes invisible because its definitions become normal. The child grows up inside the hierarchy and assumes that the hierarchy is simply the way reality is. But it isn't necessarily reality. It is often the arrangement produced by history and maintained by power.

This is why the statement "we are higher animals" deserves examination. Higher according to whom? According to what measurement? Who designed the scale? Why should the ability to perform the things humans value most become the universal measurement of existence? An ant does not need to build a human city to prove its worth. A bird does not need to speak human language to prove its intelligence.

A lion does not need to participate in human society to justify its existence. We created the measurement. Then we judged ourselves by the measurement we created. That is not an objective discovery of superiority. It is an act of definition. And the same thing happens between human societies. One civilization becomes powerful enough to dominate another.

Then it describes itself as advanced and the conquered people as backward. The conquered people may eventually begin to believe it. That is perhaps the most complete form of conquest: when the conquered begin to judge themselves using the conqueror's standards. This is why the Apostate must be careful. If you reject one hierarchy only to create another, you have learned nothing.

If you reject the religious claim that one people are chosen but decide that your own people are inherently superior, you have learned nothing. If you reject colonial definitions of Africa only to declare another civilization universally inferior, you have learned nothing. If you reject human superiority over animals only to create another absolute hierarchy, you have learned nothing.

The lesson is not that there are no differences. There are differences. There are differences in strength. Differences in intelligence. Differences in wealth. Differences in influence. Differences in ability. Differences in circumstances. But difference does not automatically produce universal worth. A person can be stronger than me without being worth more than me. A person can be richer than me without being more human than me.

A nation can conquer another nation without proving that its culture is universally superior. A human can dominate a cow without proving that the human possesses greater intrinsic worth in the universe. Power establishes relationships. It does not automatically establish truth. This distinction must remain at the center of the philosophy. Otherwise, the Apostate will simply become another priest of another hierarchy.

Every human being enters the world already named. Before you can speak, somebody has already decided what you are. Your parents give you a name. Your society gives you an identity. Your culture gives you expectations. Your religion may give you a purpose. Your nation gives you citizenship. Your class gives you a social position.

Your circumstances give you limitations. And sometimes people with greater power give you definitions you never chose. This is why freedom is more complicated than removing chains. Freedom includes the ability to participate in defining yourself. A slave can be told: "This is what you are." A colonized person can be told: "This is what your people are."

A poor person can be told: "People like you cannot achieve this." A religious person can be told: "You are not permitted to question this." A child can be told: "This is what you must become." And if the person has insufficient power to challenge the definition, the definition can become a prison. This is why knowledge matters.

Knowledge gives you the ability to question. Power gives you the ability to act. Money can give you resources with which to act. Freedom gives you room to act. But none of these things should become another religion. The purpose is not to replace one master with another. The purpose is to become increasingly capable of determining your own participation in existence.

That is why the Apostate must eventually move beyond rebellion. It is easy to say: "I reject what they taught me." The harder question is: "What will I build now that I am free to think?" If you spend your entire life fighting the religion you rejected, that religion may still control your life. If you spend your entire life hating the civilization that oppressed your ancestors, that civilization may still determine your identity.

If you spend your entire life proving that someone else is wrong, you may never discover what you are capable of creating. Freedom requires creation. And creation requires power. This is why money matters. This is why education matters. This is why relationships matter. This is why institutions matter. This is why political and economic freedom matter.

A powerless person may possess profound ideas. But if he cannot communicate them, preserve them, distribute them, or protect himself from those who wish to silence him, his influence may remain small. That is not an argument that power makes his ideas true. It is an acknowledgment that truth and influence are different things. The truth may exist without power.

But changing the world often requires power. Therefore, acquire what you need. Build what you need. Learn what you need. Become capable. Not so that you can become another master. But so that you can become increasingly difficult to enslave. And when you acquire the ability to define yourself, remember those who still cannot. Because the purpose of freedom is not merely to escape.

It is to determine what kind of world your freedom will produce.

Now we return to the beginning. Nature is the Most High. We are its offspring. So is everything around us. We did not create Nature. We emerged from it. We did not create the first harvest we received. We inherited it. We did not choose every circumstance into which we were born. We inherited those too.

That is fate. But we are not merely inheritors. Once we become conscious, we become participants. We begin to plant. This is where karma becomes visible. You do not need an invisible accountant to explain consequence. Plant a seed and something may grow. Teach a child and that knowledge may travel through generations. Abuse a child and the wound may travel through generations.

Create employment and families may eat. Create war and generations may suffer. Build a school and people may become capable of things you never imagined. Destroy knowledge and people who never knew you may become poorer because of it. The person who plants the seed is not necessarily the person who eats the fruit. This is one of the most profound facts of existence.

We are constantly eating what the dead planted. And the dead are constantly living through what we plant. This is why reincarnation can be understood without requiring the same consciousness to return in another body. Something of us is continually reborn. Our ideas. Our knowledge. Our influence. Our love. Our trauma. Our creations. Our descendants.

Our mistakes. Our consequences. You do not need to return as another person for something of you to continue. You are already continuing through the world. Your body will eventually return to Nature. But your effects may remain. And this brings us to gratitude. Be grateful for the people whose seeds became your harvest. The person who invented something you use.

The person who preserved knowledge you inherited. The person who built something you depend upon. The person who fought for a freedom you now take for granted. The person who loved someone who eventually loved you. The person whose mistake became your lesson. The person whose courage opened a door for you. You are standing on an enormous inheritance.

Much of it was created by people who never knew your name. So be grateful. But gratitude has a second side. If you are grateful for what others planted, then ask yourself: What are you planting? What will a child receive from you? What will your community receive? What will your country receive? What will the people who work with you receive?

What will the people who disagree with you receive? What will the future receive? This is where power finally acquires meaning. Money is not the destination. Power is not the destination. Freedom is not the destination. They are instruments. The question is what they make possible. A person who becomes wealthy can create opportunity. A person who becomes powerful can protect people.

A person who becomes educated can spread knowledge. A person who becomes influential can change definitions. A person who becomes free can help others become free. Or all these things can be used for selfishness. That choice is yours. And that is why I say: Be grateful. Be grateful for Nature, because without it there would be no you.

Be grateful for the world you inherited, even while recognizing its defects. Be grateful for your ancestors, without pretending that everything they did was right. Be grateful for knowledge, without treating knowledge as finished. Be grateful for your circumstances, without surrendering to circumstances you can change. Be grateful for freedom, and use it. Be grateful for power, and be responsible with it.

Be grateful for money, and make it useful. Be grateful for life, and participate in it. But never turn gratitude into submission. Never allow someone to use gratitude to make you comfortable with slavery. Never allow someone to use religion to make you accept ignorance. Never allow someone to use poverty as proof of virtue.

Never allow someone to use wealth as proof of superiority. Never allow someone to use conquest as proof of truth. And never allow yourself to become so powerful that you forget that the people beneath your power are also expressions of the Most High. The lion does not need to become human. The cow does not need to become human.

The tree does not need to become human. They do not need our hierarchy to justify their existence. And neither do we. The Most High does not require a ladder. We created the ladder. And because we created it, we can question it. We can dismantle it. We can refuse to confuse power with truth.

But we should also understand power well enough not to become its victim. Because whether we like it or not, power matters. The powerless may know the truth and still be ignored. The poor wise man may save a city and still be forgotten. The conquered may possess a rich civilization and still have its history rewritten.

The oppressed may know their humanity and still have another person define them. So acquire power. Acquire money. Acquire knowledge. Acquire freedom. But do not acquire them merely to become the next person standing at the top of someone else's ladder. Acquire them so that you can participate. Acquire them so that you can choose.

Acquire them so that you can create. Acquire them so that you can protect what matters. Acquire them so that your voice cannot easily be erased. Acquire them so that when someone attempts to define you, you possess enough power to say: "No. I will participate in defining myself." And when you finally possess that power, remember the philosophy with which we began.

You are not the Most High. You are an offspring of the Most High. And so is the person standing beside you. And so is the animal beneath your feet. And so is the forest. And so is the river. And so is the soil. You are part of Nature. You are not outside it.

You are not its owner. You are one of its expressions. And your particular gift is not that you have been appointed universal ruler. Your gift is that you can become conscious of your participation and deliberately decide what you will contribute. That is your godhood. Not superiority. Participation. Not domination. Agency. Not possession. Creation.

Not conquest. Responsibility. And eventually, every active god must face the same question: What did you do with the power you were given? Not what did you believe. Not what did you call yourself. Not which religion you followed. Not which civilization conquered another. Not how much you accumulated. Not how loudly you claimed to know the truth.

But: What did you plant? Because somebody will inherit it. You may never meet them. They may never know your name. They may never know that you existed. But they will live inside the consequences of your participation. So plant carefully. Plant knowledge. Plant freedom. Plant courage. Plant opportunity. Plant prosperity. Plant love. Plant truth.

Plant questions. Plant beauty. Plant something that makes the world more capable than you found it. And when your body finally returns to the Most High, let something of your participation remain. Then gratitude becomes more than a word. You are grateful because you received. You are responsible because you received. And you become worthy of what you received by giving something back.

You inherited a world. You will leave a world behind. What happens between those two moments is your life. Be grateful. Plant wisely. And let time test what you have planted.