When you learn something that others don't know, and that could support them, you have a responsibility to share it.  For example, if you are a mother with several children and you meet a young mother with her first child, share what you know with her, if she is receptive.  If you have learned how to create authentic power and spiritual partnerships from our books or at a Journey to the Soul retreat, and you see someone in emotional pain who does not know what to do about it or how to learn from it, share what you know with him, if he is receptive.  As our friend, Maya Angelou, says, "When you learn, teach.  When you get, give."  Sometimes modeling what you know is not enough.  In those cases, proactive sharing is sometimes required.  

Knowledge is power, and for every level of power, you are responsible for how you use it.  If you know that eating a certain fast food is dangerous to health - that it results in obesity and diabetes - and you do not share your knowledge with friends who are going to eat it, you are responsible for the illnesses of your friends because you did not alert them.  You cannot be imprisoned or held liable for your silence, but the decision that you made to withhold your knowledge creates consequences in the lives of your friends.  Every decision, deed, and word is a cause, and each cause creates an effect.  If you participate in the cause, you will participate in the effect.  This is Karma.  What you cause in the experience of another will come into your experience through a decision, deed, or words of another.

In this case, if you create the painful experience of poor health or disease in a friend or her children, the painful experience of poor health or disease will come to you as a result of a decision, deed, or words of another.  If you create the blissful experience of joy, gratitude, or well-being in another, that same blissful experience will come to you as a result of the decision, deed, or words of another.

You do not create painful karma if you appropriately alert your friend to the danger of eating fast food beef with  ammonia in it, for example, and your friend decides to eat it anyway and give it to her children.  You are not responsible for how others use their knowledge.  If you inform your friend with a sense of superiority or disdain, the experiences of being treated disdainfully as an inferior will come to you through the decisions, deeds, or words of another.  If you inform your friend out of love, because of concern for her or his health, to support the well-being of her or his children, you create love, concern for your health, and support for your well-being and those you love coming to you from another.

Five-sensory humans think that "how you use your knowledge" means what they do with it.  Multisensory humans know that "how you use your knowledge" refers to the intention they hold when they share or do not share it.  Your intention for sharing what you know about fast foods, for example, may be to show that you are more informed than someone else, or more intelligent, or a more loving parent, or in some other way a better person.  Intentions such as these come from fear.  When you hold  them, the sharing that you do becomes a way to make you feel worthy and safe.

Conversely, your intention may be to protect the health of a friend and her children, to share helpful information she might not know, or to care for the people in your life because you love the people in your life.  These intentions come from love.  When your intention for acting or speaking comes from love, you do not feel ignored when others disregard your counsel, and you do not feel better about yourself when they accept it gratefully.  Your self-worth and sense of security do not depend upon others.

When you act with an intention of fear, you strive to change the world, including others, to make yourself feel better about yourself or safer.  You bring into your life others who strive to make themselves feel better or safer by changing you.  When you act with the intention of love, you bring people into your life who are whole and inwardly secure.

How you use knowledge - with the intention of love or with the intention of fear - brings love or fear back to you.  Fear strives for external power - the ability to manipulate and control.  Love brings authentic power - the ability to move through the world with an empowered heart without attachment to the outcome.

There is no way to separate knowledge, power, and responsibility. 

    

With Love,