The Chief Culprit in the Destruction of
All the Very Saintly Labors of Ashiata Shiemash

“ ‘If our present chiefs and counselors do this, then I myself will be the first to run and kneel and kiss their
feet.

“ ‘But meanwhile, as this is not so, we ourselves must struggle and we ourselves must strive hard for our real happiness and for our real freedom and also to free ourselves from the need of having to sweat.

“ ‘It is true that for eight months of the year we now have no trouble in obtaining our daily bread; but then, how we must labor those four summer months and exhaust ourselves getting the barley we need!

“ ‘Only he who sows and mows that barley knows the hard labor required.

“ ‘True, for eight months we are free, but only from physical labors, and for this, our consciousness, namely, our dearest and highest part, must remain day and night in slavery to these illusory ideas which are always being dinned into us by our chiefs and counselors.

“ ‘No, enough! We ourselves, without our present chiefs and counselors who have become such without our consent, must strive for our real freedom and our real happiness.

“ ‘And we can only obtain real freedom and real happiness if we all act as one, that is to say, all for one and one for all. But for this, we must first destroy all that is old.

“ ‘And we must do so to make room for the new life we shall ourselves create that will give us real freedom and real happiness.

“ ‘Down with dependence on others!

“ ‘We ourselves will be masters of our own circumstances and no longer they, who rule our lives and do so without our knowledge and without our consent.

“ ‘Our lives must be governed and guided by those whom we ourselves shall elect from our midst, that is by men only from amongst those who themselves struggle for our daily barley.

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