Conversations July 22, 2010

Thursday, July 22, 2010

5:30 AM. Yesterday, as I was very aware, was Hemingway’s birthday. Who would have thought he would come to be so much to me? Finished Reynolds’ volume 1, and started re-reading [Jeffrey] Meyers, slowly, which is more interesting this time than the first time. Have not moved in Baker, waiting to get my questions [to Hemingway] in.

As I have talked to people about what I am doing, the question about certainty has presented itself, or rather, my old knowledge that certainty isn’t possible, only resonance. It’s still conceivable that I’m making all this up, regardless how convincing the contacts feel. And just as I could never prove it to anyone else, neither could I prove it to myself. I am left with Jesus’ test — by their fruits you will know them. So far the fruits are joy as I come to each day’s task, enthusiasm and joy, and insight. Or so it seems. But of course I am aware of the danger of leading myself and others astray.

So who would like to have a chat with me today? My sense is that it won’t be Hemingway today.

Perhaps a few words about the process. As you discuss this with others, particularly those who visit you while doing a TMI program, you notice that your ability to describe the process is greater than your ability to describe the projected end-result. We’ve given you three main parallel threads, but by themselves — in isolation from the actual feel of the process — you will notice that they don’t truly convey the sense of it. This is because the major thread unnamed is the effect on you of the continued contact.

Nancy has given you a reflection of how she has observed your change in 2 1/2 years, and those who know you best but from a distance will attest to the same thing. It may be harder for you to see, as your reference point moves along with your life (as does everyone’s — how else could it be?) But it is not impossible. Consider — and describe — the phone call last night.

Is there a reason to do that, beyond reassuring me that the times, they are a-changing?

Just trust us and see. If it doesn’t work out, you don’t have to send it, do you?

Well, any more I don’t know. Is it honest to send out a record that is marred by omissions? Anyway —

A few months ago I got a phone call out of the blue from a woman who had wanted to hear me speak to Chrysalis, in Waynesboro, but the program got snowed out. So she called and described a problem she was having — can’t recall offhand what it was. I had someone here; perhaps they came to the door (expected) during the call, so it wasn’t as easy as it might have been to focus on her, but whatever I told her worked out, as she told me last night when she e-mailed and I called her back rather than trying to explain robots by e-mail. She said what I had told her was not what she wanted or expected to hear, and she didn’t particularly like the message, but found that it was exactly right. So last night she wanted to know why she couldn’t stop smoking and in a few minutes we found out why, and why the robot had been programmed to keep her doing it, and — I think — reprogrammed it. Enough?

Enough to get the point across to you, perhaps. You were sure, efficient, helpful and — attractive, let’s call it. That is, as we pointed out in connection with Hemingway — wholeness attracts. It is its own initial credential that is then backed up or not backed up, depending, by specific knowledge. But plenty of people have knowledge and cannot express it or even tap into it, necessarily, due to self-division that prevents who and what they are from coalescing into a powerful unity. To put it another way, when your person-group elements all pull together, you get fabulous results that cannot be obtained when half of them are fighting the other half. That’s one benefit of doing the work on yourself. You have been doing the work on yourself not, primarily, by doing this writing but by remaining open to input and being helpful and open to others.

Now lest you think we’re blowing your horn on your behalf, we’ll say we are blowing your horn as an example of behalf of those who read this who have seen similar results from similar efforts but may not have drawn the conclusions any more than you have done.

Do you want to change the world? There are many external paths, all the way from the hermit to the warrior to the activist to the propagandist — any external role you can imagine. But there is only one internal path to effectiveness, and that is internal cohesion. Is it not obvious that no self-divided person can be as effective as that same person with all its active constituent groups acting in concert?

Yes, I can feel you entering. Dr. Jung?

If one begins with the concept of the individual being not so much an individual but a potential individual, a community wanting to be made into a coherent whole,

Sorry, lost the thread somehow, getting lost in the sentence structure.

Is not my work associated with the word individuation? Your experience here, and the concepts you have been given over a ten-year span, allow you to see the term and the process and the desired end-result in a different light. Begin with the concept of a person-group — a grouping within one body (so to speak) of many traits and inheritance that may learn to function as a unit or may not. Does this not make the nature of the task and opportunity of life clearer? You did not well understand the concept of crystallizing the self when it was presented to you in the sessions that became your book [The Sphere And The Hologram], but this is what they amounted to. And if you will go back and look at the sessions that referenced the concept, you will see that your potential comprehension was seriously handicapped by the fact that you lacked certain underlying concepts that would have made things clearer. A wrong concept is sometimes better than no concept, sometimes worse.

Boy I’m having a hard time staying with it today.

You cannot yet function with one part of your mind on one thing requiring great concentration and another part on something else.

It is only a chore I have in front of me.

Yes, and several hours before you could do that chore.

I know I should stay here; I don’t know why part of me isn’t doing so. Do you?

Of course I do.

Well, I don’t. And, waiting for you to provide the answer, I get blankness. Is there some reason you don’t want me to know why?

No, but you didn’t quite ask. This is merely a reminder that in general it is as well to formulate your questions; it assists the process of constellating the answers.

As to why you are self-divided about continuing this — it is because you are self-divided! That is, your inner state is manifesting, as anything you do is always a clue to what is going on, otherwise invisibly to you, within.

I see that, as an abstract. Why am I self-divided about this? Or, how?

You often quote Cayce saying, accurately, that knowledge not lived is sin. The more you learn, the greater your responsibilities. And the more you learn about your greater effectiveness, the greater your responsibility to your fellow person-groups, no?

And a part of me is shrinking from that?

Let us say, a part of you — some of the community that constitute you as you experience yourself — hesitates before the further self-redefinition and rededication required. If you wish to become Lincoln, say, you must follow his footsteps. Not externally, obviously; not an imitation of his career or mannerisms or way of expressing himself. No, an imitation, a choosing to adopt, certain of his values, bringing to the fore such elements within you as resonate to those frequencies, and consequently a suppression or redirection of such elements as lead in another direction. Thus, no one could become Lincoln by suppressing compassion, or logical thought, or clarity of purpose, or perhaps flexibility of means and ability to get into the minds of those of opposite convictions, etc.

And naturally what Lincoln is to you will be different from what Lincoln is to others. Each picks and chooses what is useful and attractive. But Lincoln (or any model) is inherently bounded, limited. No model presents unlimited possibilities or it would be of no use as a model. How could a shape be shapeless?

Well, I hope this session re-reads better than it has felt coming through. I don’t feel like we’ve done all that well today.

It is not any particular session but the total over time that will eventually reveal the shape and magnitude of the accomplishment, big or small.

Which is just “living in trust” writ large. Well, I can do that (having not much alternative).

You might mention your friend Michael’s insight.

Yes, because when I mentioned it yesterday to Paul R., I could see him get it. It probably has wider applicability than just a few of us. I had been saying “I should have,” “I wish I had,” “if only” to Michael and he said that while I trusted the future and trusted the present, in saying “I should or shouldn’t have” I was distrusting the past.

Distrusting the past. I hadn’t looked at it that way. Thus, second-guessing where we have been is not only futile, it is in a way crippling, in the way it would be to distrust present or future. So I pass along that insight for what it is worth, for those who may be struck by it.

And I guess that’s it for this morning. Maybe we’ll do better tomorrow.

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