Conversations August 26, 2010

Thursday, August 26, 2010

5:30 AM. Ready.

Now suppose that you consider each trait you can identify within your person-group to be a person-group in itself. Where does this place you?

I’ve been trying to imagine. So — pray continue.

In your work with “robots” or in any healing work involving mobilizing the unconscious mind of the person you’re working with, you have been led to act “as if” the shoulder, say, or the knee, or the nervous system, or whatever, were a separate consciousness of limited intelligence acting for the good of the whole as it understood the good (which misunderstanding often causes the trouble, or anyway expresses it). You probably don’t quite remember that this approach originally “came to you” as an innate knowing. In any case you have developed a system out of your experience at contacting parts of your bodies and communicating with them.

Now, we want to approach this subject not so much for itself as for the sake of the light it throws upon the subject of “as above, so below.” Yet we cannot merely refer to things that have happened to you — Frank — without explaining them, and to explain them would take too long and would divert attention. (This is one small example of the way teaching new understandings is hampered by the limitations imposed by consciousness in time-space, functioning through the brain. It’s like the early days of computing, when limited RAM meant that instructions had to be structured in such a way that progress could be made by doing a tiny task, swapping that out, doing another, swapping that out, then doing a tiny task using the results of previous operations, etc. Thus the way in which we proceed, and thus, the content of the sessions.) You will have to do your best to remember the other symbols we have been creating — that is, the other information we have already processed — as we proceed, for the better you can remember the context, the wider your understanding becomes.

So, you say to someone, “ask your shoulder how it’s serving you by aching,” or “how is that emotional reaction serving you,” etc. Implied in your approach is an assumption of directed intelligence subordinated to the greater good of the whole, with no “issues” of its own and no will of its own. And this is accurate in describing a lower level as it functions in relation to a higher level. But of course this scarcely begins to scratch the surface of the subject.

For today, let us stay with the levels of intelligence to be found operating “within” a body of any given person-group. Again, try to bear in mind that we are not really talking about methods of healing except as example of relationships that are very hard to talk about (from our level to your level) except by example. Therefore we are not very concerned about technical errors in your envisioning of relationships during healing sessions; we are concerned with using the process itself and what it suggests, to illustrate.

We are going to have to do this slowly, so Frank, discipline yourself to be willing to work in what to you will seem excruciating detail. Slogging is slogging, whether it is a slow steady pace, or a painstaking setting out of fact. In a way, that is the same thing expressed as if two different things. Slow to us may be prolix to you.

Yes. Recalibration is good, and you thought to do it. All right, let’s proceed as best we can.

Let’s use as example your work with your friend Michael.

Being careful to protect his privacy.

There will be no need to go into any detail of what was communicated. We wish to use it as an example of how, so that we may illustrate who were being communicated to. And since that raised your level of nervousness, we shall divert for a moment to say this: Each level, seen in relationship to the next higher level, is less conscious of itself (hence, operates more automatically). The whole of any person-group functions quite differently than might be expected by summarizing its parts. As above, so below. That is, you relative to us function as if you were a unit, and not a very conscious unit. You in relation to your constituent threads function as if you were a conscious being dealing with somewhat conscious beings of limited will and purpose.

Thus. (And we suppose we can get the point across without singling out an individual. If it turns out that we need a specific example such as we were going to use as well, we’ll see. But we won’t do it against your will. How could we if we wanted to?)

Someone comes to you complaining of a physical ailment — or, equally likely, you pick up its existence or effect and suggest that it doesn’t have to be accepted as a given but could be questioned, its reason for being found, its automatic functioning reprogrammed, and hence its physical effect altered, perhaps removed as no longer needed. We remind you, the work with robots began — this new phase of it did — with what appeared to be physical symptoms that, you quickly realized, were actually expressions of underlying emotional problems. And you learned in time that sometimes physical symptoms manifested as much so that you would not overlook the underlying emotional problems as for any other reason.

You’re making it harder, insisting on staying away from individual examples.

Go on your own way, then. I suppose I can always edit out details if need be.

Yes, that is a reasonable way to proceed. Very well: Your friend Michael sustains an injury. You and he, being accustomed to working together, neither one likely to question the assumptions or methods of investigation (that is, neither one having to fight off “common sense” objections), proceed to try to find out what you are accustomed to call the “why” of it rather than the “how” of it. That is, assuming that any significant thing that happens has a purpose behind it (or, seen from the other end, that everything that happens expresses causes seen or unseen), you seek to understand so that you may correct.

The first assumption, then: Everything happens for a reason. “Why did I experience X?”

Second assumption: The agencies that cause such events are acting, as they think, in one’s best interests. “X happened so that Y wouldn’t happen, or to remind you of Z, or because it is my job to cause an X whenever those conditions apply.”

Third, those agencies have no will of their own. They do not say, “I know you want X but we want Y.” They always say, “We were providing X, as requested” regardless of the actual logic of the situation. Hence, the conclusion and assumption:

Fourth, these agencies are of limited intelligence as well as limited will. Their logic may be faulty, their performance may be (from your level’s point of view) obviously faulty in logic or understanding, and robotic in their pedantic view of their function. [Also, they seem unaware of the passage of time, and therefore of the effects of the passage of time.]

Fifth, nonetheless they function. When you are unaware of them, either because you never have been aware of them or because your active intelligence (your consciousness) has gone on to other things, still they function, and they function in coordination with others. (How? Who coordinates? Your level certainly doesn’t.)

So, you and Michael engage in a little question-and-answer session. You ask what you are prompted to ask, partly from past experience and partly from intuition at the moment. He answers question by question, or he responds to insights as they occur to you, confirming or questioning or denying. Together, functioning as separate parts of one temporary unit, you proceed to bring to the understanding of your level the greater understanding of our level and the greater (more specific) awareness of the lower levels.

We want to re-trace that. It is important to understanding many things. And remember, we are describing this not for the sake of showing how to get information on health or on the overcoming of physical or spiritual traumas, but for the sake of showing you how levels interact. Keep it in mind: As above, so below.

What do you do? You and Michael in conversation (i.e., in the course of attention that at first it is centered on other things) or directly upon his or your perception of an injury or a robot, proceed to ask what is going on. That is step one, or, if you care to look at it closely, steps one and two. You form a temporary unit, you center upon a situation, and you direct your joint attention to it.

You ask, why? What’s going on? What is the underlying “why” of the situation?

Answers bubble up, either obviously related or seemingly unrelated. Each response draws forth new questions, new realizations, but not in a predictable back-and-forth manner in which Frank questions and Michael answers. Instead, for the time the joint operation continues, you are functioning as a joint mind, receiving and processing information in the form of pictures, insights, memories, associations, leaps of logic, inspired guesses (same thing), etc. For as long as joint sympathy — i.e. feeling-together — persists, so does your joint access to a common mind that accesses more than either of you can access separately.

And here we will have to pause for the day, you being now 75 minutes into this, and a bit worn. You will note, we kept Michael in your mind merely to focus you; it had nothing to do with spelling his secrets in public. We might as easily have used Nancy or anyone else you’ve done this work with. The important thing (perhaps best not said in advance) was to keep you focused on a specific rather than on an abstraction.

Sneaky but effective. Okay, next time.

9:30 AM. I didn’t record here, yesterday Viki and I were talking about something and I realized, Hemingway’s accidents were him punishing himself. That is, one (or many?) aspect of his person-group punishing him, or perhaps punishing other members of the group. I felt his pain for a long moment. And, oddly, I felt that this was the first time he knew what had happened or why.

That’s right. If we don’t happen to focus on something — especially if we have made a habit of not focusing on something! — it can be hard to see it over here unless something lights it up, as happened yesterday.

But what about the life-review we supposedly all go through?

You’ll have to judge that for yourself. The whole idea of weighing a soul against a feather assumes a soul; a unit, not a group functioning together. There’s a sense in which it’s true, and a sense in which it isn’t. Like everything else.

Can you describe it a little?

There is this. When your mind isn’t constrained by the constraints imposed by the combination of physical brain (processing power, and processing speed) and sequential time-slices, then, sure, it’s going to see things whole, plain , interconnected. But think about it. When did the mind outside of the physical not see it plain, whole, unencumbered? There isn’t anything for your non-physical mind to learn! If you die and go back and retain some sense of what you experienced, then sure, you’re going to be changed. But you’re also going to be cramming a gallon’s worth of experience into a half pint sized container. Or, more like a 55-gallon drum’s worth, or an oil tanker’s cargo, into that half-pint. How accurate and balanced and measured do you suppose the result is going to be? And if you die and don’t return, again the non-physical mind has nothing to learn from the death or from the conscious mind’s experience of death. The “judgment” has been going on right along: There’s no need for a special court session because you’ve dropped the body.

Well, that’s very interesting. But if the mind in the non-physical has been observing and participating all along, as I can easily see it doing, how can it not know, for instance, that part of you was punishing yourself right along?

Never said it didn’t know, but it was a surprise to hear it anyway.

Why? I can’t make the two halves of that come together. You said your habit was not to see that fact, but you say your mind did know it, and you say when you went over, what your mind knew you knew (now that the interference of the brain and time had been removed, I take it).

Think of your soul as habit-system, and that will give you the key.

A little more?

It may seem odd at first blush, but you’ll get used to the idea. Your habits are your habits, and they persist on this side, only minus the modulating influence of time and brain mechanism. Good habits and bad habits are a matter of opinion anyway. Don’t assume you will still be diligent and won’t be wasteful, or will still be even-tempered and won’t be slothful, or any other combination of “good” and “bad” you can put together. The big difference is, you aren’t in sequential time any longer. Other than that (which I grant you is a pretty big “other than”) you’re still you. I still like to fish and maybe I don’t particularly like seeing some of my past actions and attitudes — any more than you will.

Hmm. Thanks. I’ll send this out. And sometime we ought to explore who was lashing out for what and in behalf of what.

Whenever you’re ready. If I’m out fishing, call me on my cell phone.

I’m laughing too. Okay.