Conversations September 11, 2010

Saturday, September 11, 2010

6 AM. We sort of went off on a tangent yesterday when we started discussing the virtues, didn’t we?

Tangent from what? Tangential to what? There are a million ways to convey what we are trying to convey, some of them seemingly irrelevant. But we can go back to where we took the turn, if you wish. Before we hared off on your particular case, we were saying that the volatile person-mind’s ringmaster is in a situation in which it naturally perceives the world as divided between self and other, yet that division has no fixed or firm boundaries. What it experiences itself to be — for as long as it considers itself to be a unit — changes, and responds to vague undefined influences.

May I rephrase?

Since you think it necessary.

You’re saying, I think, that the person-mind emerges during our life, and that it has a central identity (the ego? Is that what you mean?) that mistakes itself as being one thing when in fact it is a moderator of the many things, many unsuspected, that actually comprise the person’s consciousness.

Yes, that’s what we said. Nor do we object to the rephrasing. You are the only one in your position of intermediary between us and others, and so you will know better what we mean than anyone else can. So when you slightly shift your position on the balance-beam and we move down a little and your consciousness moves up, the rephrasing may well be more accessible to others. This is so for anyone bringing messages in from the other side, of course, whether they know it or not.

Okay, good.

It is in this sense that each incarnation represents the birth of a new soul, for no two-person-groups can be the same, any more than any two physical genetic-and-time-and-space signatures can be the same. Not only does each soul — each mind — begin differently, it makes different choices as it goes along, and so necessarily shapes itself and becomes, so to speak, continuously more unique because of the concatenating of results. If someone makes ten choices, perhaps someone else makes the same ten. But the odds against identical choices go up drastically as the number of choices multiplies. Can you expect the same hundred choices? 100,000? And your lives are millions of choices, most small but not all. And of course, as we say, no two start off from identical places anyway.

But suppose two person-groups with substantially similar composition. You might think that similar forces in similar environments would produce similar choices, and similar results. Maybe, maybe not, for it truly is a matter of choice, not of destiny. And what each individual does with the cards he or she has been dealt is what it is all about.

So what of the sense of continuity we feel, that feels like past lives?

In a real sense, they are past lives, but it doesn’t mean quite what you have been told it means, because the facts have always been interpreted as applying to individuals in a way that can’t be accurate because the understanding of the nature of the individual isn’t accurate.

I begin to sense it.

If a clairvoyant were to look into your aura and read your past lives, what would actually be being read? Results!

You mean, I think, that the end-result of a given life produced (or is?) the thing that is one of our strands.

Good. We will spell it out a little. Your person-mind contains many strand-minds, of differing complexity and nature, just as external nature has rocks, plants, animals, spirits etc. (Yes, spirits are part of nature.) That is, everything that exists comprises elements of varying complexity. Again, remember, it’s all one thing ultimately. There are no ultimate divisions in nature.

Well, one such strand-mind may be the person-mind that emerged from a life. It is the result of the choices that person-group made in its life. You see? The results of one life enter into another life as part of a new mixture. And everyone contains so many strand-minds as part of their person-mind — if they were all active and clamoring for attention you would be bewildered, and indeed this is some people’s situation. Or, at the other extreme, if you were unaware that your consciousness is actually a moderation of competing forces, you might think yourself a unity while actually being at the mercy of every “mood” — and this also is many a person-mind’s situation.

Regardless the awareness of it by the person-mind, the existence of these strand-minds is the equivalent of the existence of past lives within you, for what exactly is the difference between what we are saying here and what so many people believe, except the concept of the individual? If you see the individual as a migrating soul, that’s one thing. If you see the individual as a person-group including previous person-groups, that’s somewhat different. In either case the existence of memories, traits, associates, affinities etc. is the same.

I can hear someone asking, then what is the point of existence, if it isn’t self-improvement, self-development?

As in evolution?

Sure. That’s the big metaphor in our time, and you know the difficulties I have gotten into with close friends who assume evolution to be evident to any but the ignorant, and have a hard time with my disbelief.

Within the concept of evolution or outside of it, the question remains: what are we talking about? [I.e., what is a person?]

But that’s the point! If the individual isn’t a unit reincarnating, how can it evolve? And if evolution isn’t the point, or isn’t real, what is the point?

After all, evolution wouldn’t necessarily have anything to do with individuals. A person-group serving as strand-mind to another person-group could be quite as easily fitted into the scheme. It would still feel like growth and striving to the person-mind; it would still contribute to complexity in the group-mind (from its standpoint) to which it contributed.

As to what’s the point, the answer is self-evident. You and everybody who reads this knows what the point of existence is, you just may not know it intellectually. That is, your life knows; your concepts may not. Life is about living, and if you can provide a more all-inclusive definition of life purpose than that, we’d like to hear it.

Each person-group’s definition of life is going to be different, appropriately to that group. One man’s meat is another man’s poison. One person’s absorption is another person’s boredom. But each one knows; it’s just that the ringmaster may not know, or may be so distracted by other people’s definitions that he forgets or discards what he knows.

You want to know what your life is about? Look at your life! You want to know what you “should” do with your life? Look what you are doing! It’s almost too simple to be said.

We are not getting into your arguments about evolution because (a) who would it convince and (b) how would it aid anybody? But we will say this, merely. The question of evolution has no more to do with your purpose than the geography of West Virginia.

Come again?

Theory, and knowledge, have nothing to do with your life except perhaps to orient or confuse you. All this theory we are giving you is merely to try to counterbalance some of your mental environment’s voice. The only thing that matters is not your theory about why you’re living, but — living. That is, living out what you are. And what choice do you think you have? How are you going to live someone else’s life?

No, your person-group is whatever it is, where wherever it is, when whenever it is. There can never be an identical group in an identical place and time. Your task, if you choose to accept it, is to live. Obviously, living anyone else’s idea of life is not what you’re here for (except in so far as what someone says or does resonates within you; influence is not the same thing as advice).

To return to where we began. The ringmaster finds itself moderating a congeries of forces — of strand-minds. He does what he can. In so doing, the life of that person-mind emerges. The question of contention among these strand-minds is a worthy subject that has many aspects to be explored.

Each time we do this, I feel like the session is mostly wasted in rehashing the past statements, and yet we do cover some ground. Very well, I take it our session is over for the day. A little shorter than average.

But the same 75 minutes. Fast or slow doesn’t matter. Persistence does.

All right. Till later.

2 PM. Just got a vivid sense of what you mean. Had lay down and for some reason — you, I suppose — I thought of the words “Natty Maru,” the nickname the sailors on the Natoma Bay had for their ship when fighting the Japanese in World War II. This of course connected to the past-life memories of James Leininger, who as a boy was haunted by memories that turned out to be of James Huston, a fighter pilot on that ship. Suddenly I saw it: The strand-mind within James Leininger was the person-mind of James Houston. The person-mind of James Houston had moved on to become part of a group-mind that was the person-mind of a little boy. Conceptually it is very simple!

Well, not quite so simple, but that is an accurate perception and understanding. Thus, you see, reincarnation is correct, for a soul moved on to live again. But reincarnation is not correct, because the soul did not move on to be ringmaster again, but only to be one factor of many.

Yes, and when young James moves on, James Houston will be a strand of a strand.

Not quite that simple either, but you’re getting the sense of it now. And perhaps you see why we have been saying, do your work on yourself now, meaning while you are ringmaster, for you won’t find it so easy thereafter, and may in fact find it impossible unless you receive assistance.

Not every person-group is included in a new person-group.

No, and those who are are chosen by no rules that we know how to enumerate. You can feel, now, how many, many things cannot be explained while you are firmly enmeshed in wrong concepts.

Yes. Without the division of “individuals” into the various components as you have been explaining, there is no room for understanding.

We told you years ago, but got tangled in analogy and quietly dropped the subject with relief, that some people’s souls crystallized in their lifetimes and others didn’t. We also said that some people were “lenses” used to shine the light of spirit through and serve as models for new souls. Now we can re-conceptualize for you.

A person-group upon dropping the body is a unit in heaven. That is, a non-physical habit-pattern — a mind — newly relieved of its affiliation with the body, exists and has its awareness automatically expanded as it realizes and explores its huge number of interconnections with strands and groups. That’s more than enough, for some, and they have no wish to return to become a strand in another person-mind. Others, either for specific tasks to be accomplished or from their own intrinsic interest, return to earth in a new affiliation. Well, how is the former person-mind to be a new person-mind? That person-mind forms as the sum of its strand-minds. Can someone be a strand and a ringmaster in the same person-mind? (Actually, it can seem that way, but only for a while, and even then the answer is, “no, they can’t really.”) So — looking at life from the viewpoint of any given person-mind, you’re only new once. You only get one bite of the ringmaster apple. You don’t step into the same river of life twice. But that is not the same as saying that you only live once and then you’re never alive on earth again. Rather, it means that the particular ring that is you can only be forged once. Once created, you can play many parts in life physical and life non-physical, but you can’t create yourself again, and can’t be created anew again. That’s just common sense. But it has a lot of ramifications for those who can ponder it in light of psychology or theology or metaphysical systems. It will throw a peculiar and intense light on many things.

Some former person-groups — we suppose we are going to have to invent yet more jargon to concisely say it: ex-ringmasters, let’s call them (tentatively; it may prove unworkable) — will be of particular use to the purpose behind life, and they may be used as strands not once or twice but many times. Others may be of no use at all and may never served in that capacity. (That doesn’t mean they will serve no purpose or will cease to exist; it means they are not sufficiently differentiated to be useful as feedstock for new-person groups, one might say.) And, between these extremes, some ex-ringmasters will be employed as strands in some but not many new person-groups.

A couple of things to note.

1) It is not a case of an ex-ringmaster getting only one new assignment. They could get many; the only rules about it (as far as we know) concern usefulness.

2) Just because an ex-ringmaster is used in one person-group doesn’t exactly mean it will or won’t have further influence when that person-group in turn becomes a strand in a new group-mind. It depends on how prominent it is in the person-mind of which it forms a strand.

3) A person-group may crystallize or not. If it does, in effect a new being has been created, closer to being a unit than before because the relations of its constituent parts are relatively fixed.

4) However, this isn’t really so, either, except from a certain point of view, because a strand-mind within a person-mind may play one role, have one relative importance, but play an entirely new role, of greater or lesser importance, when that person-mind is considered as having become part of another group-mind.

5) Finally and most confusingly of all, consider: All this is our explanation unavoidably crammed into the time-and-space analogy, or model. All this movement isn’t really movement, so much as relationship. Our description is somewhat as if we were trying to describe an abstract painting by saying the colors swirl, or this color blends into that and proceeds to that. The movement is analogy more than it is description, but that’s part of the inherent problem of translating into 3-D terms.

Wow, that’s quite a lot to come just pouring out.

At unpredictable times, information will “click” and if we can, we like to take advantage of that moment, for it is when your mind is temporarily most pliant and receptive.

I’ll go send it out. Thanks.

Leave a Reply