I posted this on Facebook November 6, but i should have posted it here as well. Would have, if i had not been having computer problems (redundant term) at the time.
Working with a Guidelines group at TMI
I took a break from my life as hermit, last night, to speak to the Guidelines class at the Monroe Institute. It turned out to be an extraordinary experience, I think because of a couple of subjects that have been much with me recently.
The night I talk to Guidelines is always on Wednesday. For four days, they’ve been doing hard work, trying to improve their access to the internal guidance that always there, though not always heard. And now, on Wednesday night, they have only one more day ahead of them before they have to go back to what I call “the unreal world.”
Usually, some of them are worried that what they’ve found so far is all there is. Others are puzzled by things that have happened or not happened. Still others are wondering if they will be able to carry over into their day-to-day lives. This mixture of emotions provides a very good opportunity to think together. And, that’s how I view it, an opportunity to work with them, not just talk to them. I tell them, I am not a performer and you are not an audience. It is a group effort.
There is a thing I sometimes call “the tyranny of the podium,” which makes one person the expert and everyone else, presumably, the neophytes to be instructed. But I try to keep well aware that I am expert in only one thing: my life and my experiences and my tentative conclusions. That’s all I have and that’s all anyone has, and that means that every person in the room has something unique to contribute, because nobody else has lived that life or formed that viewpoint. It isn’t like I am, or should be, on a pedestal. Pedestals only get in the way of communication.
So, we sit in a circle around the room, and I tell the group what I think I know, and I ask who’s having problems, and what kind, and we go from there.
Last night, I told them that the guys upstairs have said we all communicate by creating a temporary joint mind. And after a while I mentioned how I had been led recently to realize that I need to stay awake, which is harder than you might think. Most people, most of the time – maybe everybody, all the time, if you ask them if they are awake, they’ll say yes, of course. But in fact much of the time, our higher functions are asleep. Gurdjieff talked about this, decades ago. And, as he pointed out, no work can be done in sleep. But how do we wake up and stay awake?
That question engaged them, and different people had different suggestions, experiences, etc. In othe words, that’s what our temporary joint mind wound up working on together. Extraordinary.
A ‘topic’ talked about for millennia. But my experience indicates talking and thinking about it doesn’t help much; the process of awakening takes work and effort and daily practice.
Zen (and now T’ai chi ch’uan) provides a ‘structure’ for such practices for me. The important thing is to find the practice that works for ‘you’ … and then do it!
Jim
I agree, practice and not mere talk is the way.
I can well relate to the sense that my “inner guidance” (Whole Self) is there, yet I (like so many) have done a good job of “forgetting” (“being asleep”). This seems to be part of the “agreement” in “being Human”, yet I intuitively feel that collectively we’ve “forgotten to the point that it’s hurting us”/our ability to continue the “Human Experience”. Like you, I find myself wanting to connect w/ more persons who are interested in exploring these “out of the box” ideas, without seeking a “guru”. Too much of my life already has been given over to “revering the Experts”, and I find that this had led to my feeling “ornery” when in the “presence of Pontificators” (especially in the fields of materialism/technology which seems to ignore the “hard problem” of Consciousness). As it is now, I have most of my “awake” experiences during sleep, in dreams, where intuitive messaging can get thru. I am glad there seem to be more of us who are willing to “wake up” and explore our Whole Selves (I tend to like the “Sethian” term)…
Ditto Craig. I have felt the same as of the experiences of yours.
I have thought as Frank says as well….cooperative groupings whether it might be through the internet or the socalled practical work in the daily doings….it IS MENTAL and the reformation of “the wake-up call” at large. It is demanding “hard work” to re-evaluate the old world view.
Absolutely agree, but when first of to have “started” the search, the more eager of to explore “The Nature of Personal Reality”. I have most of the Seth Books since back in the 1980/90thies, and once in a while “turning back” to them( as of what to have done with Franks` and others of interest). Vivid dreams emerged throughout the years. Manifestations of the rather “weird things” of what Seth is giving of the ideas for us readers, likewise the advices(in the books of to try out by ourselves) of to have tried out likewise. And it works!!! Believe in it or not dear friends.
Thank you Craig and Frank….likes attracks likes. Hmm, well, Seth tells of it is no such thing as “cause and effect.” I`ll have to go more in-depth-study with that, because i have always thought the world have functioned as an cause and effect scenario.
P.S. Thank you Frank for the hint of to buy the book by Deepak Chopra. MERLIN AHA….I have always loved the tale of King Arthur and Avalon.
Frank,
I’m posting in an older thread but this relates to the work you’re doing now, starting with “Rita’s book, the beginnings.” I feel it could be very useful to hear what Rita might say about the idea that it’s the ‘doing’ that’s important … talking perhaps points in good directions, but each of us must then do the work to move our life in those ‘directions’.
I realize asking non-physical beings about how we might use their information to make physical life better (in whatever way we each choose to define ‘better’) takes us perilously close to religion … but then Rita’s insight into that ‘peril’ would be interesting and valuable too.
I appreciate the work you do in making this knowledge available to the rest of us; perhaps that’s your ‘doing.’ I’m hoping Rita might point toward other doings that could be worked into daily life.
Jim
I’ll be glad to have the question asked, but can i ask you to put this in the form of an email to muddytracks@earthlink.net? It will make thins much easier on this end, as i can then forward it to Charles Sides for him to submit it in the order he thinks best.
Hello Jim and Frank.
What Jim says “resonates” with the own perspectives at large(wonders if it is “the same impact/impression/imprint, of the Seth Material?)
Rita told of to be listening to “the feelings” about the material when of to read it. One can easily become “trapped” within the own intellect (if of to interpret all the incoming material by the intellectual mind only).
And what is “the intellect?” Is it a phenomenon of consciousness, or the same as “mind above matter?”
ACIM says the consciousness became created “in the beginning” as well…..”Before”(the before did`nt exist), the consciousness and The Big Bang expansion, The Essence was dormant within ITSELF.
In the Edgar Cayce readings is it told of “The
Essence/God,” made extensions of ITSELF, as “companions” with the same abilities as ITSELF because “The Essence” felt all alone(smiles).
I like the term “The First Essence” instead of God, or the popular “I AM” terminology.
The Essence of everything, and of “All That IS.”
Inger Lise(love the “lol” term)
Well, well, on of to do the housework(as the housewife).