[I put this on Facebook first, reversing the usual procedure.]
Listening to the emotion behind people’s rhetoric, rather than the specific words, I have been trying to figure out why so many Facebook posts are so negative, so angry, so certain.
Sure, politics and ideology are often matters of strong opinion. But these days, they are reaching the point of hysteria. I have been wondering why.
Here’s a tentative conclusion: Everybody on the left and right (and even a few people at the center) shares one characteristic. They hate America.
Oh, they don’t think so. They love THEIR IDEA of the America that OUGHT TO exist. But the America that actually exists, which is shot through with flaws, they hate. And it’s a short step from hating imperfection to hating those you see as being responsible for that imperfection. Add fear of losing your imagined love permanently, and you have a recipe for just what we’re seeing.
I was going to list particulars, but perhaps it’s better for everybody to make their own lists.
An old saying has it that “the best is the enemy of the good,” DeMarco’s corollary (made up just this minute) states that an idealized image held too closely leads to hatred of reality, which is always imperfect.
And that, in turn, leads to an uncomfortable question for us all: How much am I letting my love for an idealized America turn into hatred of the America that actually exists? And what can come from hatred but more hatred?
Carl Jung said that condemnation always isolates, and only acceptance heals. Perhaps it is time we stop blaming each other for the fact that America isn’t what it should be, and start holding and spreading our vision of what it yet could be.
[I added a follow-up]
Do you hate America?
I know you don’t *think* you do, but —
Can you love America while hating its people?
Can you love its people if you only love *some* of its people?
Can you love America if you hate those Americans who hold ideas you hate?
So, do you love the *real* America — the one that exists, warts and all — or only the edited version you wish did exist?
For me, this was very timely. Thank you.
What is “America” to hate or love? How does one define “America”, by a dart-board geographic border or a political entity that mostly flops around like a headless chicken? I can’t see it as something frozen in any way, but a live beast reflecting the ever-changing feelings and opinions of its residents. I guess much depends upon how we view our own lives as they are intermeshed with those around us, and there the question of love and hate becomes muddy. Americans far exceed others in being hooked on both legal and illegal psychotropic drugs, surrounding themselves with guns, building prisons, and deploying large police forces and military, so unhappiness and fear are apparently flourishing. We here in the West are seeing our “Peaceful” Ocean turned into a toxic dump with water temperatures rising much faster than elsewhere as our forests are burning out of control – while those in charge of “our” government sit on their hands and tell us not to worry, global warming is all a conspiracy theory. “Representative” government has become almost completely owned by those with the thickest wallets, elections are comedic, and those elected increasingly focus on redistributing wealth to the already very wealthy. A “good” job for the rest of us, especially the young, is progressively defined as part time or temporary, no benefits, and at a wage that won’t meet living expenses, let alone pay off school loans. “America” doesn’t exist as a cohesive unit; if we honestly look at our history, it was always every man for his self, with the emphasis on “man” –women, as well as Blacks and Native Americans, are expected to ever kowtow to their white male masters. Arguably there are as many states of mind as there are Americans and our mind states aren’t in great shape now. If America were a person, I’d diagnose paranoid schizophrenia. Rather than hate or anger, I feel so sad. OK, as the stoics would say, that’s just the way it is; since most of us have little chance of changing the situation, anxiety won’t help, so don’t get attached to a job, always run from fires, don’t step in the ocean, take another pill, buy another gun, shoot another Black kid, and salute the flag and praise the Lord in God’s name. Truly, we may have deeper life-enhancing objectives, if we happen to stumble on such possibilities through the American schooling and media fog.
Do you feel better now? I am going to take exception to one historical point: “if we honestly look at our history, it was always every man for his self ….” Not true.
If you look at the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies, you will find entire villages transplanted from England, thinking of themselves as a community, and acting as a community. The Puritans considered themselves to be “as a city on a hill,” existing in the light of public opinion and trying to be an example to the world. America has always had idealistic communities religious and otherwise: The Quakers, the shakers, Oneida, Brook Farm, New Harmony, the Amish — much of the middle American frontier centered on small communities relying upon each other as neighbors for their survival. Benjamin Franklin invented the post office and the volunteer fire department, among other things, but he could not have done so if those ideas had not met response.
I would argue that it was the pressures of industrialism, and mobility, that pulled us apart first into nuclear families and now even farther. And of course the pernicious dogmas of people like Ayn Rand pretending that selfishness is a virtue, pretending that any individual in the history of the world ever raised and educated himself or herself, ever survived without the organization of society — that was the latest blow. But it is no way accurate to say that America was always every man for himself.
Wow … talk about disparate ‘strands’! TGU said we humans as individuals, as cultures, and as a race are ‘woven’ from different elements, which gives us the chance, the experience, and (I gather) the mission to be the ‘reconcilers of the universe.’ Woo-hoo, lucky us!
Perhaps the tension (here and in America and in the world) is not between love and hate, but between fear and reconciliation, between ‘everything is going to hell’ and ‘all will be well, between separation and connection.
I add my voice to Frank’s in asking us each to consider which side we lean toward, and how that ‘leaning’ matches up with what Rita and TGU have been saying. That’s the real-world application of this information, what they ask us over and over to do to learn if it’s useful.
Jim
Yes, agree Jim.
And it is NOT just (and only) the Americans who seem to be “out-of-tune” in the world.
I have received this funny (and wise) quote from an old American (and long-retired) Navy friend (former U.S.Officer). We studied the E.C. Readings together, for several years, in the past, and quote:
The Headline:
“Park Your Thoughts” (it was obviously meant for me and my driving).
“Next time you find your thoughts speeding around creating chaos, try this:
Try and steer your thoughts to where you are and park them. Just make sure you`re not parked anywhere near worries, anxieties, guilt, regrets otherwise, there will be fines to pay.
Park your car of thoughts near a quiet, calm space. Relax and regain your energy and focus.
Then, when you`re ready, steer your thoughts in the direction you want”–
Pretty Good is it not? The old veterans` wisdom.
B&B,Inger Lise.
My question (to myself and others as well) is what is your own, direct life experience? I’m aware of everything that Don mentioned and then some. BUT THAT’S NOT MY EXPERIENCE. So are all these awful things about America because you’ve personally witnessed it, or because you read about it and see it on cable news. My life improved when I stopped listening to others about how bad it is.
John
Very True John.
What you said trigger my mind about the book by Erwin Lazlo: “The Self-Actualization Cosmos”, Revolution in Science and Human Consciousness.
And the books by Robert.B.Clarke…where he realized it is all based upon The Inner Experience.
I have taken some notes long ago by to read a book by Theon Wright, titled:”The Open Door” (learned from Charles once upon a time).
And I have looked it up to remember, and quote:
“Learn lastly that this Whole which you see reflected in the universe about you is not only that of which you are a part, it is YOU.
The reality that expresses itself as a universe is that which IS, and that which IS, is SELF.
The real must be grasped DIRECTLY by the Consciousness, of which it is only a part.
People have to advance by their own experience… it comes from within, and understanding comes from within, and is not pumped into a person from the outside. Those who have achieved wisdom can point the way, but they can only open the door; they cannot push others through it.
Hm, I have realized the same throughout the years with my husband (and others)–it is as a fact.
LOL,Inger Lise.
“Those who have achieved wisdom can point the way, but they can only open the door; they cannot push others through it.”
A good thing, too, I suppose. Would we want others pushing us through a door we weren’t ready to go through?
“You will live in love, and will continuously draw nearer to all people, to all animals and birds and fishes, to all things created, to all things not physically manifest. You will rejoice in what is, and will not fear the future, even as you work to affect that future in what you do and – more vitally – in what you are.
“Or – you will express the other side of the polarity and will live in fear, and soon in hatred and despair. You will divide, and divide, and divide, until you whittle away your standing-place and are alone in a howling wilderness.
“You will contribute toward the creation of a new consciousness – for that and nothing less is what is at issue here – or you will lose yourself in a wilderness of repelling mirrors behind which (you will fear) are unnamed horrors.
“This is the challenge of your times, nothing less. “
From TGU 2/17/06 via Frank
Again … which way do YOU lean?
Reading that was a very interesting experience. I was quite impressed — and then more so when i found out that i had brought it through, so long ago. Thanks.
Our thanks to you … the concepts and feeling may come from TGU, but we know you put the words to them. The stark chilling poetry of “You will divide, and divide, and divide, until you whittle away your standing-place and are alone in a howling wilderness.” is something we might all consider as we examine our ‘leanings’.
Thanks Jim by to sharing this. Repetition always works.
And do you know what?
(when I re-read these matters) I got a sort of sacral feeling–the feel of ancient biblical pronouncement (a sort of)–The expression of it, that is.
E.C. all over again: “Know Thyself to be Yourself, yet one with the whole.”
A many-fold universal “truth” coming from everywhere/-or elsewhere, or”no-where” for that matter(smiling)…also called The Akashic recordings imprinted upon time and space.
B&B,Inger Lise
BTW:
AND THANK YOU VERY MUCH indeed to Frank, TGU, Rita& The Group as always.
I appreciate the thanks, and I add my own to all who participate in this great journey.
Just love it that Frank has created this space for us all to share, and also for the richness these talks with Rita, et al, bring to me. Thank you again, Frank, and to those of you who also add your perspectives.
Re Hating America
I guess I am more likely to look at the human species as a whole and shake my head at the ludicrous things humans do, especially to each other.
At the same time, when I shift my focus to what is right here around me I see a chorus of intertwining life forms, stunning beauty, and a life of extreme ease and freedom with a variety that no generation before me has ever had. Even going back one generation to the limited communication of a pricey long distance call… I feel like we (all of us reading this) are living in unprecedented opportunity here.
Fear, greed, corruption, selfishness, etc are not new, but our ability to communicate globally, travel quickly, eat a wide variety of foods in all seasons, have easy access to hot showers, and have so much at our fingertips… that is all new. Even the kings & queens of the past did not have this.
So when I shift my awareness to all that, it puts the awful behaviors I see in the news in a different perspective. I feel like there is huge potential here and what am I going to do with it?
This is an excellent way of looking at it. More challenging, but that’s what happens when you move up a grade, the tests get harder. Thanks.
Thank you Ruth—You have an open Mind (and a wide horizon), that`s for sure.
Now I am curious about if you live in Great Britain since you mentioned the Kings&Queens of the past? You sounds like my dear English friend Carol.
Frank? I came upon something by Seth, book 8, in The Early Sessions, page 270. AND it is very much in connection with what Rita has said before.
And quote Seth:
“This communication, while taking place in your time, in your present, is nevertheless partially responsible in other dimensions for what you would call future developments in your own personalities, which you can now in turn contact. This is partially what I am, far more than you are, or that Seth is what you thought of him.
I look back on you as the selves from which I sprang, and yet I am more than the sum of what you will be when you are finished with the other dimensions and time that I have known. For I have sprung entirely entirely away from you, and would be alien in your terms. That you can even contact me is a most remarkable development. Yet had you not been able to contact me I would not be what I am.
I am far more however than this portion of me that you contact, for it is only one portion of me that experienced that reality.
It is highly important that the material not be distorted then, for most communications take place on far different levels than this, so closely connected with your own system that even the most undistorted material is highly distorted, because the communicators themselves are so closely involved with camouflages, and do not realize that they create the realities which they then describe.”
Gosh, oh My, oh My!
And Seth again: “Still, only a small portion of what I am speaks to you now. Other portions of me are concerned elsewhere, for I am aware of my own existence in other dimensions, and keep track of them, and direct my many selves.”
Well, well, the parallel dimensions of existences, in simultaneous time, hopefully not making us schizophrenic!
I believe it is necessary with some “form” of protection one way or the other, to live as humans (especially when to open up to our potentials). I have thought about the many around us “who are not ready for it”–actually, that can be a sort of”protection” as well.
As always yours,
Inger Lise.
Inger Lise, please re-read your last paragraph to be sure i have not distorted it in cleaning up your Norweglish. I THINK that’s what you meant, but I am not 100% sure.
Interesting that you and I have very different ideas of what Seth meant in what you quoted:“Still, only a small portion of what I am speaks to you now. Other portions of me are concerned elsewhere, for I am aware of my own existence in other dimensions, and keep track of them, and direct my many selves.”
You think he refers to “parallel dimensions of existences, in simultaneous time,” and I think he meant, he is part of something much greater than is or can be concentrated in one moment of time, and so it elsewhere doing other things at the same time as he is (was) here talking.
And of course you and I could both be right.
Did you think, when you were doing all that solitary reading, that later in life you would be sharing it with people in other countries, to their benefit (from your wider range of experience) and yours (from an end to psychological isolation)? Interesting arrangement, life in 3D!
Your insight reminds me how very difficult self transformation is. I’m rereading Rita’s book for the nth time. I think there is a parallel to stepwise learning (understanding A requires understanding B, and vice versa). That is :person A helps persons B and C and …who in turn help person A, and we incrementally move up our understanding. We learn and we teach by learning.
Thanks as always Frank, in editing my Norweglish (laughs)–I am appreciating it indeed.
I would NEVER have dreamed about sharing all my personal experiences whatsoever in public back in time (and certainly not discussing this material with friends worldwide).
I recall vividly when the Norwegian Medium/Channeler Lily Bendriss, sitting there in the room (back in 1995), with the tape-recorder in front of her; telling me to participate in “The Internet”. And I was asking her with a shivering voice: “WHAT is The Internet”???? I had never heard about it before then.
BTW: On the very same cassette/tape, she began the session with the pronouncement about; “A Large Serafim (also written Seraphim), standing behind you; “The Keeper Between Good and EVIL.”
No wonder I was shivering in my knees (AND my voice) on the cassette.
BTW:
In the same Seth-Session, book 8, page 269, Seth says:
“There are points of contact having nothing to do with time as you know it, that are extremely significant to ALL personalities, origins of new energy that are sometimes brought into existence because of the strong, latent psychic capacities (underlined) within individual selves.
At these particular points a conglomerations of new self units come into being, their origin sparked as given in the last sentence. They then disperse and go their own ways, but the mutual origin and the strength of that initial psychic birth remain.
They may develop in entirely different fashions and in various dimensions, but a strong sympathetic attraction exists between them. There is a point of contact where knowledge can be communicated from these various dimensions; and for too many reasons to give you now, Ruburt is precisely in proper coordinates for such communication to take place.
THIS communication while taking place in your time, and in your present, is nevertheless partially responsible in other dimensions for what you would call future development in your own personalities, which you can now in turn contact. This is PARTIALLY what I am, far more than you are, or that Seth is as you thought of him….
And then comes what I have quoted before… “I look back on you as the selves from which I sprang, and yet I am more than the sum of what you will be when you are finished with the other dimensions and times that I have known.
FOR I HAVE SPRUNG ENTIRELY AWAY FROM YOU; AND WOULD BE ALIEN IN YOUR TERMS.”(obviously it is ABOVE our comprehension).
And I agree with you John (who always impresses me) and you Frank, about the term:”We still don`t have a clue”.
Even Seth said it is “unknown existences” where he is NOT knowing anything about (The strange phenomenon of Seth TWO which is far away)…other than us creating a new world-order without Time and Space eventually.
Hmm, uha, Dr.Jekyll&Mr.Hyde.
(the movie from 1936 or something).
See you later–dinner is waiting.
LOL,Inger Lise.
Thanks so much for the Seth references.
In addition to the interpretation that you and Frank are discussing, I find these statements totally fascinating: “This communication, while taking place in your time, in your present, is nevertheless partially responsible in other dimensions for what you would call future developments in your own personalities” and “I look back on you as the selves from which I sprang, and yet I am more than the sum of what you will be when you are finished with the other dimensions and time that I have known.”
To me these imply his teachings in the form of these communications help move our consciousness to a higher level in other dimensions, providing eventually part of the the “strand material” that is now him. He is in part a future us, and is communicating with us such that it becomes so. That’s pretty wild–or at least a wild interpretation on my part!
John
I think i would go farther. If we are all one thing, as I believe we must be, somehow different parts of us are at different “local” levels of being, whatever that may mean precisely. I thing this diffuse being is interacting with itself in many ways. My strong suspicion is that we still don’t have a clue! Maybe we are incapable of getting one!
I’m finding a lot of resonances in the “Seth Material” for myself as well. And if it’s all One Thing, how could any thought/idea the “little” I might have NOT affect the whole, or at least “locally”?
I’ve been in fairly intense self-reflection lately, which means I’m trying to “turn up the boost” on my own “homing signal” from my “Upstairs”. I got, the other morning, that I tend to get my non-3D information from dreams at this stage, which require me to interpret (I also figured this way “works for me” now, in that I might “freak out” if I suddenly started seeing visions, hearing voices while I was awake!) Much for me to “grok” here…
As far as the “hating America” thread goes; yes, there are things I definitely do not like, and I can feel overwhelmed at times. Eliminating virtually all news (except weather!) helps. There’s a wonderful animated movie, “The Man Who Planted Trees”, which I’ve watched several times. In it, the title character’s main “aim in life” is to reforest a barren tract in part of the French Alps. He just plants trees, tends a few sheep, keeps a few bees…two world wars go on, and he’s barely aware there’s a conflict going on… Ahh, to develop such focus that the “sturm und drang” doesn’t worry me so…
Craig
I read and watch the news to know what is going on in the world but haven’t participated much in social media such as Facebook or Twitter. I have looked at those sites and am overwhelmed by the marked contrast between displays of tremendous encouragement and support for some people and the outright meanness displayed toward others. It seems that the impersonal nature of social media (not being in the physical presence of others) can screen people from seeing and taking responsibility for the greater repercussions of their cutting words.
This forum with Frank and Rita is both an energizing vortex and a soft place to rest. We are stretched to see ourselves from many different viewpoints and all opinions and experiences are valued here. I tend toward an internal orientation to life and through my experiences with the non-3D, I have become more accepting of myself and others and our lives in the 3D.
Like most people, I’ve experienced pain and loss, have my own buttons that get pushed and my own self-imposed challenges. My experiences with the “wisdom” of my non-3D counterpart have always been loving and supportive of me and respectful of other beings. I have experienced the miracles that joint ventures with the non-3D in the space of love can bring to the world.
The work of Frank and Rita and the contributions of everyone here keep me focused on expanding my consciousness. Learning to see myself as a diverse community and understanding little by little what that means helps me to appreciate that other individuals are diverse communities as well and allows me to step back and reserve judgment. Being aware of the complexity of my own consciousness and coming to terms with my own shadow helps me to realize that my perception of others is only the tip of their iceberg.
These days, I am becoming lucid more often in my dreams and am recognizing the depth of the symbols that are revealed. I have been having more conversations about life and death with my mother and older relatives. After a recent intense conversation with my Irish uncle (he wants to go completely out of existence when he dies) I had a dream in which my dad (who has passed on) was showing me the lifeboats and life preservers for the SS Edmund Fitzgerald (the ship in the popular song by Gordon Lightfoot). I knew the song but had not heard it for years and I did not know the actual story behind it so internet research was needed. The story connected with my feelings about my uncle and the research also revealed that a tugboat named “The Naugatuck” was among the vessels called out to search for the Edmund Fitzgerald. It didn’t escape me that my mom, dad and my aunt (wife to this uncle) were all from Naugatuck Connecticut. I’m still sitting with this dream as its meaning continues to unfold.
In regard to America, I appreciate my life here. I realize that I(we) chose this time and place like many others. I strive to do the best wherever I am and as I often fall short, there’s always another day (and night) to try again.
Thank you Frank for this holding this space.
Karla
It’s lovely, the use people are making of it.