The Accessing Inner Guidance program we just ran at The Monroe Institute over the weekend was great fun, very satisfying — at least for this guest trainer!
Guidelines
Had my usual good time, last night, talking to the current Guidelines class at The Monroe Institute. Since the program begins Saturday after supper, by Wednesday night the participants have a pretty good idea of the obstacles they have faced and those they still face, and everybody is in the mood to do some work to see what we can do to help them address them.
When you have a dozen and a half people united in common purpose, bonded by a few days of sharing meals and conversation, you have a temporary group mind of some power. And what I like best about being at TMI is, as I have said many times, it is like being in the future. You can talk about shared understandings that just don’t commonly exist in the outside world.
So now I wait till tomorrow, when I start teaching my first weekend class there. Thank God for Bob Holbrook, who will be there to catch!
John Wolf on the ego as scapegoat
[I am very glad to see this course-correction. Too many people — especially New Age-influenced people — tend to blame the ego and deify the self, which I think is a serious misreading of the situtation.]
A Short Lesson About Attitude
by John Dorsey Wolf
We might call this “R&R”, not the military term meaning “Rest and Relaxation” from being on the front lines in battle; instead, “Ramifications of Rita” as I digest and ingest her material via Frank.
A couple of thoughts came to me the other day while I was on the freeway.
A driver in front of me was well into an exit lane, and at the last second veered suddenly without signaling across two lanes to return to the freeway. I grumbled to myself, “That idiot!”. (Actually, it was a few non-PG words to that effect.) Along with that statement I instantly felt threatened, generated some anger, and sent that energy out into the Universe.
In the past, searching for what part of me might be responsible for this behavior on my part, I would say it’s my ego at work. I have no formal psychology education, and I won’t pretend to fully understand what ego is. I simply view my ego as the externally oriented aspect of me.
Bernie Sanders at the Vatican conference
Bernie Sanders at the Vatican conference
April 15, 2016
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is speaking at the Vatican Friday, praising Pope Francis and denouncing income inequality.
The Democratic presidential candidate, who is Jewish, announced last week that he would attend a conference on income inequality at the Vatican just days before the high-stakes New York primary.
Here is a transcript of his prepared remarks.
Continue reading Bernie Sanders at the Vatican conference
So far and no farther – the limits of communication
I awoke this morning missing my communications with Rita and, earlier, with Papa Hemingway. (I would add, “and with myself,” except I talk to myself all the time.) I went back to read Rita’s last communication, and remembered that there had been a couple of paragraphs I hadn’t shared. I had awakened from a dream that led me, by a process of association, to words “An Affectionate Farewell,” which had come to me during my attendance at The Monroe Institute’s Professional Division meetings. I thought, “An Affectionate Farewell,” probably a title or subtitle for this book we’re writing, or, maybe not. Maybe it was Rita’s way of indicating to people that three books is all they get, rather than an open-ended series. So, I asked.
F: 3:30 a.m. You were saying?
R: You might think we have scarcely embarked upon our journey of exploration and exposition but in fact most of what needed to be said has been said. Now it is for each person to apply the lessons as they have been given. What we have done, in this little collaboration, is twofold, and consists partly of the information itself, partly of the method of obtaining it.
We could, I suppose, continue for quite some while to add detail and even to add entirely new realms of concepts, put it that way, and there would be value to that. But nothing comes free. The more we spell out, the greater the danger of becoming seen as authority – which
F: Yes, I see it. It’s always a balance, isn’t it?
R: I don’t know about “always,” but often enough, certainly. This is the nature of conveying information.
F: I suppose it’s worth a little spelling-out.
R: Smiling, as you say. Why, what a splendid idea!
F: Yeah, yeah. As I also say, “ I feel so used.”
R: And you love it.
F: Of course. But you were saying?
R: Just as you have come to see the process of gathering information as a two-step reciprocating process – perception alternating with interpretation – so you might see the process of conveying information, similarly, as a two-step reciprocating process, only this time information versus
F: Yes, hard to find the word for it. Processing? That isn’t quite right.
R: Perhaps we cannot yet summarize it in a neat antithesis, so let’s spell it out.
F: As you were about to do when I interrupted.
R: No harm done. And perhaps I wouldn’t have found it so easy to continue the sentence.
Our balance is between the
[Pause]
That dialectical approach isn’t working, even though it is a very simple concept. You try it.
F: I got it easily enough. The information itself is one thing, the effect on the reader is a different thing. If you don’t (if one doesn’t) provide enough information, the reader may not have enough meat to chew on and so may not be assisted in transforming his or her view of things. But if you provide too much, you risk weakening people, rather than strengthening them, by allowing or encouraging them to become too dependent upon an “outside” source rather than deepening their own use of their own resources.
R: Yes, that’s it. Of course the concepts of “not enough” and “too much” are impossible to cram into definitions or even into rules of thumb, because not only are they different for each person, they are different for each person at different times of their lives.
F: “You do the best you can.”
R: It was never any different, whether you are talking about scriptures or detective stories. On the one hand, you are creating a new window onto the world; on the other hand the real object is to help people see through their own windows, not yours.
So for instance, you know that Bob [Friedman] wants a firm picture of day-to-day (so to speak) life in the afterlife, and eventually you realize that the very phrasing of it as “afterlife” contains hidden assumptions that mislead. What are you to do? You see that someone else is trying to intuit “the meaning of life” and after a while you realize that that meaning varies with each person – and I don’t mean the interpretation varies, but the meaning itself, person by person. You see that someone else wants guidelines for how to live his or her life in the best way possible – perhaps the wisest goal of the three – and you see that anyone clinging to anyone else’s description goes off their track by just that much (as opposed to allowing themselves to be struck by something that resonates, and following it where it goes) and you see that the very process of helping people see carries the unavoidable side-effect of raising your own prestige as a messenger – which to that extent invalidates and changes the message. What to do? When to stop? What caveats to set out that will not become dogma?
F: And so it is always a tension of opposites.
R: That’s practically a definition of life.
F: If I don’t mistake, I’m feeling that you are seriously considering ending this series of conversations, or lectures, or whatever.
R: Notice the day?
F: Yes, a nice symmetry, eight years later. [That is, eight years after Rita’s 3D life ended.]
R: Let me say only a few words more, then.
Help is always available – especially in so far as one helps others. It encourages the flow, so to speak, and it reminds you that the help you receive is peer-to-peer, just as in the half you give. In other words, you are not a worm, you are not a god, and neither is anybody else you interact with. You are – we are – peers. Relatives, in a way. Associates. Don’t bow down to others, and don’t let them bow down to you.
F: Is that why I have such trouble acquiring disciples for the First Church of Frank?
R: It is why you make jokes about it, to keep your elbows free. It is a good instinct, if not carried too far. You remember that Lincoln told you.
F: I’m not likely to forget it. “Too much respect is as distancing as contempt.”
R: It is always a balance. Life is always a balance, after all, a tension of opposites in every direction, and you deliberately left free in the center, to move as you wish. No matter what you do, you will not run out of opposites surrounding your new position. Always there are new choices to be made.
F: I feel this valedictory mood so strongly, yet I feel that in some ways we have scarcely begun.
R: That is always so. Remember Thoreau, though.
F: Well, I hadn’t thought of it that way. He left Walden and didn’t quite know why, and often wished himself back there, but “perhaps I had more lives to lead.”
R: You will not get your remaining projects written if you continue to do this in the mornings. There isn’t enough “you” to stretch.
F: No guarantee I’ll do them anyway, of course.
R: No, but pretty close to a guarantee that if we prolong this kind of conversation, you won’t do them, and perhaps you would regret that. So, without promising or threatening that this is goodbye forever, at any rate I can say goodbye for now.
F: I have had Mr. Lincoln’s words in my mind this last week.
R: Yes. I bid you an affectionate farewell.
John Wolf – Ways to look at life
[John calls this “How can we not fear living?” but I changed it for fear it would be misinterpreted to mean that we SHOULD fear life. Everything John says here seems right to me.]
How can we not fear living?
by John Dorsey Wolf
What is written below is a partial, inadequate and inaccurate view of the concepts that are in my mind. Further, the concepts themselves are a partial, inadequate and inaccurate view of greater truth. They came into my mind and they want to come out, so I’m doing the best I can.
We get blasted hourly on terrorist attacks, murders and other crimes, torture, child abuse, economic ruin, homelessness, addictions, cancer and other various deadly diseases; not to mention fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, blizzards, global warming, oil spills, and job losses; and this doesn’t even include the standard list of political rhetoric on one party or another driving our country to ruin, or one country or another doing the same to the world.
In the face of this, Frank, TGU and Rita remind us, “All is well, all is always well.” I decided to pursue it to another level. How can we not fear living?
Reviews of The Sphere and the Hologram
[I omit a perceptive review from my friend Chris Smith only because he IS my friend, therefore not unbiased. The others should prove interesting, however.]
With all due respect, for very open minded readers
By Ledru on February 5, 2016
I am enjoying reading this book from Franck De Marco. With all due respect for people who will read this review, this is not a book for everybody. I would advise potential readers to start with the books written by Bob Monroe to better understand the context of this one. For many, a conversation with Higher Beings will appear as either a fantasy or very real. If you think this is fantasy, you will probably drop this book quite quickly. Your initial beliefs system, personal values and understanding of your personal journey in this life will make a big difference in determining your potential openness to the concepts developed during the sessions that Franck and Rita have had with the Guys Upstairs. If you are not presently satisfied by the belief systems most prevalent right now in society, this book is for you. You will find fuel and inspiration to look at who you are in a very different way. Enjoy the reading !
5.0 out of 5 stars
Masterful!
By Claire Lespir on July 4, 2014
The Sphere and Hologram is the most experiental book I have ever read! Thank you Frank and Rita!