Rita – communication and bias

Saturday, February 13, 2016
F: 5:35 a.m. All right, Miss Rita, I’m ready if you are.
R: Then, let’s look at the world – by which, I mean “reality” – as it appears from a higher level, a more inclusive level, than the so-called individual.
I have been at some pains to reinforce what the guys told us, that life is a series of monads in which aggregations of smaller-scale communities function as individuals within larger communities, each of which communities function as individuals at a higher level. By now that concept should be very familiar.
But of course in any model, looking through the opposite end of the microscope or telescope or binoculars – use your own analogy – the very same reality is going to present itself in very different aspect. What looks like communities of individuals seen one way looks like subdivisions of a great unity, seen another way. So, let’s look at things that other way.
And perhaps later we will look at things yet another way, for of course there are always more ways to see anything. It isn’t just looking up or looking down, so to speak.

Start with the idea of everything being part of one complete indivisible thing. As I indicated earlier, I can’t describe All-That-Is, because I am not big enough to encompass it, any more than you are. But we are part of it. It is within us, as we are within it. So, you might say, it can recognize itself. We may not be able to describe or analyze it, but we know it. We – well, how shall we put it? Some things can’t be said although they are so well known.
F: Is it like this? We experience the physical world, but how poorly we can describe it. The taste of seaside air, the sound of early morning stillness, the feel of – well, you get the idea. There is a lot of life that can only be alluded to, and if you haven’t experienced it, you don’t really know it from hearing of it.
R: That’s a good way to put it. We always know more than we can say, and for that matter we always know more than we know we know.
F: I hear, Jung’s racial unconscious.
R: That’s one way you could look at it, but from a different end of the telescope. I’m hesitating at the brink, here – you should recognize the symptoms.
F: Oh, yes. I experience it as a long hesitation, a feeling for the approach, a tentative inclination to go this way or that.
R: Yes. And the hesitation this time is to find the pathway via your mind, to get where I want us to go. I don’t believe we’ve quite mentioned this part of the process before, at any rate not putting it front and center. Anything coming in by non-sensory means (as, this) is still subject to interpretation by the mind of the person in 3D, no less than if the person is interpreting (making sense of) sensory data. So the same information given to more than one person will take on not only a different “flavor” for each, but will be allowed in, or excluded in part, or will be combined with other data, in a preferential manner that amounts to individual preference.
F: Preferential preference?
R: Scratch “preference,” then, and say “characteristic,” or “uniqueness,” or even “bias.” My point is that the very transmission of data through a given person flavors the information inevitably. It cannot come through in a theoretically pure fashion. I structure it on my end, you structure it on your end, the readers in turn structure it on their end, and, if they set out to convey to another their understanding of it, those they convey it to structure it in their turn.
F: So that transmission is a process of inadvertent modification.
R: It is, and that may be looked at as beneficial or harmful, and is of course both, as usual. If you are looking for Scripture, you are going to be disappointed, yet if you are looking for Divine Inspiration you cannot fail to find it.
F: Let me play with that a moment, because I can hear how it may be misinterpreted. I hear you saying, “the word killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”
R: That’s right.
F: I don’t know that I’ve ever thought to apply the scripture in that sense.
R: What other sense is there?
F: Hmm. Well, continue, then.
R: Didn’t the guys tell us, 15 years before this moment, that they didn’t want us treating their words as scripture? They meant, use the words to come to an understanding as best we could, but don’t petrify them thinking they could have only one meaning (or, for that matter, only any particular given number of meanings). The thing to remember is that transmission always involves interpretation at the unconscious level because the nature of those involved cannot be excluded from the process, but is the process.
So – to return – in seeking a strategy of explanation, I must consider my own bias (to the extent that I am aware of it) and yours, and that of the probable readers to follow. As you can see, it cannot be an exact science!
F: No. an art, rather.
R: That’s right. So I sit here, so to speak, in my newfound freedom from physical limitation, and I am only all the more aware of the limitations of individuality. So – I in turn hand over to the middle term of my Rita / TGU / All-That-Is equation, to try to get a yet broader perspective and have it to hand on to you. Thus – hesitation.
F: A lot there to think about. Presumably whatever your TGU level is, it has its own TGU level, and so on and so forth.
R: Precisely. And perhaps all we are doing, really, is seeing the expression of All-That-Is as it is filtered through various levels of interpretation. And that is the theme for this morning, come to think of it. That is my approach.
F: You mean, you knew what you wanted to deal with but not exactly how to deal with it?
R: A bit cloudier than that, I’m afraid. Really, you should find it very familiar. In a sense, I asked the question and then I feel for the answer welling up within me, just as you do, or anyone does.
F: It’s a very different idea than I ever had of how we function on the other side.
R: That’s what you’re wanting, isn’t it? Not the same old thing but some new way to chew on things?
F: And it is filtered through me, so I guess I can give up the old concern over “I’m probably just making this up.” We’re making it up even when we are exactly on the beam.
R: Or you could say, there is no “making it up,” there is only questing.
F: It’s always so hard, in he middle of this process, to know whether we are following the thought or being diverted from the point.
R: Well you have long known that side-trails are an intrinsic part of the process. The reasons for that is, there are no “side-trails” except in relation to your (or my!) idea of where we want to be going. That is why this process requires such patience.
Now, a little more and we shall have to pause until next time. We are engaged in exploration by retracing our steps, so to speak. Or perhaps we should call it map-making, or should simply describe the process as making plainer what so far ahs only been seen on the outward path. That is, we are looking again at where we have been, but looking from the opposite perspective so that we may realize it more in its full nature rather than only in the perspective lent it by our own direction.
F: It’s funny, you say that, or I say it for you or whatever, and I clearly understand it as a simple statement and I get the sense that it will be misunderstood because I didn’t phrase it clearly enough. Both, at the same time.
R: Well, isn’t that what you should expect, given that your readers are themselves part of the equation? For some, the words will be congruent with where they are; for others, not.
F: It’s always the same problem isn’t it?
R: Problem or opportunity. That, too, depends on how you want to look at it.
F: I hope we don’t wind up writing the Gospel According to St Rita – or St. Frank!
R: It will depend upon the reader, as always. Richard Bach made the process clear enough.
F: Yes. I can’t remember the book, but somewhere he has the parable of the religion of The Page. But then, he takes a dimmer view of Scripture and religion than I do.
R: Imagine that, differences in perception and judgment over the same material.
F: Very funny. I guess we’re done for now?
R: For now. We’ve made a better start than you think, don’t worry about it.
F: How did you always respond when I would say – or when the guys through me would say – “don’t worry about it?”
R: Well, now it’s my turn.
F: Okay. Well, like you, I’ll say, “I’m not worrying about it.” Till next time.