Rita — immersed in your own world

Sunday, February 21, 2016
F: 6:05 a.m. Still a month away from equinox, so it’s still total darkness outside.
All right, Rita, on we go, then. A little later than usual, but no harm done, I trust. I like it that I sort of know where we’re going, even though I don’t know what it’s going to look like. It’s easier.
R: Very well. Keep in mind always that we are moving toward explaining life “on the other side” – which means life when not constricted by the special circumstances of life in the constricted environment of 3D, and we are doing so by moving from what you know, and subtracting.
So, you lose your physical senses, which reorients you inward. And at first, what do you “see” there? You initially experience yourself as you have been experiencing yourself in 3D existence. That is, Frank on his deathbed, losing sight and even awareness of the 3D, is as if in a dream. He processes thoughts, emotions, memories, fantasies – and does so as he did in dreams. Scenarios seem to happen to him, just as in dreams. He has no particular sense of himself as actor or director, only as –

No, that isn’t quite right. Well, you know dreams. Sometimes you are the main character and things are happening to you, or perhaps you are trying to do something. Sometimes you are watching a movie and, although you are not aware of yourself as audience, still you are watching a drama (or a comedy, or whatever) that may seem to have nothing to do with you, but is engaging. And sometimes it is as if you come in in the middle of the film and leave – or the film stops, anyway – in the middle. All this has one common feature. You do not feel in control of it, it does not seem to be emanating from you even if it is connected with you. you seem to be the passive recipient of experiences with their own autonomy. That is, they seem external to you.
F: And while they do, I imagine they may seem grotesque or frightening sometimes.
R: They may. Not every dream is a nightmare. Less important (ultimately) than whether they are frightening is that they are experienced as external to you, in the way the 3D world appeared external.
F: I am expecting you to connect this to the experience of the bardos, described (I am told) in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, or the Egyptian Book of Coming Forth by Light.
R: You are perfectly able to look them up afterwards if you think it will help. Any scripture intends to orient you to the true facts of life, as you know. But I am sticking to my own experience. Trying to associate it to the experiences of others would not necessarily invalidate it, but it would reduce what may be its major usefulness, the freshness of view.
F: Very well, I agree.
R: After dreaming, after all, comes Lucid Dreaming, and as you were told, Out of Body experiences are merely the third rung on that particular ladder. It’s a useful analogy as we proceed.
First comes the oblivion that is the blotting-out from your mind of awareness of, and ability to communicate with, the 3D. Then comes internal orientation, a rough equivalent of dreaming. These two stages come in very different forms depending upon how the person has lived, and how died. They may be quick and easy or prolonged and painful. Thus the disparity of descriptions. But one way or another, you lose sight of the 3D, and your world is composed of you as you experienced and shaped yourself.
F: The soul confronts itself.
R: Let’s say, the soul is no longer distracted by externals, and its world is then – itself.
Now, in a sense it was never any different. In a sense, you have been living in a world that always reflected you to yourself (not that you necessarily knew it) and always seemed to have its own objective existence, amid which you lived as a sort of island of subjectivity. But like [Robert Louis] Stevenson, the world was so full of a number of things—
F: “I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.”
R: Yes – but mostly weren’t.
So, now your world has reduced itself (not that you are necessarily in a way to make comparisons) to – you. Not news, not chores, not routine, not projects, and not the inexorable march through time. Now it is you among what happened, you experiencing who you made yourself in a long or short lifetime, and nothing else.
F: And if you died as an infant?
R: Then there won’t be much to experience, will there? On to the next stage smoothly and soon. Or do you think they remain suspended? But let’s not divert ourselves, but continue.
Your world now consists entirely of you. As in a dream, you do not direct your consciousness, but seem to be directed, you do not know (nor think about) by whom. Everything you were now appears to you, including and perhaps we should say especially, the parts of yourself that you most actively repressed in 3D life.
It isn’t necessarily fun to experience. And it certainly doesn’t fill you with pride.
F: A friend once quoted somebody: “Self-knowledge is always bad news.”
R: That is true in one sense, only, and to a degree, only. but in that sense, and to whatever degree, it is true. Seeing who you are without being able to sugar-coat it can be a bitter pill. But, it – the bitter taste – doesn’t last forever, only until you get over judgment and get to acceptance.
F: You are centering this session on the one stage.
R: I am trying to pace it so that each stage becomes evident, with the reasons for it, and its true nature, and no more (i.e. no speculation about it) so as to build toward understanding of the next stage. These are but way-stations, necessary for explanation but not our ultimate interest.
The specifics of what you encounter when you encounter yourself naked to your gaze are obviously going to be – specific. Everyone will have a specific experience, and the way you have lived will shape what you have to bear. But – don’t worry about it. As in 3D life, you don’t get more than you can bear. Sooner or later, you realize that all is well and is always well – no less between awarenesses (i.e. between worlds) as in 3D or in non-3D.
You move beyond judgment into acceptance. What does this mean? It is the same as saying, you lay down your partial view for a more inclusive one. You realize that the self you are accustomed to, with its values and virtues and shortcomings, is only part of who you are.
This coming to realize (or remember, but in a way realize is a better word, for reasons to come) that you are not only who you experienced yourself to be, but are more, is dependent upon, intertwined with, your ceasing to cling to what you were.
F: I am seeing several things you want to say at once, rather than sequentially. I’m afraid we don’t offer that option.
R: Don’t I know it! And you think you are abstractly aware of it, but you don’t really know it yet.
What I would wish to express concurrently is all the aspects of the transition from identifying with what you have been (as far as you were aware) and what you realize you really were in addition.
This only happens as you are able to let go of your identification with who you knew yourself to be.
Understand that. You stay stuck, clinging to the sides of the sliding board, until you willingly let your previous identity slip away as the world slipped away. One more loss. One more coin for the ferryman over the Styx.
F: The price of admission.
R: The price of admission to the next act, yes. And of course, bear in mind, none of these losses is permanent, or I should say none is what it seems to be.
F: And we have written our way into full morning. Thank you, Rita, this is very calm and interesting. Till next time.’