Nathaniel — Nutrition v. addiction

Saturday, November 25, 2017

6:30 a.m. I’m going to do the editing and then see. Maybe I don’t want to go a long time without communicating. Maybe do it once or twice a week? I’d like to keep my readers accustomed to looking for blog entries. Telling them to buy the books already published not only seems a little crass, but doesn’t answer the idea of continual contact so as to remain in touch. Of course, it would help if they did buy the books, but it wouldn’t be the same.

You expect to keep posting conversations after you’re dead?

I see your point. At some point even the most well-meant advice becomes an addiction.

That is curiously ill-formed, for you. Would you care to focus and try again?

Interesting. I wasn’t focused because I wasn’t thinking to have a conversation, because I had made up my mind to do the editorial work I started yesterday.

Alternation may work better. So, rephrase please.

I should have said, even the habit of looking for advice, or for a given stimulus, say, can become an addiction. And the impulse to help, carried too far, can weaken rather than strengthen both sides.

If only because at some point, physical conditions are going to change – you will no longer be in 3D – and the situation will adjust.

So, your point is?

Tapering off is often easier than cold-turkey, when kicking an addiction.

Is that what this is? An addiction? If that is true for my readers, why isn’t it true for me?

We aren’t quite saying it is, only that it could become, an addiction. The difference between nutrition and addiction is worth spelling out, as is the difference between process and result, or perhaps we should say, between artisanship and consumption.

Well, feel free. I hadn’t expected to do a session, but I’ve got pen, paper, coffee and lighting, what else could I ask for?

So, two themes: nutrition v. addiction, creation v. consumption.

Nutrition v. addiction. It is entirely a question of the attitude you bring to it. (This may be said of your 3D life in general, of course.) The same action performed in a different spirit will produce different results, necessarily.

Necessarily?

A + B = C. A plus anything other than B may or may not produce C (depending on the value of whatever replaces B) but it won’t be the same equation, and that is what is important. You all tend to look at results, as if there were a commutative law of life as there is of mathematics. Instead, you would benefit by applying statements like “the journey is the reward,” even though there seems to be no connection.

The commutative law says it doesn’t matter what order you add things, you’ll get the same result. So if the equation is 5 + 6 – 3, say, it doesn’t change the result if you first make it 11 – 3, or if you first make it 5 + 3, or first make it 2 + 6. No matter what order you perform the operation in, the result is going to be 8. The law is more complicated than that, but that’s what you want for your analogy, right?

Yes. You see, if all you care about is the result, the three operations may be made in any order, so they are equivalent. That’s all well and good. But if instead of obsessing over the result, you pay attention to how you proceed, you have three very different journeys. 11 – 3 is not identical to 5 + 3, nor is either identical to 2 + 6. They all add up to 8, but they are three different journeys. You could look at it (to closely simulate your continual experience) as being faced with a binary choice, as always. Here is 5 + 6 – 3. Heads: 5 + 6 first; tails, 5 – 3 first. If heads, then you have to subtract 3. If tails, you add 6. Same 8 either way.

Only there is another heads / tails choice made even before that one: Start with 5 or not. If “not,” start with 6 or not. And if, by either “not” path, you start with the 3, you have to choose to relate it first to 5 or first to 6.

Does the fact that the answer comes to 8 in all cases make the journeys identical? And this is in mathematics, the most stripped-down representation possible. In real life, each of these paths would have its own complications and opportunities.

The point is, pay attention to the landscape; don’t just exist waiting to arrive at the train station.

And this applies to “nutrition v. addiction” how?

Always you must remember your attitude. The attitude, you might say, is the journey. Even if you are on a train that will arrive at its scheduled destination (which in life is only somewhat true), still you will have a very different journey depending upon your attitude during the journey. Nutrition feeds consciousness. Addiction feeds automatic reactions.

That is closely related to our second point, creation v. consumption. It too is a matter of attitude.

Yes, I get that. You’ve been telling us all along, don’t just accept the material, like somebody watching television; work it, wrestle with it, test it.

That is the whole secret, right there. The words on the page, or the preacher’s sermon, or the formulae in a textbook or the situation you may find yourself in (whatever it may be) will not be the determining factor. That factor will be your approach to them. If you memorize, or unthinkingly accept, or even perhaps ponder but then do not try to apply, you are functioning as a consumer, and you can get little or no benefit from them. You may get a promise for the future. You may get a moment’s encouragement. What you won’t get, except by active engagement, is transformation.

And these two points are enough for the moment.

Thanks. I think maybe we’ll do this a couple times a week, at least try it out, see how it goes.

That will be fine with us.

Okay, then, see you later.

 

6 thoughts on “Nathaniel — Nutrition v. addiction

  1. As happens so often, I feel as if this was written directly to me. The realization for me is that I’m more regular about reading (consuming) your posts than I am about tending to my own writing (creating). That certainly tells me something.
    From the beginning, your posts, for me, are not just one more perspective on the spiritual, to be read, compared, and put aside. I’ve felt we’re all past continuing to accumulate material from other teachers to feed our heads. We’re our own teachers now, living on our own creative contact, after our own transformation. I think your posts work as truth always does–validation, encouragement, inspiration, motivation. But our own truth doesn’t take a back seat to anyone else’s. Finding yours isn’t supposed to help me avoid finding mine, because I act from mine.
    Well, I’m still working it out! Your changes in when and how you present your sessions do stir things up for me. Thanks, as always.

    1. Agree with Jane most of the time because it “resonates” with me more often than not.

      And Martha has some good points likewise.

      Frank & Rita & TGU/Nathaniel once said (as I recall)… And Paraphrasing: “you are learning as much (as) by the questions as by the answers…”

      Do I believe in a Cosmic Consciousness ? Yes, I do.

      Thank you Frank.

    2. Hi Jane …

      I had this experience also with this day’s material (e.g., some things said were perceived for me directly). This happens often enough with Nathaniel.

      The contrast between addiction and nutrition made sense to me, especially considering the unconscious or mindless aspects of addiction.

      However, I am kind of glad for the recent ending or next phase with Nathaniel and Frank. The last two plus months have been intense. I copied every Nathaniel post into a file for myself, and after a break and some organizing, I will come back to the material and work with it more attentively.

  2. I’m not following this line of thought about nutrition vs. addiction. Do you think Mozart ever said “I’m not going to bring forth any more music. People are getting addicted to it.” I don’t remember reading that Seth ever had that conversation with Jane either. Thank you for helping me to better understand human life experience. I hope you will continue since you have a connection to information that I don’t. Even if I had an audible connection to my own “Nathaniel”, yours would still offer a different, if similar perspective.

  3. Application! Cayce was big on that: “In the application comes the awareness.” I encountered this principle as I was learning to “channel” creative ideas. After one time when I tested out the suggestion, made some refinements, when I came back for another channel session, “we” celebrated a breakthrough into a new level of work as I had made the suggestion workable. In the case here, I am exploring the breathing in, breathing out as my alt-D relationship, meditating on that. And what my various challenges “bring out” or “reveal” about me.

  4. Martha has given me food for thought. I think I’m looking at it as addiction if it replaces or interferes with a function of my own vs enhancing or inspiring a function of my own. “It is entirely a question of the attitude you bring to it.”

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