Nathaniel on Anastasia’s question (4)

Nathaniel on Anastasia’s question (4)

Thursday, December 7, 2017

4 a.m. Continuing with the question of why we are living the particular version of our lives that we are on. As with last time, I have little idea where you intend to go with this, but it worked out well before, so presumably it will work out again.

A major stumbling-block is that you tend to think of the system – any system you analyze – as if it were more static than it is. View it in motion, and things change. Relationships and consequences clarify.

So, if you look at 3D life, or “the afterlife,” or immediate-post-physical-death occurrences like “past life reviews,” or past lives themselves – or anything – they look one way if considered as a one-time event, another way if seen as continuing process.

Isolation in space, isolation in time, always distorts the reality you examine. It may be necessary to examine a thing in isolation, but it distorts. So, once you’ve looked at it closely, look at it again in broader context – in time, that is (in repeated sequence), not less than in space (that is, extension).

That is easier to assent to in principle than to comprehend in practice.

Still, it is worth bearing in mind. It will help you understand anything better.

So, in this question of particular timelines. Given the fact that a decision is, in effect, a change of timeline – well, we need to sketch out several things needing to be sketched out in turn. What is a decision, and who makes it, for one. What a decision actually does; that is, how it affects timelines. Why decisions are possible, why they are made, for another. How they are made. And, not least, how all this is affected by, and affects, other layers of consciousness. That’s a lot to have to accomplish, but it seemed better to set out the problem so you would have some idea where we’re headed. How long it takes us to survey the field is of much less concern.

I get that orienting us – or me, maybe – somehow makes the task easier on your end.

If only in that it reduces anxiety, certainly. Perhaps anxiety isn’t the correct word, but something akin to it, anyway.

I’m not insulted. I get it. It’s easier to trust that you know how to get where you want to go if there is a road map, and it’s easier to believe in the road map’s existence if you cite some landmarks. Clumsy analogy, but the point is, I know what you mean.

So, what is a decision, and who makes it? Probably it won’t astonish you to hear that it makes a difference where you view the situation from.

No, it doesn’t astonish me. Viewpoint and perspective – and the usefulness of repeatedly changing them during any examination – have been pretty well ingrained in us by now.

Look at it first from a 3D individual’s point of view, then from the All-D self, then from the larger being of which the 3D being is a part, and watch things change appearance.

So. you in 3D are living your life. There comes a moment of choice, large or small, as occurs continually. You pay no attention or little attention or really focused attention on the choice, depending on the magnitude of its apparent immediate importance. Then that decision leads to the next, continually. This process may be paraphrased by saying  the choices are made in varying degrees of a mixture of predisposition and deliberate conscious weighing of options.  In the nature of things, most choices, even quite important ones in their consequences (but seemingly less so in their immediate importance) are made more or less by pre-existing disposition; that is, by habit, by accustomed inclination.

In other words, mostly we don’t do much deciding at all.

Considering yourselves as conscious, aware, individuals, that’s right. Mostly you run along the rails your life has set down for you. And this is not only not a problem, it’s how things have to be (considered as a system), if you think of it. To consciously decide every little detail of your life would be exhausting, like having to concentrate to tie your shoes or write your name or sip your coffee. That’s what habit is, after all, Colin Wilson’s robot that helps you live your life.

But now look at it a little more deeply. Without for the moment examining the moments when you do consciously decide, consider how your day-to-day drifting looks to your All-D self. It has a wider view of your life – wider, longer, in greater depth, in fuller potential extent. Whereas you in 3D mostly do not see your life in perspective (being overcome by the perpetually moving present moment), the All-D self always sees it in perspective, even though the perspective is perpetually in motion.

I know that “overcome” isn’t quite the right word, but I had to use it or come to a complete stop. Overshadowed, or overawed aren’t quite right either.

Yes, you are looking for a 19th century word you scarcely remember, which makes it hard. Given that

Overshadowed. [Forgetting that I had just considered that one!]

That will do; you mean – we mean – haunted, in a sense; our consciousness fixed on the present moment.

Overshadowed isn’t quite it either. I wish I could think of how to say it. Obsessed, fixated, haunted – all of these have something of the right meaning, but not quite. (Why is this important?)

We can get along without it, but the right flavor would tell you something about your lives that isn’t necessarily obvious to you.

I’ll let it churn in the background. Maybe it’ll surface. [Looking up synonyms for haunted, later, the closest I could find to the word I want is entranced, or obsessed. Still not the word, though.]

So. Your All-D self does pay attention to all the little things you can’t be bothered with consciously. It, your vastly wrongly named “unconscious” self, pays attention. It sees future consequences; it keeps in mind past pre-existing conditions. It knows when a step to the right or to the left will make a difference in your life, and it also knows which way you tend to move when it makes no particular difference. You might say that your larger-than-only-3D awareness is always making your decisions for you according to past demonstrated predilections unless and until you overrule (or confirm) its judgment by 3D-oriented willpower.

Now look at it from your Sam’s point of view (though “point of view” is misleading. “Field of view” might be a little less so.) San continually balances input from all its lives. Therefore in effect it has preferences, moment to moment, that your All-D self picks up.

That relationship isn’t quite clear. Why “therefore”?

“As above, so below.” Envision your daily life, balancing input. Sam reacts, as you do in your sphere, with preferences for greater or less change, in this or that direction, of this or that level of intensity. It isn’t just one-way feed. Sam is not sitting at the City Desk reading reports from various places and doing nothing in consequence. Like a City Desk editor, he reacts to what he reads; he makes decisions, and issues instructions and queries. Don’t carry the illustration too far, but it may help correct the unconscious idea you have (people have) that Sam just sits there reading reports, and doesn’t interfere.

Seems to me that is how Sam’s function has been portrayed to us.

No, it is that only part of the relationship has been sketched, till now. Sequential exposition is a painfully long process.

Now there you have three different levels entering into any potential decision. You in 3D mostly don’t decide consciously. You as part of your All-D self decide continuously, but mostly by default – “steady on course, straight ahead.” And Sam intervenes only at important moments, like you in 3D in a sense, only the moments are likely to be different, and the factors entering into the decision are likely to be very different, and Sam’s preferences have to be expressed via your All-D self, which has to get your 3D attention or acquiescence for at least non-interference.

And that’s enough for the moment.

Very interesting, thank you.