Creatures and creation

Sunday, September 23, 2018

4:35 a.m. Gentlemen? I had to look back at the just-completed journal book to see where you had left off, though presumably you know! Have we said what you want to say on the subject of creatures and creation?

Not quite. Of course there will always be more to be said about any subject, but even this immediate piece of the larger subject needs capping-off.

Remember, we began with the idea of all the elements of creation singing it into existence. What we meant by that could not be well understood – though it could be intuited – without explanations. And the “little bit at a time” nature of our interaction means we are frequently recapitulating what was said previously, which is not a bad way of proceeding, but a little slow. But if you have been paying attention, especially if you have read our discussions with attention rather than with half your mind, scanning it for things you might recognize, you will be in a somewhat different place now because of the connections that will have been made or reinforced in your mind.

All of creation, is. It didn’t exactly come into being (though in a sense it did) but just is. It exists, as you exist. It is no less immortal than you, and no less changeable.

It is almost too simple and fundamental to say. Creation and creator are different words for different aspects of the same thing. By that, we mean, it is all in how you look at it, whether you are looking at creator or creation.

We’re getting tangled up in language again. I’m getting a pretty clear sense of what you mean, but if there is a clear unambiguous way to say it, I haven’t found it. Nor have you.

Try, anyway. Sometimes rephrasing is all that is needed. Remember, communication is a spark jumping a gap, not a laborious piling up of logic upon logic.

All right. Well – and I assume you are going to help me as we go along, here – my sense of it is that we think creation and creator are two different things. I mean, we have two different words for them, right? And it appears to be a subject (the creator) working on an object(the creation). You don’t think of a goldfish creating its own bowl, for instance (to use an analogy we’ve used more than once). And yet we do express the essence of this poetically, or metaphorically, when we say, for instance, that a painter “threw himself into” his painting (“painting” being used here both as noun and verb). We recognize that we as creations are ourselves creative by nature. The trouble is, putting it into words makes it seem like we are only playing with words.

It can be difficult to grasp a new concept. In that intermediate place between not-knowing and knowing that is belief/doubt, sometimes the best you can do is signal to yourself. You can find a more or less acceptable way to think the unthinkable. (That is, to think something you can’t find a logical excuse for thinking.) Poetic license, or extravagant metaphor, may be a way to do this. But, try again.

All of creation – not just this 3D/non-3D world we are familiar with through our senses, but the underlying realer world as well – exists and always did and presumably always will exist, in whatever form.

No, bringing in the idea of time is a mistake. The ultimate reality of things is deeper than time. So, you can’t accurately say did exist, will exist. That implies it is subject to a mental condition (time) which is only a relative fact, from the ultimate point of view.

All right, well, disregarding what reality was or will be, it is – it always is. (And, I realize, even using the word “always” brings in the idea of time as if it were an absolute. But there’s only so much you can do.) Because reality exists, all the parts of reality exist. No, it’s impossible. [I meant, impossible to say it.]

Not easy, anyway. Let us try again. The point we are trying to get across is that the same mind that holds it all is the mind that experiences, and sets up the experience, and observes the experiencing. So, although it is interesting and informative and perhaps even necessary for you to think of creator and creation as opposite ends of a polarity, try to understand that they are two words for the same thing. If you can once intuitively grasp what may appear to be an obvious contradiction, you will be living a different life from then on. Everything will change. Or rather, you will change, and everything will appear before you in a different light.

It’s a very hard concept to express in such a way as not to be misinterpreted, twisted by people’s expectations of what they think you’re going to say.

Neither you nor we are the first to experience the difficulty.

Very funny. And presumably if it could be overcome by clarity of expression, it would have been, repeatedly.

Why so negative? It has been overcome, repeatedly. But no conquest is permanent, and no way of looking at things is the last word to be said. You don’t need to do better than Seth, or better than Jesus or the Buddha or than thousands – millions – of others known and unknown. All that can be asked of anyone is to know as much as you are capable of knowing, and that means living it, not putting it on a stainless-steel laboratory shelf while you continue to lead a contingent half-awake life. The fact that no one statement or conversation or compilation of statements or library can provide a foolproof convincing answer to people’s perplexities is no description of futility. It means only that there is always work to be done, always a new game to be explored.

I’m getting that you have an agenda here that isn’t just clarity of exposition.

Look, clarity of exposition is one of the gifts you bring to the process. But clarity of exposition is part of communication; it is not sufficient unto itself. Everything needful has been said many times, in many languages, and in many ways not dependent upon language. But it always needs re-stating, because each new moment is different and is peopled with different minds which have different needs, different means of perception.

So if you merely get the point across – whatever the point may be at any given time – then the rest is not up to you.

Let’s try restating the point one time more. You are all creators; you are all created. Everything around you is in the same condition, necessarily, regardless of appearances. The mountain that exists helps hold the world together in ways that have nothing to do with geography or geology. The electrons that fly around inside your computers are no less conscious than you, but it is a consciousness conditioned by its circumstances – which of course may also be said of you. Instead of thinking of consciousness in increments (this cat, that person, etc.), think of it as the universal field continually informing the world, and you will find it easier, perhaps, to think of a mountain expressing a certain kind of consciousness.

All that consciousness sings together. And it doesn’t matter if you think part of the choir is singing flat, it sings. It sings the world into continued existence, moment by moment – or, better, let’s say in the eternal changing now. So what is the point of divorcing God – or the World-Mind, or whatever name you choose to apply – from the rest of itself, by focusing on the creator aspect and correspondingly downplaying the created aspect? Reality is, and it’s all one thing, and guess what, that includes you.

Not to mention the people who give us fits.

Them too. And that’s enough for now.

Okay, thanks as always.

 

6 thoughts on “Creatures and creation

  1. I read an article that feels quite relevant: https://opentheory.net/2018/08/a-future-for-neuroscience/ Maybe a bit technical but it certainly blew my mind and really gives me reason to reorganize a lot of stuff in my head. Maybe a little less technical version here: https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/article/59kaq8/lsd-brings-your-brain-to-the-edge-of-chaos?utm_campaign=sharebutton
    It all looks like the brain is singing itself into consciousness. Somehow it feels that the implications of this are vast.
    An image that comes to mind about the oneness of the many is the cover of Hobbes’ Leviathan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(Hobbes_book)#/media/File%3ALeviathan_by_Thomas_Hobbes.jpg There the body of the king is all the subjects. I am feeling something like that, added with all the existing forms instead of just humans. The layers of reality being sung into existence by hens scraping the soil, cat paws and horse hooves, bird song and things like that – those are delights of being that I can feel are holding this together for us. While we are half-awake at best. For me the little bits of fighting or competitive situations in the workshop I participated made the patchiness of my awareness glaringly obvious.
    Thank you so much Frank for keeping the flame of inquiry alive!

      1. Hmm…it works for me. Maybe try the vice/tonic site and search for LSD Brings Your Brain to the Edge of Chaos
        If you feel like it. You know it all already 🙂

        1. They both worked for me. Thank you for them! “The edge of chaos is where life has enough stability to sustain itself and enough creativity to deserve the name of life.”–said by a physicist but as spiritual as anything.

  2. For the first time, I think I’m really beginning to get this idea of a living, breathing, thinking, acting, thereby creating and being created field of consciousness, eternally changing. Makes me think of a huge body of seaweed or kelp (or garbage or plastic) riding the ocean, moving and being moved, decomposing/transforming, according to its circumstances. Making ourselves vulnerable to knowing this creates our own transformation. Thanks for the light on this, Frank.

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