Internal and external as we experience them

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

3:45 a.m. Okay, guys, where were we going with this?

Dealing with the “external” world as if it were disconnected to your own internally experienced world is a very common error. We thought it would be as well to correct it, or rather, to provide the point of view that would allow people to correct it for themselves.

The external world has a very seductive solidity; it appears to be firmly there.

Yes, the myth of objectivity that bedevils science, journalism, and every discipline besides.

But there can be no objectivity, if there can be no disconnection.

No, of course not. Think of your friend Dirk’s experiences with scientific constants that turn out to vary with individuals.

Well, you know, I didn’t need any persuading!

Part of you did not. Part of you did. Part of you do. Remember, o individual, there is no such thing as a unity, short of All-That-Is.

We are communities, meaning that different components have different beliefs.

Which means, they have different experiences because they have different beliefs, and means they have different experiences that cause different beliefs. It isn’t circular, quite, but it is recursive and self-reinforcing.

So I have some laggards who still believe in disconnection, eh? I guess that makes sense. In matters of health, particularly, I sense an intermittent battle.

Oh, much more than in matters of health. But that is for us to discuss privately, if you wish. For others, a hint applicable to themselves will have to do.

Remarkably considerate of my feelings, this morning.

For you as for many others who (we hope) will learn to employ ILC as a source of otherwise unobtainable information, confidence comes with the realization that how much you choose to disclose is up to you, not us. How much would you or anyone care to trust the process, if it could unpredictably reveal that which you wished to keep to yourselves? You just naturally wouldn’t do it.

Very true. I am relatively indiscreet, particularly in things I probably ought to be embarrassed about, but I have limits.

You do, and perhaps you are not nearly so open as you think you are. (You, or anyone.) It is a matter of choice. Who has the right to force you to go against your own preferred limits?

Now, notice that even this caveat is phrased in a way that seems to take for granted a divide between self and others. In practice, as opposed to in theory, that’s how it is. Should you choose to, you could consider your 3D component as private and your non-3D component as public. Another way to say that is to substitute “Conscious mind” for 3D component and “unconscious mind” for non-3D component. Same thing. A third phrasing would be subjectivity and objectivity.

That is, we’re all separate; we’re all connected, and which aspect appears foremost depends upon – something. Our preference, maybe, or our belief-systems, or I don’t know what.

Let’s just say it depends upon how you see it ay any given moment, and leave it at that. The important thing here is to stress that yes, you do lead your 3D lives as if the external world was separate, and yes, despite appearances, it isn’t. So what is the useful take-away?

Same old point, I suppose: We aren’t victims here, no matter what it feels like, and we also are not Superman, or let’s say Houdini, able to do magic.

You got seduced by the metaphor. Try again?

Yes. We aren’t victims and there is no definable limit to what we can do or become, but practical limits do exist, whatever they are. And we should add, I think, that those limits change, or can change.

They change primarily in congruence with your structure of beliefs, and the experiences that flow from those beliefs.

Now, so far this is nothing we haven’t said before, only apply it actively to politics and economics and social control and visible and invisible structures.

That is, reconnect two areas of life that we commonly keep in different compartments.

Exactly.

But we find it hard to see how the political-economic structure we are born into can vary by the individual.

It doesn’t. The experience of it does.

That is embarrassingly obvious, as soon as you say it. A poor man’s country is not the same as a rich man’s. The unemployed and uninsured live in a different society than do those who have economic security. Regardless how one’s position in a structure may vary, the structure doesn’t have to alter for you to experience it differently. As I say, obvious once said.

Yes, but go a little slower. What you just said is true enough, but still superficial. It assumes that your position determines your experience. What determines your position?

The easy answers are birth, connections, luck, talent, determination.

That is: externals. Now look at it more carefully. (Of the five things you cited off the top of your head, only the last, determination, could look like an internal attribute. But looked at another way, it could be seen as being as external as anything else, for what determines whether you will exhibit determination, will-power, whatever you want to call it?) What of internals?

That requires depending on the same self-other dichotomy you pointed out is only relatively true.

Correct. So – where is the scope for anything external, if there is no external?

And yet this feels like you are playing with words and avoiding the reality.

We are aware of what it feels like. But if you will give us the benefit of the doubt and look at what we say as if we meant it, where does it bring you?

I don’t know, exactly. I feel like I need to hold so many things in mind that it’s beyond me.

No, try.

How about if you give it to us in bullet-points?

How about if you do?

Well –

• All is one, meaning everything is connected, meaning ultimately there can’t be any “exterior” in the sense of “objective.” Relatively, yes. Ultimately, no.
• But we experience life in duality. There must be some advantage in this. Maybe it is to clarify our vision.
• Greater consciousness allows for greater control over circumstances. That is one of the tenets of Imagine Yourself Well: Beliefs determine abilities.
• We are each the center of our world; yet the world exists around us. Important not to forget either half of the statement.
• I think you said somewhere, how we experience the world depends on us, in that we will or won’t have Velcro for any given thing.
• That means, it is awfully important what we pay our attention to.

Nice summary.

Yes it was, wasn’t it? It clarified as I went along.

And therefore it is yours in a way it would not have been if we had just handed it to you. Besides, we might not have been able to bring though the same connections. You continually tend to underrate the 3D end of the process.

So now the thing to consider is how to live in a cruel and unjust world without feeling trapped and guilty and complicit; and how to live in a kind and nurturing world without forgetting that others are experiencing something quite different. And we’ll come to that next.

Okay. Many thanks for all this. Till next time.