Only Somewhat Real: Considering vast impersonal forces

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

All right, shall we resume? Whoever is up to bat, you have the floor, to mix the metaphor.

You see the benefit of not over-personalizing the process. If you hold your attention on the subject at hand (that is, bringing in useful illustrative information) rather than on the person perceived to be the source or conduit of that information, you bring fewer preconceptions to the table. It frees us by freeing you. Now, sink into it, and we will try to deliver information for you to put into words.

[Pause, while I remained receptive and they presumably poured.]

An image of individuals and forces

I get that we’re centering on that same image of humans as conduits of vast impersonal forces. It’s a huge subject, and it flows off in all directions. I’ll start and rely on you to steer me or at least head me off if I go off in non-productive directions.

The visual is sort of a horizontal torus comprising untold millions of individuals, a swirl of organized energy, call us. We know we aren’t “individuals” in the way people commonly think, but for simplicity, call us that. So, a vast orderly flow of compound-being energies, always changing, but, as I say, orderly, sort of shaped loosely. I can’t think of a good extension of the visual analogy. Not marbles or solid objects of any kind; not merely lights or drops of liquid, a little too undefined. Maybe the kind of visual image you see in close-ups of the sun’s swirling energies.

Anyway, that is the horizontal image. Then welling up vertically are the vast impersonal energies I have been sensing, the forces that flow through our lives, vitalizing them, causing complication and interest and discord and beauty and every thing humans can feel. We personalize these energies – we personify them – we think either that they are part of our being (rather than part of our environment, you might say) or that they are the forces of the gods.

Horizontally, a vast beautiful ever-changing torus-shaped image representing humanity. Vertically, an eternal upwelling of energies from far beyond human limits, mingling with, transforming, interfering with, vitalizing, all human activity as it is directed by uncounted numbers of decisions moment by moment by uncounted numbers of humans and ex-humans. (Humans, remember, in this case means compound beings whose consciousness normally is restricted to 3D conditions. It does not mean “only planet Earth”).

I say humans and ex-humans, and I am surprised at first, then I recall that of course we and they remain integrally connected, so of course we continue to be affected, and to affect, together. Not in lockstep, and I don’t even know if always in harmony, but at any rate, together.

More or less okay so far?

So far, so good. Now, why are we centering this picture at this time in your exposition?

Hmm. All I can get is, it’s time. We have reached the point where we can’t re-evaluate without changing focus.

Unnoticed background

Not exactly reevaluate. More like, you can’t go deeper without bringing what had been unnoticed background into focus.

Okay. So the question in our minds becomes, so where are we going?

Wrong question. A better question would be, where have we been? It’s much more convincingly answered, you see.

If you say so. And?

Bear in mind continually, there can be no such thing as a universally applicable statement. What is appropriate to a Western audience may not meet the condition of someone in a Chinese or African society. What meets the needs of 2017 may fall flat in 2050 as in 1950. So, don’t try to assume that everything being said is universally applicable. It isn’t and it can’t be. The underlying reality is the same, but the illustrative examples aren’t and cannot be equally appropriate. We are speaking to you, in your 2017 now. Settle for that, and do not try to make one size fit all.

Do you think that’s what I would be inclined to do?

Not particularly, but we aren’t speaking only to you.

All right. So, where we have been, tailored to our audience. (I’d like to know how you do that. But I realize it’s a side-trail.)

Exploring religious thought

Where Western society has been is a divided trail. For 500 years and more, religion and science have been fragmented because divorced from each other and unable to understand each other’s point of view. We would say the chief example of this is that your society has lost sight of the vast impersonal forces we mentioned as vast impersonal forces. A part of your thought regards them as supernatural or as only epi-phenomena (because “matter” is considered to be primary, as if matter even existed).

Clearly a society cannot continue such a splintering process forever. At some point the social glue cannot hold. Then comes the use of force and, ultimately, self-destruction. But remember, we are not primarily concerned with societies but with compound-beings. It is true, your society shapes you. but it is not the only thing that shapes you, and its influence can be modified. In any case, stick to what you know, which is your own experience in the world, most of that experience being internal.

That’s all the back-tracking we need to do here. Those interested in history will find the history well laid out – and the way it is laid out will tell you worlds about the mental constrictions of those who did the laying out. But, it’s hardly necessary. You all know what you are living.

Now, to come back to what is for many of you a sore point – which should be your cue that it is an important point. Religious thought is your most extensive investigation into the existence, function, and manifestation of these vast impersonal forces. We have said it before and no doubt we will be obliged to say it again, because there will be great resistance, but if you do not know these forces, you do not know your lives. If you do not know how they shape your lives, you do not know what your lives are to accomplish, or why you are in 3D in the first place.

Do we need to say we are not advocating that you go join a church? However, we are requesting that those of you who are members of The Church of Nothing-But consider resigning your membership.

These forces are real. Every society you know of, and many more that you have never heard of and never will hear of, knew it, know it, will know it. You cannot understand reality if you begin by resolutely determining that reality will not consist of A, B, or C because you were taught a cruder version of them, or because you don’t like the looks of some who talk about A, B, or C as if they knew what they were talking about and – more – as if no contradictory version could contain truth. If you allow yourselves to block off aspects of reality because of external manifestations, that isn’t exploring, it is a different form of conformity, conforming to an imagined band of holders of the truth instead of going ahead and seeing for yourself.

Understand, to say all that is not to say, give up your present beliefs. What kind of exploring would that be, either? Yet, it may seem like that, because we do say, don’t let your present beliefs prevent you from giving fair consideration to things you may have rejected. (Actually, it is more a matter of giving fair consideration to things that remind you of things you have rejected.)

Well, I can’t speak for our companions, but I understand it, anyway.

Then we shall continue next time.

Our thanks as always.

 

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