Our situation (part 8)

Friday, June 18, 2021

3:40 a.m. You said, last time, you would resume by beginning “to sketch the range of the ‘other’ that we exist within.” Despite re-reading the session, I can’t remember what that meant, or where we go next. So, I hope you kept your lecture-notes.

Recalibrate, if you will. Set your slide-switches to “internal focus” and “extreme receptivity.”

Good reminder. Okay.

So let us look at the world in which you exist. That doesn’t mean Earth, it means the full reality, seen and unseen, of your 3D scale and beyond it.

All right.

You are 3D and non-3D; human yet part of something far greater than any single human life; individual yet also, in that very individuality, something that extends in so many directions, tying together things and “people” that ordinarily you perceive as separate, conceive of as separate. We touched on all that. Try to remember the feel of that, and we will touch on the scale of the world you exist in.

I vaguely begin to sense it now. Just as we are a vast web of relationships functioning as if individual, so the “exterior” world is a vast web of relationships functioning as if individual – and, I get, you’re going to remind us that inner and outer are the same thing seen differently.

You see how difficult it can be to describe something that – once realized – is simple.

Yes, you’ve made that point.

We make it every so often, to remind you that the process of examining and experiencing the new subject of examination follows the same rules.

So, if you (we) are so complex and hard to describe, and our non-sensory aspects (the shared subjectivity) are equally complex and hard to describe, you see the problem. But if, with great perseverance and sincere inquiry and receptivity on the part of all of you, we do get the concept across, it turns out to be simple, just radically unfamiliar. You (we) must see 3D life as separate from non-3D life, even when we know better. We (you) must experience “each other” as separate from, different from, one another, even when we know better. You – but not  we – must experience the shared subjectivity as if it were objective, “out there,” rocks in space, dead matter, as opposed to your own insubstantial but alive mental world that extends to the operation of your physical body (which, logically, is part of the same “rocks in space” nature as the rest of the physical world that can seem so alien to you).

It is only when you educate yourselves into how things really are (or, to be more accurate, into a closer approximation of how things really are), that you can overcome sensory illusion with non-sensory perception. Is it any surprise that “non-sensory” can seem like “nonsense”? You have to have come a good long way, before “nonsense” begins to be seen as more than sense rather than less than sense.

So now, consider. If you in your life are so much greater and more complex than your senses would have you think – and are, at the same time, so much smaller proportionately in respect to the larger being of which you are a part – where is there room for simple descriptions of your afterlife? Specific aspects of your continuation may be considered in their own context, but how can you imagine it all at once? Thus, retrievals (or, on the same scale, smooth transitions of a 3D personality without need for retrieval). This may be easily conceived of, but how is it when considered in connection with other ways of seeing yourselves?

  • You as 3D individual die and your soul transfers to X, in which X may represent heaven or hell, or a new 3D scenario, or a new representation of a new 3D scenario.
  • You as 3D individual die and you remember – that is, you put the members beck together again. You remember how you fit in with the rest of the larger being of which you are a part.
  • You as 3D individual die and, while realizing that you are one small part of something immensely larger, you realize that you remain tied to all the rest of what you were tied to in 3D. You don’t cease to be part of “all that is” just because you changed state, or perhaps we could say changed state of awareness.

Now, these are not alternative scenarios, but simultaneous and interconnected. Identical, in fact, but seen differently.

Interesting how that feels true yet makes no sense.

That contradictory experience is you extending within yourself rather than deciding on one (or even two) and rejecting anything that does not fit with whatever you chose.

I can see that, at least conceptually.

So, this is what we are sketching this morning. How could you as a pretty complex individual (and community) not experience the world as complex? It isn’t possible. If you were simpler, you would be unable to see complexity beyond your own level. If you were more complex, you would be able to see – would be unable not to see – levels of complexity presently invisible to you. The world is always going to be a mirror of you, for just the reason of your ability to comprehend its complexity. The more you see of yourself, the more you see of the world; conversely, your observation of the nature of the shared subjectivity can help you observe yourself more carefully, or let’s say to better effect.

It’s a hopeless task, isn’t it, trying to describe our lives after 3D?

You have anything better to do?

You know what I mean. I’m not complaining that it’s too much work, I’m saying it can’t really be done.

That’s true only to the point of your perfectionism. Once you realize that anything is an approximation, a reaching-toward, then the feeling of hopelessness may be replaced by a sense of realism. You might as well say, “Oh well, a more accurate description would be lost on me anyway. This is as much as I can absorb at the moment.” Is there anything wrong with that? Anything less than ideal? Anything inherently unfair or frustrating or self-defeating? That’s the only way you ever learn – in anything, in any circumstances. You absorb as much as you can in your circumstances (that is, according to who and what you are at that moment) and it is never the last word. It is never “accurate” in that it “couldn’t be explained and understood better.” Learning always involves stretching.

Obvious once said – as so often.

Obvious only given a certain level of receptivity. Those at a lesser level of receptivity (yourself at times, perhaps) will be tempted to stamp their feet and say, “It isn’t fair!” But it is the only way it could be, and how can that be unfair?

And, if you look at the same fact from a different angle, it should be tremendously hopeful, for it is a promise that you can learn more, can in effect become more, without having to first be perfect.

We don’t have to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps.

No, although in a different sense, that’s exactly what you are doing. That is, a more advanced part of you is always tutoring the less advanced parts of you. Isn’t that pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps?

I guess we – I, anyway – usually work on the assumption that tutelage comes from the outside.

What outside?

Yes, I get it. But even within more narrow definition, I have been assuming that something other than 3D-me was providing the teaching. You, for instance.

Only –

Yes, only, you are not “outside”; you are part of me.

We repeat, what outside? The concept of an “outside” presumes separation that doesn’t really exist. Functionally, it exists. Absolutely, it doesn’t.

But we live “functionally.”

And you grow by stretching beyond “functional” assumptions and definitions.

So where do we begin next time?

We will have to continue to explore the interface between internal and external when in fact it is largely illusory. You will note that the only distinction in perspective we drew between your 3D view and our non-3D view is that you see the shared subjectivity as if it were separate, and we do not. Well – what do you suppose happens at the moment of death? That’s our jumping-off point.

So we will resume there. Knowing ahead of time what comes next helps me hold the place, somehow. Perhaps sometimes you’ll tell us why.

We’ll see.

In any case, our thanks as always.

 

 

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