Wednesday, July 28, 2021
6 a.m. You said we’d resume by looking at my statement – my guess – that we in 3D are a sort of intermediate position between spirit’s unfettered access and soul’s complete entanglement in 3D life.
Slide-switches.
Yes, all right. Maximum focus, maximum receptivity. Let’s add a third, perhaps logically redundant, for ignoring bodily distractions. This third switch, to allow for greater concentration without at the same time removing useful bodily cues; that is, without permanently removing symptoms (pain, whatever), but merely moving them out of the way for the time being.
As you say, perhaps redundant, but not harmful or obstructive.
Very well, now remember, the 3D world in all its aspects is projected from a higher reality, thus is not the limited and fixed thing it appears to be. And you are all communities of communities of souls, and thus yourselves are not the limited and fixed thing you may appear to yourselves to be. Your non-3D aspects – including us, obviously – are a sort of intermediate position between 3D’s apparent solidity and the unfettered world beyond. And the point of this long exploration is, you will recall: What is your life like after the physical death of the body ends the role that the given soul plays in 3D drama?
(We had to work to prevent the rhyming of the words “role” and “soul” from getting in the way. This is more of a problem than is always evident.)
It is one I am becoming ever more aware of. However –
This is a critical point, you see, the role you play. Take anyone – Bertram, say, or let’s use as example someone known to history, merely for ease of reference. The point we are about to make has nothing to do with the fame a person does or does not attract by the role played. Lincoln, say. Anything about Lincoln’s role has to end in 1865, when his body is killed. The effects his life has on the world may reverberate for years or decades or centuries, but the role per se is bounded by his death. This must seem so obvious – but perhaps the implications are not that obvious when a soul’s nature and purpose are being examined in another context.
Well, as you say that, I think I get where you’re going. The soul is animated, sure, but it is entirely enmeshed in 3D life. The soul is timeless only in the way that time itself is timeless (though that’s a clumsy way to say it): If time were the way it commonly appears to be – something that comes into existence, then ceases to exist – then the best a soul could hope for would be a possible ghost-like immortality.
And this is what some ancient civilizations postulated: an afterlife of shadows and regrets and, at best, some limited ability to interact with the living-present-moment.
The point to be grasped here is that it is the very nature of the soul to be entirely enmeshed in its time. That’s the individual-ness you experience. You experience yourself as living in your times. You don’t experience the life of your strands in their times, not in the same way. This is so obvious that it is rarely thought about, yet some thought would be worthwhile.
- An individual life is lived in one lifespan, as, say, 1809-1865.
- Yet that individual is made up of many strands, each of which has its own “home territory,” so to speak. Perhaps Lincoln had a strand that lived in the 1700s, and three that lived in the 1600s, and a couple that lived in different times in the Middle Ages. (We don’t say he did or didn’t; this is an example). Each of these lives is centered in a certain period. Each experienced the living-present-moment as an individual only that once.
- Yet by the fact that these different strands co-existed to form Lincoln, it is as if Lincoln became thus a sort of intersection point: All those times lived within him to the extent that his strands lived within him.
- Thus, 3D lives might be said to stitch the world together in time, in the same way that people living in the same time stitch the world together in space. We know that is probably not clear. Bear it in mind for later.
Surely it is clear that to talk about a soul without reference to its time makes no sense? To try to understand Prince Hamlet without “Hamlet” the play would be a rough equivalent. To think that Hamlet and Abraham Lincoln could change places would make about as much sense as to try to imagine either of them outside the context of their times. In a very real sense, you are your times. It would be hard to prove it, but in practice you know it. you even have labels for people’s native attitudes: “Oh, he’s so pre-war”; “She’s behind the times”; “He really is a man of his time and place.”
None of this applies to the spirit, nor ever could.
Kind of makes nonsense of the idea of time-travel, I guess.
No, not at all, only look at what time-travel stories always include. What you can see now is not always obvious, though always there.
Very interesting. Yes, I see. A time-traveler always experiences a disconnect between his own mentality and those of the time he is visiting. If he is a 20th century man visiting medieval Spain, he doesn’t see medieval Spain through medieval eyes, but through his accustomed 20th-century eyes. And whether it’s Marty McFly or some other time-traveler, it’s always the same thing. “I am here in this other time, and I see it with my eyes (my mind, my mental categories, etc.) even though I may have to pretend to share the worldview of these people I am secretly visiting.”
So you may wish to consider your soul the time-based part of you, and the spirit the part of you that knows better than to take the 3D at face value. Only – just to complicate the situation – your soul of course includes its experience of coexisting with spirit, for 3D life would be impossible without the animating spirit.
For those who may be pretty lost here, an orienting word or two?
You could provide it as well as we can, but yes. It is important for you to understand who and what you are, if you are going to have any chance of understanding who and what you were, who and what you will be. So, one part of that careful inspection is to realize that you are thoroughly, inevitably, purposely, enmeshed in the times you were born into. You are where and when you are not as a result of any kind of accident, no matter how uncomfortable in your times you may be. Once you truly realize the “soul-ness” of your life, other things become clear. Until you do, many forms of fantasy may appear possible. That is, you may envision your future in many ways that do not take into account who and what you are.
However, the same may be said of spirit, and perhaps we will continue with spirit when we next meet.
Very well. Our thanks as always.