Spirit and soul within a larger unity

Saturday, July 31, 2021

12:15 a.m. Spirit and the living-present moment. Shared subjectivity rather than an acceptance of matter for what it appears to be – dead or even living “things” in “space.” A discussion with a friend makes me wonder if anybody takes what you are saying as more than mere words, amusement.

[But then I returned to sleep]

3:55 a.m.

People’s comprehension varies not only by person but by day and even by time of day. We can’t worry about whether people actually apply our concepts to their knowledge base. We work on the assumption that it is our job to communicate as clearly and as unambiguously as possible, and everybody else’s job to wrestle with the result, neither accepting nor rejecting automatically.

I was going to say, I suppose my job is to assure that you say your say as clearly as possible, but I realize, it is also my job to do the wrestling.

Yes, you are in the middle position. It is for you to raise objections re lack of clarity, but also re lack of plausibility. That is, it isn’t merely, “Did the guys state that clearly enough for people to get it?” but also, “Does what the guys are saying make sense to me?”

I’m like a theater critic in that way, I suppose.

It gets you free tickets, at least.

And I assume this brief side-trail seems worthwhile to you. but as we were saying –

We have reached an important concept. The living-present-moment is unique in the lives of souls. Similarly, spirit is unique in the lives of souls, seen from a different direction. And this leads to a new view of both. Just as “matter” may be seen as shared subjectivity – that is, may be seen as the on-going creation and maintenance by mind-stuff of mind-stuff – so the unique living-present may be seen as a sign of the presence of spirit. Or – same statement – spirit may be said to be the factor that separates the living-present moment from all else. This will (we hope) become self-evident, once we spell out what we mean.

You might, for the moment, consider spirit to be the wind, and soul to be the sails. Some sails are propelling windmills, turning rotors. Some are propelling ships, which experience the winds as helpful or contrary depending not upon the wind but upon the ship’s intended direction. Some “sails” are not sails at all, but are surfaces designed as shelter – tents, houses, cities – and wind to them is experienced more as a potential threat than any possible motive power.

Regardless what the wind encounters as it blows, the wind blows for its own reasons, not in order to produce specific effects. It is up to the soul to deal with the effects of the ungovernable winds.

Which leads us back to the question of the vast impersonal forces, which I believe you said, somewhere, we experience as vast personal forces.

Your difficulty here is that of diffusion over time. If your mind could more easily hold material widely scattered over time in its reception, you wouldn’t have to do so much cobbling.

I think you just said, you’ve given us bits and pieces at various times, in connection with various concepts, and if we could hold it all in mind, we would already know what it is you are going to have to spell out again in its own context.

That’s right. And it isn’t a design flaw in you, nor in the universe, that this is so. It is merely a feature of the situation that you in 3D have limitations in the amount that you can hold actively, and (as well) the content of that amount varies over time.

Yep, just as, in programming, a bug you can’t figure out how to eliminate becomes a feature.

We’re smiling too, but after all, there is always a practical limit to be dealt with in such things. Since you can’t remember everything, and since you can’t necessarily remember even everything you need in a given context, a system of reminders serves to bring the factors back together. In a complicated discussion, we may use bullet-points, for instance. This is usually to economize on time so that more factors may be considered simultaneously.

So, let’s talk about spirit and soul, about living-present-moment and the persistence of all time, about the vast impersonal forces that animate life and the vast personal forces as you experience them. What follows will repay close attention, specifically because much of it will tempt you to nod and say, “Yeah, yeah, I got that,” rather than really hear it in its current context. To bring beginner’s mind to the discussion, we suggest you move your slide-switches to maximum focus, maximum receptivity, now.

Okay.

The hardest thing to do is to set aside your knowledge and listen. But if you cannot do that, you can learn little or nothing. After you have listened is the time to consider new material in terms of what you already know, not before, or during.

Yes, I know that conceptually. As you say, it can be challenging to actually do it.

Challenging but occasionally astonishingly worthwhile. Consider: This is why Monroe programs are sometimes so shatteringly productive: While you are doing the taped exercises, you are not comparing, weighing, judging. You are participating. Later – in debrief and in your life afterwards – you do the sifting, to see what the experience means and may mean and can’t mean. But if you try to weigh it while you are supposed to be experiencing, you automatically thereby choke off any hope of a transcendent experience.

So, if you have set your receptivity and focus to maximum, consider this:

  • All life is one That means, 3D life, non-3D life, 3D plus non-3D life, as experienced, even though experienced separately.
  • All life is mind-stuff at your (our) level of reality. Everything we can experience may look like it is divided into matter or mind, into internal or external, into present or past or future, but it is all projected from a higher reality and is all one thing, indivisible because there is no division-point in reality, only in concept.
  • The physical life you lead ties together internal and external. That is, it could not exist as all one or all the other; again, because the division is unreal.
  • Thus your life in 3D and your life outside of 3D (your “afterlife”) are the same thing. Whether you do or do not have a 3D body to consider, you remain you. What else can you be? What else could you ever be?
  • However, as we have often pointed out, there is a question in any given circumstance of “Which you?” This is not a question of different beings, nor even of different self-definitions, but of different self-experiencing at any given time.
  • The “external” world is part of you, and, obviously, vice versa. There is no “objective” place to stand. There is no “apart” as there is no “away.” Any sense of being trapped stems from a particular moment’s self-definition. (And it scarcely needs saying, that “a moment” may last a long, long time. A lifetime, perhaps. Still, a moment.)
  • Thus, the vast impersonal forces are not external forces, bearing upon you and your life in 3D. They are internal forces bearing upon you and your life in 3D.
  • Re-read that bullet-point, and after a while, ponder it. The vast impersonal forces that animate life are part of you, and you are part of everything. This idea may not make sense, when first encountered, but there it is, either an obstacle in your path or a reassuring marker, depending upon how you take it.
  • You will remember our extensive discussion of the deadly sins and the helpful virtues, all centering on the question of your use of 3D life in pursuit of something more than 3D life. You might look at that again.

Be here, now, if you are to extend to your maximum consciousness at any given moment. But then the question arises: Toward what end? And it is the failure to consider this question, or the assumption that the answer is self-evident, that may prevent a greater comprehension.

I know we have used up an hour, but is this a logical stopping-place?

Oh yes. There is already more here than many people will be able to consider as one unit.

So, next time?

Next time we will ask you to review several conversations, and what arises will give us our starting-point.

Okay. Our thanks for all this, as always. Oh, a title for this one?

“Spirit and soul within a larger unity” will do. Or you may try something else.

Oaky.

One thought on “Spirit and soul within a larger unity

  1. Frank, I think this material is just outstanding. I feel an excitement and a quickening upon reading it and feel it expand my understanding in a way that says, “Yeah! Finally!” I wish I had a nickel for every time some of these concepts, like oneness, have had to be repeated to me before I could catch a clue that gave me an image and a sense of the vastness and energy and creativity of the oneness that we are. You have made their reception possible for me. I love it.

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