The physical world

Sunday, August 1, 2021

1:55 a.m. I don’t need to re-read past sessions to find a suggested theme. I think we need a better description of the external world as shared subjectivity. What we have said to date apparently is not clear enough for everybody. Maximum focus and receptivity. I guess, maximum clarity of expression, too.

You must realize, a sufficiently extreme change in point of perspective will appear to some to be either nonsense, or confusion of thought, or playing with words. The only way anyone can make so great a leap is via their own internal assistance. That is, a spark from someone else is only a potential, unless and until it meets acquiescence from someone’s non-3D intelligence. A spark – as we have been defining it – is really more of an excuse, a sort of external alliance that provides one’s unsuspected consciousness to suggest an emotional link. If a person’s unconscious ally does not respond, the spark is not conveyed. We realize that this is not how the process appears.

That makes sense, though. You suggest an image to me, I write it down, others read it, but the result of reading that image varies person by person. To some it is a revolution, to some a cliché, and to most, it is something in between. You’re saying, the determinant is not, where the person’s mind “happens” to be; it is whether that person’s unconscious mind wishes to take advantage of the suggestion to promote a sense of conviction as to the accuracy or importance of the suggested connection.

If you will look closely at the mental processes you go through, you will see clearly that what appears to be strictly logical, even if the logic is enhanced by intuitive leaps, is in fact far less dependent upon logic as syllogism, and far more dependent upon a sort of recognition which is then supported after the fact by logical arguments. We said before that you are not primarily logical beings, and we explained why this is necessarily so, and why it is not a design flaw.

So are you implying that if someone appears unable or unwilling to understand your explanation, this is for non-rational reasons, just as they might be persuaded, equally, by non-rational reasons?

Of course. Is there any reason why your mental ground-rules would change, case by case?

So if I have made what I consider to be my best case for a concept and can see that my words cannot get through a pre-existing set of assumptions, I should just give up?

We’d say you probably shouldn’t be making the attempt in the first place. We remind you, we are not in the persuasion business.

It is hard to be sure where clear exposition stops and attempted persuasion begins. Sometimes the obstacle appears to be incomprehension, and the temptation is to say it again, clearer.

Clearer? Or merely louder?

All right, it is a pitfall. But how does one ever know that one’s explanation is as good as it is going to get?

You tell us. There aren’t any rules to be laid down about it, so far as we know. You judge case by case, and of course sometimes you judge wrong. That is just inherent in 3D life, slippage.

Slippage. In two sense of the word, I suppose. Slippage between people and slippage within oneself, between intent and execution.

As you sometimes say, “It’s just the kind of thing that happens in 3D.”

How about one more effort to clarify your point of view about how what looks like the external independently existing physical world is in fact neither external nor independently existing nor physical?

We should prefer to rephrase that thus: The world is what it appears to be, in a sense. But deeper insight follows deeper perception, and then one sees that the world is what one now sees it to be – and this is not a closed process, but an open-ended one. Your world is always what you can conceive it to be, and you always have the potential to grow into new, deeper, perceptions, which invariably show you that what you thought were the rules were only a makeshift approximation.

But to confine the argument to the terms you are concerned with at the moment:

• The physical world appears separate from you because on a 3D level it obviously preceded you (you were born into it, after all), and it continues regardless of your preferences as you live (that is, you don’t automatically have everything your own way), and presumably it will continue after you leave it.
• The physical world clearly has its own rules. They may be more elastic than people usually think them, but sooner or later one finds limits to what one can change by will power alone. Even powerful magic can only go so far. Again, the physical world exists, and exists on its own terms. At best one learns to make accommodation to those limits, regardless if the limits one perceives are in fact in any way ultimate.
• The physical world proceeds along certain lines, understood by human minds or not. Just because one does not know a given physical law, one does not acquire immunity from its effects. Again, different people discover different limits, but that is not the same as saying that no limits exist.

However, this combination of circumstances does not mean just whatever one wants them to mean. What they mean is to be explained by any suggested frame of reference. If a frame of reference cannot account for all of them, either by proving that they are only mistakenly perceived as real or by showing that they proceed from other causes (that is, can be accounted for in the new scheme of things) then the suggested new frame is inadequate.

Our reframing – a la Paul Brunton and philosophical idealists of many  stripes – maintains that the external world is not external at all, is not independent of the individual, and is in no way the dead determined thing it often appears to be. So how do we square our reframing with the three points we just outlined?

• The shared subjectivity comprises and is maintained not by any one individual – namely you! – but by the sum total of all intelligence that exists. Some cultures would have said it exists because God holds us in his thoughts. Obviously the physical universe preceded you, proceeds independently of you, and will remain after you have graduated from a 3D existence. But that independent continuity does not invalidate the perception that the world is mind-stuff, as you well realize.
• The physical world has its rules. Everything does, including one’s mental world which may seem so private and particular. The existence of rules is an indication of order, nothing more.
• The physical world demonstrates cause and effect. Again, a product of order.

Now look at our scheme of things.

1. Preceding 3D, there is mind. At that level, “All is one.”
2. The successive and cumulating 3D experience of millions upon millions of souls creates an ever more complex universal mind, complete with hang-ups, traumas, acquired proclivities, and repugnances – all of which sooner or later manifest in the 3D experiences of other souls. (This is Jung’s racial unconscious, more or less
3. This complex of factors manifest as if independent of a given 3D soul. In fact, of course, such independence would be impossible. In effect, however, one soul interacts with the shared subjectivity only at those points where it has its own sensitivities. Thus in practice everybody deals with a tiny amount of reality, and watches as most of reality proceeds apparently without reference to them.
4. Thus we have the seeming paradox of 3D souls interacting with “the world” and the world being intimately connected to them, yet the 3D soul living a life seemingly largely disconnected from this giant organism or machine that proceeds without reference to it.

Each person will make of this what s/he can, and what they make of it is not your concern, if you (we) have done your and our best to set it out. And we are well beyond your hour.

Only by ten minutes. Thank you for that effort.

Remember, sparks, not proof. Suggestions, not attempts at persuasion. That’s all you are responsible to do, and all you have the right to do, strictly speaking.

Okay. Our thanks as always.