Monday, September 20, 2021
4:45 a.m. Shall we talk about the nature of strands?
We have said our say on that subject, at least for the moment. Let’s talk about the meaning of life. Not any one person’s life, but life. What’s it all about, Alfie?
You are showing your age, or mine, anyway. But fine, let’s talk about the meaning of life.
You will remember we were asked what we do “over here” – that is, what you do after 3D life is over – and we said “we relate.” You should have a somewhat less vague understanding of that answer now. You relate to all parts of yourself; you relate to what happens in 3D and all the changes those things bring. You continue to be part of everything, only you are more aware of the connections now. But undoubtedly you ask yourself, What is at all in aid of?
I won’t speak for others, but I do, certainly. Sometimes I get a sense of so much going on, so incessantly, and it just makes me tired to think about it.
Well, life is not only ceaseless activity, it is also rest, for rest and activity are phases of each other. But just as the idea of life after death as “eternal rest” is an over-simplified view, so would be “eternal activity.” There is truth to the idea, but only in context.
This seems to be going off in a direction I wouldn’t have thought relates to “the meaning of life.”
Nonetheless –
- Rest and activity: alternatives that are really one thing with different aspects emphasized by language. Were we to say something like “rest as pause” or “activity as spurts,” the interconnection might be more evident. Like waking and sleep, they depend upon one another.
- Rest from what? Activity to what end? Isn’t this the nub of it?
I would say so, yes.
You will read of many people’s glib or thoughtful answers. Many will have one or another aspect of the truth. None – including us, of course – will have the truth, because what the truth is depends partly upon the person receiving it.
I think you mean, truth is greater, more extensive, than our ability to perceive it all. Our receptors are limited.
Yes. You cannot know everything, you cannot process everything, you cannot feel or experience or imagine everything. One part of you knows this very well. Other parts of you are prone to forget it, when it comes time to devise abstract themes and diagrams.
So in effect, your continual emphasis on wanting to give us practical advice is a form of admission that you have to choose.
We can’t say everything any more than you can receive everything. And in any case, we are specialized no less than you, only with different constraining factors. But this is why a student of the meaning of life will find so many different and even contradictory explanations: People receive what is within their range. The mistake people make is in thinking that whatever truth they find is absolute and comprehensive. Nobody knows everything. And, remember, what we have often reminded you of: Truth cannot contradict itself, but it does contain many elements that contradict each other.
A trivial example comes to mind, though I’m not sure it is relevant. “Look before you leap,” but “He who hesitates is lost.” Either is true, both are true in context, but they seem to contradict each other when considered abstractly.
It is at least an example of how you can pluck a given truth and badly mislead yourself if you take it to be the final word.
Yet we do cling to certain touchstones like “As above, so below,” or “All is love.”
That isn’t quite the same thing. A rule of thumb is not the same as a purported explanation. However, even here, note that the key is usefulness. If a scheme of things does not lead you back to the question of how to lead your life, and what your daily life has to do with life, how much good is it to you?
Well, I don’t know, it seems to me the question of utility depends a lot upon the kind of person asking the question. My friend Charles has spent much of his life industriously studying, and living what he has been studying. He knows more about the Kabala and the Zohar and all than I could learn in two lifetimes. If you were thinking about his life, and you said, “Keep it practical,” I’m not sure that all that earnest study and assimilation is anything but practical. I mean, it is real to him. It matters. In creating so many mental connections over 50 years or however long he has been doing it, he has created something even if it can’t be seen. Is that anything but practical? Should he have been playing golf all this time, instead?
We can’t quite decide if you are misunderstanding us deliberately, to make a point. Certainly in following his bliss he is fulfilling his nature. We wouldn’t dream of suggesting otherwise. You know this.
Then, this question of utility –
Obviously – we would have thought it would be obvious – what is useful for one person is not necessarily what would be useful for another. Someone obsessively practicing his golf game may seem to you to be wasting his life, but how do you know what character traits that pursuit may be building? How could anyone observing your life of incessant reading suspect your invisible connective tissue that makes it make sense in your situation?
The same activity, pursued in a different way by someone of a different makeup, will not be the same activity at all. One could read all the same books, do all the same exercises, have all the same external and even internal experiences, theoretically, and be doing something very different because what he brought to the table (himself) was so different.
All right, I can see that.
You yourself would be merely impatient of any theoretical scheme that seemed to you ungrounded. For you it would be useless or impenetrable. So why should you pursue a scheme that cannot help you, just because someone else assures you, “This is the way”? Look at it, sure. Try it, maybe. See what you feel about it – more than what you think about it, we’d say. If it doesn’t touch you, it doesn’t matter how true it may be, it isn’t truth in clothing you can see. Pass on to something more relevant. (In passing on to other things, though, don’t feel obliged to make a derogatory judgment about what you reject. You don’t know if it is true or not. At best you know it is not true for you, at least for now. Tomorrow, who knows?
So this session has established – what? That we none of us know truth in its entirety, only as much as we can absorb. Seems like we could have said that in a sentence.
You can, now that it was set out at greater length, looked at in a couple of ways. But how much good would it do you if we just said, “Oh, all is well, don’t worry your pretty head about it”? That’s a pretty short and simple statement. It’s true. Would it help anything?
After it has been explained it does. Okay, I see your point. So we continue in the same theme next time?
Unless something else comes front and center. Call this one, “Truth comes in many aspects,” perhaps.
Or “Truth is bigger than we are”?
Your choice. Or something other.
Our thanks for all of this, as always.