Disconnection is always a problem over time. It is a prime drawback to 3D living. At the same time, connection is a prime way to retain connection. That is, it is either a vicious or a virtuous cycle.
3D is continuously variable, by its nature. Non-3D is immune to the pressure of continuously-moving time in the way that 3D is subject to. So, each has its advantages and disadvantages. But if you maintain a foot in each world (so to speak), you maximize the advantages and minimize the disadvantages.
Sure. 3D offers concentration, intensity. Non-3D offers interconnection, continuity.
By the same token, 3D “offers” gaps in continuity (distraction), distorted perspective, and wild excursions in unpredictable directions including many a dead-end. Non-3D “offers” endless discursions, lack of single-mindedness, cloudiness of thinking. Each has the defects of its qualities.
Hence the value of remaining connected; our minds centered in non-3D, with all its connections, but operating via the brain in 3D, with its intensity.
Correct – but note Paul Brunton’s caveat about meditation as a means of maintaining connection.
I can’t quite remember what the reasoning was, but I know it reinforced what I have always thought, that meditation as a technique in and of itself could become merely a diversion and a very alluring distraction from real work.
You should know. That is what the state of mind produced by endless reading does. Feeling not of this world (because one’s attention is elsewhere) is not the same as being not of this world. That is, yes, the feeling of connection is desirable in and of itself, insofar as the only alternative is perception of 3D limitations as absolutes. But that feeling in itself can do nothing more than that. To become productive, one needs to couple a sense of connection with a physical goal.
“Physical” wasn’t right, I know. What’s the right word?
“Tangible,” perhaps. Defined; definite; practical (in the sense of bounded rather than merely fuzzy and vague).
When we think of practical goals, we think in terms of achievement and the symbols of achievement: money, fame, influence; our effect on the society we live in. At least, I do. And I gather that this isn’t what you are meaning.
That’s right. It isn’t. but what we have to say is out of favor.
Well, I’m used to that. Go ahead.
Living one’s life with integrity, affecting those around oneself – parents, spouse, children, neighbors, employers or employees, bus drivers, store clerks, office workers, bums. That is very much 3D, and one’s relations with one’s neighbors (in the largest sense) is every bit as inescapably part of one’s life’s purpose as any greater scheme or even reality of achievement. The fact that it isn’t noticed doesn’t make it less central.
The housewife and mother.
Exactly. The husband and breadwinner. No prizes for either, but look around you to see what happens to a society that no longer values them as the core of social health and happiness. As individuals, they don’t have to be brilliant or even particularly smart or well informed. They may be dumb intellectually, as they are dumb in the other sense of the word: voiceless. But they are the blood cells in society’s corpus. And, at another scale, they are individual eyes on the world from the non-3D.
Our point here is not political, though it has political ramifications. It is this: Every person on Earth is an ambassador from the non-3D, and files regular reports. That’s what they are supposed to be! That’s what they are supposed to do! It isn’t as if those who don’t become the more specialized tools are a waste of time. How could anyone be famous, if everyone were? How could anyone excel in any direction, good or bad, if everyone else were manifesting just the same qualities?
Looked at in that less distorted way, perhaps you can see that getting into touch with your eternal self, your spiritual essence, your non-3D extension, your divine guidance – call it what you will – is desirable but in and of itself, does nothing. And, in fact, may lead to serious errors of self-delusion, inflation, arrogance, etc. What’s the use of doing an hour of yoga and then snubbing the next person you deal with, or treating him or her as if you were put on Earth to be master, and they servant? What is the use of meditating every day and then being less able to deal with the everyday world around you?
Gandhi (for instance) loved meditation; it didn’t prevent him from freeing India from British rule. Not that any of you is necessarily called to do “great” things, but that you are called to express in your life what you feel in your meditation. Life is not one or two grand gestures or sublime achievements. It is an endless string of moments that offer opportunities to choose to express one’s best or not; one’s essence or not; one’s positive influence or not.
By all means read biographies of inspiring individuals if you wish. Watch movies that produce encouragement of certain virtues. Engage in yoga or meditation to remember your connection. But at the end of the day, the point is, how are you living? What are you feeling, and what are you doing with those feelings? It isn’t only a matter of how will others be affected by your time in the world, but of how will you be affected by your time in the world.
We’d recommend that you (all) give this question some serious thought, recursively, not merely a brief notice on a fast scan of the page. It is as important as anything we have said yet.