Wednesday, November 9, 2022
5 a.m. I don’t have a question, at the moment, but I have one queued up from Martha MacBurnie, from last Saturday:
“if the world is only somewhat real, and if there is no demarcation between 3-D and non-3-D, how can the shared subjectivity have unfinished business to finish? Unfinished as defined by what? And what does finished look like?”
Pretty good question, I’d think. Presence, receptivity, clarity.
Yes, should lead to clarification of a point we had not realized required clarifying.
On the simplest level, this is merely a consequence of taking a figure of speech as an example. Language leads to associations and they don’t all belong to the intent.
One of us needs coffee this morning. I think you mean, “unfinished business” is just a misleading metaphor.
Well, any metaphor or simile is gong to have misleading aspects, as we have often pointed out. That’s why we sometimes multiply them, hoping that only what the several examples have in common will emerge, and all other associations will cancel out.
“Unfinished business” was our user-friendly way of saying that imbalances in karma remained; or, that the universe was still experiencing its unfolding; or, that actions have long-term consequences. None of these ways of putting it seemed as likely to be understood as “unfinished business.”
Yes, I get it. For all I know, the term came from me, as your meaning was interpreted by my brain.
Not by your brain, by your mind. But yes, there is something of that in the process. A different mind, connected in the same way to the same sources, would necessarily translate as it went along, sometimes consciously, often not consciously. If we were the feed and the scribe were writing in French or Chinese or Russian, you can see that it would have to come out in different words. But in different people, different thought patterns would shape it to follow their most accustomed routes anyway. An English-speaker from another country would probably have a somewhat different vocabulary, and almost certainly would have different speech rhythms. Quite possibly, someone else would not have said “unfinished business” but a different image would have come to mind. In any instance, it is going to be thought, funneled through non-3D mental habits, patterns, and inventory, then manifested in words.
So was “unfinished business” a bad choice?
Not a bad choice, but subject to misinterpretation. But any choice would have been – and will in the future be – subject to being misinterpreted, or taken too literally, or carried too far. It is up to us to be as careful as we can, and to clear up ambiguities as they are pointed out to us.
Still, the image is useful. What we are meaning is that the shared subjectivity – the world as you experience it in all its fulness – never balances out exactly, and the specific imbalances change continually, as decisions alter other things they connect to, which causes reverberating changes up and down the line.
It is a cosmic pinball machine.
Now, there is an inelegant analogy, and not a spectacularly helpful one.
But it does convey the sense I have of the universe as a set of lights, all changing colors and flickering and setting each other off by interactions.
All right, and we will concede the sense of excitement, the bells jangling and buzzers buzzing and whatever other sound-effects are built into the machines. But we suggest that the net effect would be a feeling of futility and waste effort.
A feeling many people do have, as they ponder the meaning of the “tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
And you think, perhaps, that this is a way of seeing the world that we would want to encourage? It is to combat that sense of meaningless and empty mystery that we have been working all this time.
Well, if you don’t like pinball machines as metaphor, perhaps you’d better try again to say it straight. I realize, that is the difficulty that leads you to resort to metaphor in the first place.
When the universe is created, as we have said many times, all its possibilities are inherent in it. But inherent does not mean manifest. A possibility is only a possibility until it is chosen. It is, in effect, the difference between potential energy and kinetic energy.
But you have to remember, in trying to “wrap your head around” this, that 3D life is only somewhat real. It is not things-in-space; it is not “here today, gone tomorrow,” regardless how it may appear. This means, everything connects, appearance always necessarily deceive (in that the full reality of things cannot be experienced by senses, only, at best, intuited), and life is always bigger than any living thing can comprehend.
Within these limitations, you see (or imagine) the universe spring into existence, and consequences immediately flow. Things roll downhill, so to speak. One ball hits another and sets it moving. One being chooses, and in choosing alters what exists, – again, setting things moving. There never is an end to consequences and never can be an end until the end of the universe, and that is not something of more than theoretical concern to you, nor to us. Your job – our job too – is to live the life that surrounds your being, and follow what leads onward.
To forestall possible objections, I will say here that I don’t g et any sense of your saying there is anything wrong with our exploring such questions.
How could there be something wrong with it? And if one’s being is drawn to doing that, there just might be a reason why! But it isn’t particularly our path, nor yours.
But you don’t have any objection to answering further questions about it, or about related subjects.
When have we ever objected to a question? But there are some things we are well qualified to answer, and some that we aren’t.
And here I thought you were all-knowing.
You did, actually. It was difficult and time-consuming to persuade you otherwise.
But someone else’s sources may be able to shed light on what is darkness to you, and to me.
People have been consulting their non-3D sources for many, many, many years. More years than you would credit. How do you think the Rig Veda was written? But perhaps those to whom these questions are important will need to study Sanskrit. We are not jesting.
Meanwhile you and I will stick to questions of how to live and why.
That is your preference, is it not? Enough context to see why certain rules of thumb exist, and no navel-gazing for its own sake?
I don’t know, I think some people would say that navel-gazing is exactly what we have been doing, all this time.
So much the worse for their eyesight, perhaps.
Today’s theme was – what?
Surely, “Unfinished business.”
Or maybe, “The nature of –“?
If you prefer. Your choice, as always. You could say, if you wished to, that “The 3D always bats last.” If you want to write something one way and not another, who is going to stop you, and why would we want to?
Right: Our choice. Very well, you have our continued thanks, as always. Till next time.