Connecting to guidance: individuals and groups

Thursday, January 19, 2023

4:15 a.m. Well, guys, a command performance, huh? I gather that our small group of four engineers was told that I should talk to you about how to move to the next level, in terms of connecting to guidance. I didn’t get any particulars, but I figured you’d go where you wanted us to go. So, you’re on.

You no longer invoke presence, clarity, receptivity explicitly, so it is as well to remind people that they should make some such habit implicit if not explicit. The first need in communicating is to be present, and that is more complicated sometimes than it may appear to be. You are communities in many respects, cooperating entities functioning “as if.” It is as well to remind yourself at the beginning that you wish everybody present. That means all here, now, attending to the same effort at outreach, or, let’s say, all looking and listening in the same direction.

It is one thing to do that as an individual who is also a community. How do you do it as a community of individuals – which means, obviously, a community of communities, each of which is itself a community? Our point here is that the process is vastly more complex than it may appear if you think of yourselves as each units cooperating with one another.

So, first, as individuals and then as what we might call temporary individuals (which is one way a temporary joint mind may be seen), concenter yourselves, within yourself and among yourselves. A simple ritual usually suffices: All you’re doing is ringing the dinner bell, getting everyone’s attention.

A desire for, an expectation of achieving, clarity helps reduce unconscious worry that the task might be beyond your expectations. It isn’t. You won’t be called to do something beyond your strength and ability, though you often will be called to do things that stretch those abilities, heighten those strengths. These exercise periods may feel like failures. They aren’t. Remember that nothing happens in disconnected fashion. A failure would imply a disconnect. We say no more about this than that you should think about this statement. Insights will present themselves, but you need to be quiet enough to hear them and to work out the chains of thought that suggest themselves to you as you do.

That of course segues into receptivity. Intending to be receptive is slightly different from a request for clarity. It is a promise of cooperation, more than an act of faith, if you see what we mean.

We know this doesn’t seem to be what is requested, but, it’s all there. If more had been needed for you as an individual, Frank, we would have provided it. Why should this be different? The answer to “why?” is of course because it is the same kind of seemingly uncharted territory that you thought was uncharted when you entered it, so many years ago. Whenever one looks back, one sees that the way ahead was always clearly set out by the experience of others, only they could not change your own unrealized expectations. Communicating with us is mostly a matter of releasing the ideas that make it seem impossible or difficult or even unusual. So why set out rules that will seem to be helpful but in fact will silently reinforce false expectations of difficulty?

Presence. Bring all parts of yourself to the same moment of time – the eternal present manifesting in 3D.

Receptivity. Direct them all to be open to instruction in whatever form it may take: words, images, feelings, promptings. Reassure recalcitrant parts of yourself that receptivity need not be gullibility. Receive first, then discern later, but receive, or there will be nothing to discern.

Clarity. Expect – program – that what you receive will not be beyond the logic of the time and place. You will have asked: Expect to receive, and expect to be able to work out what it is that you did receive.

This implies traits such as integrity, benevolence, openness – you know the drill. If a given group wishes, it may make up a short ritual to be said, in the way Bob Monroe wrote his affirmation. It isn’t necessary, but it may be helpful. It may be helpful, but it may tempt some into idolizing the form rather than the intent, so beware of the possibility. You aren’t creating a church, nor a superstition, so be careful of the rituals you embrace, however helpful.

As I was finishing writing that, I got something – part of something – about Edgar Cayce and the Lord’s Prayer. Did he use it as part of his ritual?

Not explicitly, nor is that exactly the thought you perceived. It was built into him, you might say, because this was a man who read the entire bible every year of his life. But – fortunately – he never thought to make it or any prayer “essential” to his work. Instead, he tried to live the attitude the Lord’s Prayer sets out:

• Our father (that is, the non-3D being sustaining the world, of the same essence as the 3D beings invoking him)
• Who is in heaven (existing in non-3D but, implicitly, accessible to those in 3D, or why pray to him?)
• Your name be blessed. (We love and reverence you.)
• May your kingdom arrive (may we get past our sense of being separated from the divine)
• May we do your will
• In 3D as in non-3D.
• Give us our daily requirements (that is, we trust you to do so)
• And remove obstacles between ourselves and you, as we remove them among ourselves.
• Don’t lead us astray.
• Deliver us from evil.

Not so sure, any more, about that last part, “deliver us from evil.”

You could put it, save us from the consequences of the apple from the tree of Perceiving Things as Good and Evil.

Ah. Well, that does make more sense.

And, good ex-Catholic that you are, we spare you the final sentence added by Protestants, but remember it too is true.

So here’s the point of this. If you (anyone) had to have a ritual, one grounded thousands of years ago, across cultures, might serve well because it originated so long ago and far away. There would be less temptation to idolize it. But of course, ex-Christians would have emotional resistances, so it might balance out in difficulty. There really aren’t any rules that apply everywhen and everywhere, beyond our admonitions to presence, receptivity, and clarity.

I am surprised to see it has been nearly an hour. It flowed smoothly and easily.

You’d think you had invoked presence, receptivity and clarity.

Very funny. But our thanks for this. In a way, thanks mostly for not complicating it.

You put your finger on the most important thing we set out to accomplish. More ambitious undertakings do not require ore complicated instructions. If anything, just the opposite, and you may take that for a general rule. Follow your intent with integrity and simplicity (“like a little child”) and you have all you need.

Very well, our thanks as always.