The forces that flow through us

We were describing compound beings living, deciding, shaped by and shaping (to a slight individual effect but a somewhat larger cumulative and collective effect) the winds of spirit that blow through them.

We remind you, as you seem to need to be reminded periodically, that all of this effort is not so that we may draw castles in the sky or that you may daydream “what if” pictures to compare with other schemes, but so that you may change your lives.

In other words, work with this, don’t merely be entertained by it. You don’t have to accept it, or reject it, but, work with it, wrestle with it. See what you really think. Of course, this too is within your choice, but the reminder is there. We don’t mean this as a chastisement, but think of us as an alarm clock, set to go off at unpredictable intervals, lest you fall asleep and have no one to nudge you.

So, keeping in mind that we intend to give you something of practical use, let’s consider your lives as you know them. In all their infinite variety, still they have patterns common to all. No need to enumerate them, you know life. But for the moment, concentrate on your emotional life, or – let’s say, your internal life, which is nearly but not quite the same thing.

When the morning’s energies flow though you, how do they flow? Do they flow through unshaped space?

I think you are meaning some illustrative images, like wind flowing across a field, unobstructed; or funneling through and between trees, or being channeled down the streets of Manhattan, or blowing into windows on one side of a house, blowing through and emerging on the other side, things like that.

Yes only more intricate, more obstructed, more convoluted, and at the same time under less pressure and more pressure.

Harder to find an image for that. Air conditioning is one example that comes to mind, perhaps an absurd example.

Not so bad in some ways. Air conditioning is channeled through duct work, and the ducting may be looked at as both channel and obstruction, as interference with flow and as magnifier of flow. But for the analogy to work, you need to see your lives as the building, and the ductwork as the pattern of your life to date; that is, at any given moment.

I see that a less mechanical and solid analogy would serve us better. It would need to be able to change the ductwork moment by moment, like a computer responding to commands of a programmer.

More than that, it would need to allow for different kinds of winds blowing through. Try another analogy.

Instead of wind, let’s think of the forces as electricity moving through a neural net. The configuration of the net determines the direction of flow and, to some extent, the strength of the flow (in inverse proportion to the obstacles it throws up, the tortuous pathways it requires). The configuration is determined not by the electricity but by the controller of the net, however we wish to envision that.

A much more elastic, serviceable analogy. We congratulate you.

I can’t decide whether that is sarcasm. I’m well aware that what I did was wait, receptively, holding the requirement in mind, until it surfaced.

No need to fear sarcasm. When something has been achieved, it has been achieved.

Okay. So then—?

Well, you see, between the two analogies, you get closer to the idea we are trying to present. Analogy is never exact, but two or more may together suggest what cannot quite be stated outright.

All right, so look at what we have. Energy flows through you. If it did not, your computer would not work, so to speak. But how it flows through you is not the same as what flows through you.

I think you mean, the very same energy, flowing though us, will appear to be different in that it will exhibit different characteristics depending on the nature of what it flows through.

No, not quite. It is the same energy, and depending upon what it flows through, it will seem to  exhibit different characteristics. Spirit will be blamed or credited for what it animates, not for its own neutral animating force.

A better analogy comes to me: Light shines through a vast maze of fiber-optic threads, and the configuration of the threads is what channels the light.

Now you have three analogies; so much the better. Continually triangulating, you can get closer to it.

Now, bear in mind the contradictions in what we have said.

• We have described these vast impersonal forces (we repeat these words for a reason) as representing or even exemplifying what you know as sinful or soulful attitudes, negative or positive biases, predilections that dominate and complicate your lives.
• We have also described these vast impersonal forces as being, in effect, causative and neutral, like wind, like channeled air, like electricity, like light.

That is contradiction, and in contradiction, faced and (so to speak) faced down, is greater understanding to be found.

In effect, you are asking us to do as Rita did, posing questions and pointing out ambiguities and contradictions.

Wrestling with the material, yes. Taking it seriously. That’s the invitation.

Well, how do you reconcile the two positions?

We don’t.

I beg your pardon?

We don’t reconcile them, we use them to show that they are contrasting points of view. In such case, resolution always comes only by moving to a higher, more encompassing perspective. The resolution is in realizing that the analogies are still too simple. They are good as halfway houses, but they contradict the facts somewhat.

It is as if all the light shining through the fiber optics must be white light, or all the electricity must be at the same amperage or voltage. All light may have been white on the morning of creation (so to speak), but that was a long time of experience ago. All voltages may have been uniform initially, but, again, not by now.

Remember, these are analogies. Try not to get caught up in the logical problems caused by the nature of the analogy; center on the logical problems posed by what the analogies are trying to convey.

I get that by this act of the play, nothing is pristine; everything shows the result of prior use.

An interesting take on what we are trying to convey. Not that the forces of the world are shopworn, but that the very energies that flow through you are themselves the product of much that happened before you arrived on the scene. It isn’t white light; it is light some of whose qualities have been enhanced or hampered. (That is a definition of color, you see.)