Tuesday, May 7, 2024
2:45 a.m. Aspirations and intent? Or, perhaps, how to know intent?
You like to think of yourselves as good. You aren’t good. You sometimes think of yourselves as evil. You aren’t evil. Those are conditions – extremes, you might say, or poles. But you don’t live at a pole. You live suspended between them.
Your entire life is suspended between all possible polarities, and, as Swedenborg saw, you are suspended in a condition of freedom, that you may choose. But the subject of good and evil, of choice and necessity, of cause and effect, has been clouded for people by their assumption that life in 3D is what it seems to be. It isn’t.
We can only sketch suggestions toward the truth, because the truth is too complicated to be able to be spelled out, but use your intuition – your own truth-seeking judgment – and what we can say should be enough to get you to what can’t be said in sequential exposition.
Because you are interconnected directly to so many strands, and they to their strands, and so forth, your decisions affect them, and theirs you. Ultimately this means that all humans are one thing in a state of dissociation, but, as we say, this is too complex to sketch. So let us confine yourself to a sketch of you and your strands, to show in little how it works in large.
Take the seven sins, or the seven virtues. These are itemizations of the tendencies that lead downward (away from self-awareness, self-control, self-direction, expansion toward all others) or upward (via active decisions on how to live, what to be). It doesn’t matter whether the individual knows of them by name; they manifest in life, as temptations or possibilities. Other cultures name them differently because they conceptualize them in different systems, but human life is human life, after all.
Well, you in your life are continually tempted up or down – but, throughout your life, so are those you are intimately connected with. You are they; they are you. Don’t let the necessities of language make you think of separation where there is really continuity. Do you think you can ever be isolated from what is your very core of being? “You are not alone” is a very hope-giving statement, but it has its down side, as everything does. That down side is that you are not alone mentally, spiritually – for good or bad. You are always one in a neighborhood.
Can you see how many features of everyday life this sheds light on? The passions that overwhelm you, the “out of character” impulses you sometimes give in to? The traits that are your besetting sins, that you repent of but cannot overcome? The bad in the best of you and the good in the worst of you? All this looks different when you see it as family contention, rather than individual quirks.
It isn’t just good or bad. It is any polarity you can think of. You are never the isolated being you may think yourself to be. You couldn’t be, it would be like a finger considering itself in isolation from the hand, let alone from the rest of the body.
But you are not a helpless pawn, either. You may think of yourselves as swimmers dealing with strong or weak currents. You may choose to go where the current is taking you, either passively floating or swimming with the current. Or you may choose to swim against the current, or at an angle to it. Your lone efforts will not determine the result for your strands ad infinitum, any more than whatever you do in the world will overcome all obstacles or inertia. But your efforts will determine what direction you move.
Again, we could wish that knowledge of theology were more widespread, because what is theology but the working out of life’s ground-rules from whatever assumptions one begins with. That is what you do, it is what we do, and it would allow you to get more sophisticated understandings by examining the explorations and conclusions of others, even though – or perhaps because – their beginning assumptions are so different from these.
Similarly, psychology. The science that studies the mind can report many a phenomenon that will shed new light on your experiences, once you translate the assumptions. Of course we recommend Carl Jung as closest for Westerners. William James, too. You will need to translate their concepts by accepting the result but postulating different causes. We assume that is clear.
I think so. I hear you saying, if someone is talking about dissociation of personality, say, we can trust their observations but will profit b recasting the origin and continuance in the terms we recognize. Not one isolated unit, but a connected unit that is really a community. That sort of thing.
Correct. Similarly with theology. You will disregard the logic that proceeds from assumptions we do not share, and will profit from connections that have been drawn over time by a combination of logic and intuition.
Of course this kind of cherry-picking has its hazards.
What does not? But it is a way to proceed.
I see that. Did you have more on this, or do you want to talk about how to determine our intent?
It is more a change of emphasis than of topic. It still comes to the question of your life among invisible but real influences.
Those who are conversant with astrology will recognize that the internal relations in people form different patterns. Some are concentrated, some scattered. Some are torn between competing impulses, some move from one to another as life proceeds.
Mary Jones and his seven (I think) underlying patterns: bundle, locomotive, basket and handle, etc., It has been a good while, but I get what you are saying. Of course he expressed these relationships considering the individual in isolation.
And, you see, you all will find yourselves translating knowledge in many fields. It isn’t that your predecessors were wrong, it is that you are proceeding from a new viewpoint which puts things in different perspective.
Our point here is that some people are born knowing what they are and what they want and what they want to do. We would say they are in the midst of forces that line up harmoniously.
Others start out confused, or let’s say torn, and never do get their feet on the ground, but are pulled from enthusiasm to enthusiasm, or perhaps from plight to plight, and never have any sense of control.
And, as usual, everyone else is in between these two extremes. You may have great sureness in one aspect of life and little or none in another. You may be sure now, then change and be sure of your different opinion. You may spend your life altering viewpoint and values without being disoriented or discouraged.
In whichever of the three conditions you find yourself, remember this: You always have access to your truth (which will lead you to what you want to do and be: that is, to your intent). However, neither you nor anyone else has access to The Truth in the sense of truth that can only be seen one way.
Your truth is your polestar – but it is only for you. Others may or may not come to the same place, but this won’t be because they share your truth; it is because their truth and yours coincide.
I had thought you intended to give us tips on how to discern our own intent, when it is not evident.
Rather, we call your attention to the fact that you often leave your intent unclarified. You don’t need any helpful hints on how to find your intent: Listen to your own non-3D component (which means, you realize, to your own mind) and it will give you your road map.
I keep getting the impulse to list the sins and virtues. Is that for next time?
You may and it won’t hurt anything, but next time we will probably look at your strands and how they change you, and vice versa, and why.
That should prove interesting. Okay, the virtues: Prudence, Temperance, Justice, Fortitude, Faith, Hope, Charity.
The sins: Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Covetousness, Anger, Price, and Sloth or Ennui. (My mnemonic LEG CAPS or LEG CAPE.)
I don’t know why I should list them, but that was the urge I had, from the time you mentioned them. Thank you for all this. Till next time.