Monday, May 13, 2024
4:30 a.m. Yesterday it seemed you intend to continue by saying that what we’re dealing with is not everything.
That isn’t the best way to put it. Let us just say that there is no way for any discussion to include everything. No mental space, however abstract what it is dealing with may be, can hold everything. There is no possibility of expressing a final Truth that can’t later be seen more clearly. This is not a flaw nor a punishment nor a lack of skill; it is merely a fact of life. The finite cannot comprehend – that is, embody, even mentally – that which is not bounded. Anything that is not limited has no sharp edges. You understand? It has no endings. It is like asking “Where does space end, or where does time end?” the question as posed cannot be answered, not because you don’t know enough, but because the questions silently compound incompatible assumptions.
Like, “How many angels could dance on the point of a needle.”
Yes. You might as well ask what color Heaven is, or how much does it weigh, or what is its tensile strength, or what is its monetary value.
We repeat, there’s nothing wrong with not knowing everything, especially if you are aware that you don’t know everything.
I think you are saying, by indirection, “Stick to what you can know.”
Well, you like to keep things practical. And why not? What is the advantage to going into the im-practical? By “practical” we don’t mean “useable.” It is a perfectly valid function to learn something that can’t be put to some practical use. What is not worthwhile is to pretend you are gathering what can’t be gotten. And of course the joker in that particular deck is that you can’t always know what is or is not within reach.
So let us return to the question of The Meaning of Life, remembering that from a higher perspective than we can attain, perhaps it all looks quite different. And of course, at a practical level, The Meaning of Life always means “The Meaning of My Life.” Could there be a general meaning that did not include the specific? And, if that were possible, what good would it do anybody to satisfy idle curiosity?
I can think of a reason.
To demolish competing error? Perhaps. But what good would that do, finally? Knowledge either is or is not practical for a given person.
But can’t that change over time?
What is or isn’t practical? Yes, of course it can. Why else would the same old story need to be put into new form as the ages roll on?
- A given age acquires an understanding of how the world is. That understanding is not learned by individuals, as much as absorbed through the cultural atmosphere.
- Folk tales, traditions, superstitions, attitudes, habits, assumptions – everything in life reflects that understanding.
- It is not a matter of conscious creation: It is a matter of sensitivity to the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the age.
- Now, people living in that age think, perhaps. They begin to be dissatisfied with the myth they have been raised on. Their thought may not be more profound than the myth; it may be, and often is, shallower. But it is different.
- For whatever reason, one age of development passes into another. The myth by which people live changes, to greater or lesser degree. Effectively, the world changes, because of course all you can know of the world is filtered through your beliefs.
- This altered understanding permeates the social life in the same way as before; it is in the air people breathe. And again, over time, thought, external circumstance, many things, go into the alteration of the zeitgeist.
- Externally, the times change, as measured by astrology. Internally they change, measured by anthropology or sociology or psychology. The change is real, and not less so because it is not of strictly internal or strictly external origin. Indeed, that is a measure of how real a thing is – how far it extends.
- All this talk of change and of different understandings involves non-3D and 3D interaction both, of course. That is the nature of 3D life. But it is easy for you as observer of life to underestimate one or the other factor.
We have said more than once that any new age is going to incorporate different materials than did the previous one. It will resurrect some things from the taint of superstition – the mantic arts, for example – and will relegate some previous beliefs into the category of superstition – the idea of meaningless coincidence, for example. Until the new view coheres, it will feel sometimes like a jumble. Until the proper organizing principle appears, you will live in several worlds, changing your viewpoint perhaps every few minutes.
And you have been providing us the organizing principle. I got that.
Not the organizing principle, but one of them. No age has only one organizing principle. It is the conflict among organizing principles within a common worldview that makes an age. For instance, in your present age that is passing away, any of several organizing principles may be a person’s anchor, while yet all people share a common approach.
- A religious person may believe in God, may see reality through that lens.
- A materialist may believe what can be experienced by the senses, by “common sense.”
- A politically active person may share either of the two beliefs but center on the question of how to shape or reshape society.
- A scientist, too, may be either religious or materialist and may be interested only in understanding some aspect of the world more completely.
- And on and on. You can extend the list merely by thinking of the kind of lives people live, and of course there is no need to restrict refinement to what people do for a living. It is approach, not how that approach is channeled, that we refer to here.
As it is now, so it has always been and will always be: No matter what the age, it will comprise multiple organizing principles and will be all the richer for it.
So, we are providing you one way to better understand the world and your place in it. The fact that contradictory or overlapping or complementary views will also thrive is not reason for worry, nor a sign of failure. This is not a zero-sum game.
And I gather that it is not only among us but within us that multiple viewpoints may contend.
Of course. And this ties in with the various threads you comprise. Bertram the Norman monk has a very different view of life than you do, or than Joseph Smallwood does, or than does the other Joseph – the Egyptian priest. You all share certain values; that doesn’t mean you see them in the same way or in the same context.
That seems obvious a you say it, but I hadn’t yet put it together.
Everything we have said today is obvious once you see the connection, and may be obscure until then.
This feels now like a long lead-up to seeing threads differently.
Not differently, perhaps, so much as in a different context. This shows you how threads not only help shape you, but how, in so doing, they bring something of other ages into your active psychic space.
Enough for now. Next time, perhaps we will say more about the interaction of threads through time and among different ages and organizing principles. We are tying you as individuals in 3D to you as part of the non-3D mesh, you see.
Well, I do, sort of. I’ll take your world for where we’re going. Thanks as always.