Guest Posting: Ruth Shilling on the Joy State

[Ruth Shilling takes me up on my offer to post people’s offerings. I hope she will submit more, and i hope others will, as well. I think many will find this of great interest.]

 

Dialogue with the Mentors/about the Joy-State

from Ruth Shilling

5 June 2024

M: You are here. We are now. You can begin anywhere, but now is always the time.

R: There is no other.

M: Yes, you know this now, but there are more layers to this. There is the indescribable present as spoken in your conscious memory bank of experiences, and there is the “real” present, the one to which we would care to address in our dialogue with you here today. The understandings – as you perceive them – are a multi-layered sense of things as you have organized them in your own “cataloguing” of what you deem to be true in any given moment or time period of your awareness.

R: I am finding this transmission unsteady. What could improve this?

M: Just stick with this. It will even out with time.

R: OK. Please proceed.

M: The matter-of-fact-ness of what you assume is true in any given instant is “clear” to you at any given time, but the processing time has not been acknowledged or accounted for. It behooves you, now, to change this paradigm or way of processing of the information/insights which drop into your awarenesses, often in an unexpected manner. You believe, and we emphasize “believe” here, that all is thus and so in your world because that is just how the perceptions have come through to you. But, believe it or not experience of the oneness in manifest forms here. This is just one method of having this earthly

There are other ways to be participating in this ongoing experience(s). You can and will have other options, should you choose to avail yourself of these. You can, for example, begin each experience of the cosmic oneness with a playful attitude or stance, an unexpecting, a newness.

R: Beginner’s mind?

M: In a sense. However, we find that phrase to be laden with disciplinary associations. Those associations, in and of themselves, will muddy the joyfulness that we intend to impart with this example “for your perusal,” so to speak. Like a new bicycle or a toy train that lights you up for pleasure and investigations simultaneously. This is closer to that which we wish to impart with this analogy. A delight is much more powerful, tantalizing and uplifting than a steady-as-you-go approach (which is one we are not recommending here now in this instance).

R: How do I actually do this?

.M: Good question! We are delighted that you have “taken the bait,” so to speak, and are now an inquiring mind that wants to know Of course your actions throughout your day can tend to fall into a number of general categories.

• You can mull something over, make a decision, and then act on it.
• You can describe something within yourself and then push it aside – create a non-action stance with it.
• You can simply savor the moments as they “come down the pike” and wait to see what happens next.
• Or – we hear you thinking now – you can wait for an impulse and fly with it.
• Or (as you are thinking now) an intent can be set. This figures into #1, but has perhaps a slightly different flavor in that there is overall intent but not pre-planned specific actions attached to that.

All in all, you have a number of different modes that you will operate in throughout your day. What has not been articulated here, however, is this other “3rd mode,” this other expansion-mode that we are bringing to your attention today.

R: Is this like expanding my awareness out so that I have a wider perception, a bit like a combination of the detachment state and 360-degree awareness that permeates everything in my surroundings as well as within myself?

[Note the Glossary of Ruth’s Terms below]

M: Yes, this is closer to what we are intending to explicate.

Re: More like the witness-experiencer state?

M: Yes, this is our intention.

R: I remember it was joyous.

M: Yes! And delicious, as well. Why not tempt yourself with this pleasure each day? Enjoy! Appreciate, immerse, pledge your present experiences to this expanded state of unity that does not lose the personal-self one iota.

R: Thank you! I am surprised I have put this so far into the back burner, when I could be enjoying my life so much more.

M: Yes! Have FUN! What can deter you from such ecstasies? Only your humdrum ideas about ought-tos and shoulds and shouldn’ts!

R: OK. Great. I think this is good for today. Thank you, thank you.

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Glossary of Ruth’s personal terms

Detachment state: When I move my point of perception outside of my head, either to the side or behind and up a bit.

360-degree awareness: At one point when I was meditating a lot, I was able to spread my awareness out into everything around me. It was like every molecule of air or object in the room had thousands of eyes and could see everything from that point. I could see what was behind my head and also what was on the opposite side of objects in front of me. I read later that this 360-degree awareness sometimes happens to soldiers in the battlefield. So it is a way of perceiving that is possible for us.

Witness-experiencer: This state first happened for me spontaneously about 30 years ago. I leaned sideways and 3 ribs popped out of their place in my backbone. I went into a dual-perception state where I was aware of two radically different experiences happening simultaneously. One was me crying and screaming in pain, and the other was me feeling totally at peace and happy, even joyous. Everything was just fine. Afterwards, I experimented with going into that witness-experiencer state voluntarily. The steps I came up with were 1) suspend thinking, 2) move the focus into my heart and absorb my experience there, 3) move my point of focus up and to the right side in the air. Once I “tuned my radio dial” into that way of perceiving, my experience was perpetual joy. From this state EVERY experience was delicious and interesting. Everything was completely focused in the exact moment. No past, no future, except as a thought in the present. And every experience was new, like it had never happened before.

Even if I was in pain, like with the ribs accident, there was no sadness or upset. Everything was just fine. The only experience other than the up-beat joyous experience was a sort of compassion when I was in pain. My guess is that many meditation practices are attempting to help people access this state. It was abundantly clear at the time that everyone is actually having this experience all the time, but our focus is just not tuned to that part of our radio dial.