Friday, September 17, 2021
7:30 a.m. So, to continue on “The meaning of any one life.”
Slide-switches?
Right. Okay.
On the one hand, “Man is the measure of all things.” On the other, every new layer of development is in effect a new form, a new kind of creature. Try to keep in mind that both statements are true. What you are essentially does not change. How that manifests does change; that is the multiplicity of the world, of reality.
I think you are saying, we and everything around us are all mind-stuff (or however we ought to characterize the substance from which the 3D illusion of matter is created), and that nevertheless the identical essence takes many forms.
Let that stand for the moment; it isn’t exactly wrong. But our point is slightly different. We are working to give you practical instruction, remember, not generalized statements pretending to explain everything.
What is impractical in the way I said it?
Where do you go from where you left it? What avenues does it suggest?
I figured that was your business. I was just summarizing.
We said it wasn’t wrong, but it isn’t helpful particularly, either.
You do it, then. Maybe we’ll learn something from the difference between my summary and yours.
Yours serves as a capsule summary of the situation in the way “All is well” does, or “As above, so below.” True but not particularly illustrative. We would put it more like this:
- Reality is structured fractally, with each level repeating above and below.
- Reality is holographic, as you know, with each speck containing the whole, rather than like a jigsaw puzzle with multiple different but interlocking and interdependent pieces.
- Reality is structured of stuff beyond matter (and therefore beyond energy, matter being merely energy slowed and bound into patterns).
- Therefore, you are made of that same stuff; are holographic in nature; are fractal in nature. It can be hard to really remember this, but it is so, and of course, being so, has consequences. You really should devote time to pondering this point.
You are saying, “Where are the boundaries? There can’t be boundaries.”
There can’t, not ultimately. Haven’t we been saying it, right along? “You are not alone” means a lot more than “You as an individual are connected to other 3D and non-3D individuals.”
- Just as you connect via strands past present and future, so you connect vertically, let’s call it. Fractally. You incorporate communities of lesser consciousness-bodies, and you are an element of a greater consciousness-body, which is itself an element of a greater consciousness-body. (You understand, because of the limitations of language we use words like “consciousness-body.” Seize on the underlying idea; don’t be thrown off by specific words or their implications.)
- Therefore you, each “you” that exists in this fractal, holographic, beyond-material world, partake of the consciousness of all of it, and of what is behind and beyond it. That you are not particularly aware of it should not surprise you: 3D forces you to concentrate on only a few things, and the nature of the brain structures your mental picture by filtering out the vast majority of input before you can even be aware of it.
That’s all theoretical in a way; descriptive but not prescriptive. But it has implications that do point you toward possibilities. Knowing what you are helps you see the limits and the lack of limits.
We sort of choked, that last sentence. I don’t know what you wanted to say, but I don’t think it was that, exactly.
You were worried about repeating the word “possibilities,” and it got in the way. Knowing what you are helps you to see what is possible and what isn’t, because it clarifies what is real and what is illusion.
Any one life is unique, by definition, no matter how little it may seem to differ from others. An analogy we used once, that you may remember, is of a field of grass. The context and the point were different, but it is a sound analogy. If you are a blade of grass, you will be roughly similar to every other blade of grass. You won’t be identical because there are so many minor and major factors that go into the production of grass, but the point is that someone looking at the field of grass will at one and the same time see the similarities and the differences and probably won’t register any of it, instead registering “field of grass” as a unit. If all the blades of grass were identical, or if each blade had nothing in common with the other blades, it would not be a field of grass, but something of a different nature, even if it were called the same.
And I take it each unique but not very unique blade of grass has its special uses, not merely as an extra in the movie called “field of grass.”
It can be hard to convey, mostly because you all have ideas of your significance that are at the same time inflated and diminished. That is, you don’t see yourselves straight. You think you are individual and will continue beyond death as you are now; yet you think you are insignificant and “could be replaced by a button,” as people used to say.
Think in terms of precision. What if you while confined in a body in one moment of 3D time/space are a precision instrument, reporting on and altering the tiny bit of reality that is in your charge? What if you are biting off as much as you can chew, in living your life consciously? You like the expression, “God has no hands to use but ours.” How is that different from “God senses and interacts with the 3D reality through us”? Yes, it is phrased in theological terms, but it need not be. It is only a manner of speaking.
Meaning that we often mistake our higher selves, our larger beings, for God?
Certainly it happens. But definitions are prisons. The important thing is to get to the reality that the definition is attempting to convey.
The Sufis say, “Words are a prison. God is free.”
Yes, and even there they say “God,” an implied separation, therefore an implied definition. But it can’t be helped; that is language and sequential processing.
Here is the point: Everyone, everything, is irreplaceable, necessary, functional, living. Everything is part of larger things and is made up of communities of smaller things. Nothing is or ever could be disposable, irrelevant, broken, dead. Nothing is or ever could be orphaned or without issue. “Things” of course is misleading, but we are constrained by the limits of language, of course.
This is not a theoretical statement, not a glib generality. It has consequences. Surely it is obvious that if you are a unique participant, you are by definition particularly suited to do what you are inclined to do.
As in, “Follow your bliss”?
Campbell had the idea, certainly. Why would anyone be drawn irresistibly toward anything that was not inherently part of itself?
You mean, I guess, “part of his or her nature”?
Same statement, really. For the moment, let us pause with this: The meaning of any individual life is set out before it, and cannot be substituted for something else. One may live one’s intended life or choose other paths or even try deliberately to do contrary things (for some people rebel against a sense of being manipulated, which is how it takes some people when they experience the inner flywheel resisting their deviation from course). That is what free will is, after all. But react as one will, still you will be reacting against a definite and singular situation. You couldn’t help being in a singular situation if you tried to be.
And I suppose we will continue along this line.
We will see what the future brings. No need to try to set the agenda, if you remember the interrupted business.
Okay, till next time, then, and our thanks as always.