Truths and half-truths

Tuesday, February 22, 2022

4:45 a.m. Morning, gentlemen. At your service, assuming you’re ready to play. Setting switches for maximum focus, receptivity, clarity, presence.

Yesterday we tried to show that any life in 3D affected both itself and the world in general, necessarily. This is only common sense, yet it is easily lost sight of. So let’s look at the schism in peoples practical cosmology; that is, habitual disregard of one half of the question in considering the other.

Well, it seems egotistical to think of one’s life as mattering to the world, and it seems starry-eyed, in a way, to think of the world mattering to oneself. And of course this is a major cause of the difficulty we have in our lives.

Of course it is. How can you find meaning when you are refusing to consider either half of the equation?

Thus your attempt, over the course of my entire lifetime, to carry me from a Christian to a post-Christian to a Monrovian (call it) cosmology, and to whatever we’re doing now, pointing toward an integrated cosmology that probably won’t really gel for decades or even centuries to come.

Yes, but no. It is true that the emerging global civilization will require time to coalesce, to discover and discover, to coordinate discoveries, to rediscover different civilizations’ lost knowledge – and see their own in a new light – and that this is necessarily beyond the lifespan of any generation, let alone any individual. But it is also true that this threshing process goes on continually. Every new age is a mixture of coalescence and differentiation, and what is the individual to do while waiting for a final coalescence that never arrives?

Yes, I get it. On the one hand, our civilization is being put together; on the other hand we who live our lives out need something to live by, and need it here, now.

And you are thinking, “But that means we are always being led to live half-truths.” But consider. Necessarily, you being in 3D with its inherent limitations, of course you are living half-truths. That is practically a definition of 3D, the separation of the whole into manageable parts. You cannot expect to know the truth. The best you can do is live your truth – and by that, we don’t mean seize something arbitrarily and decide that your particular fragment goes for one and all. We mean, live as deeply and sincerely as you can, and you will be living out one aspect of the truth, which is as much as anyone can do.

Thus, a million religions and philosophies, some realizing that they are only partial, but most thinking that they are “the truth” because they deeply experience whatever part of the truth they do experience.

If it were possible for a group or an individual to know and live the truth, don’t you suppose everyone would know it by now? And let’s keep the discussion practical. Do you as an individual really feel like you have “the truth” in your grasp? (As usual, we address this to anyone reading this.)

I think some people come into life with a deep thrust for the truth, and settle for nothing less.

Yes. But do they – do you – feel that they have found it, or do they feel, at best, that they are hot in pursuit but still not there; or, at worst, that they realize they can’t get it all, and feel perhaps a sense of defeat, perhaps of despair?

I can’t speak for others. For myself, I realized some while ago that despite my best efforts, I would have to die ignorant, because what there is to know is so far beyond what anyone can possibly learn.

And the next step for you, which you did take but don’t always remember to mention, was to realize that something so universal can’t be wrong. That is, if everybody must necessarily die ignorant, it can’t be a system malfunction, let alone an individual malfunction.

Well, that’s true. I sort of resigned myself to the fact, without blaming myself as a lazy dog and without blaming the creators of the scheme of things as incompetent or malicious. But I didn’t consciously take the next step – obvious, as you say it – of realizing that there’s nothing wrong with the situation.

This, even after we told you, and Rita realized, that leaning goes on forever.

That’s true. It has me smiling at my own inability to take that further step. If learning goes on forever, where is the possibility of knowing everything?

Besides, we told you, relatively recently, reality continues to change, to develop, as circumstances proceed. The rats never catch up with changes in the maze. Said smiling.

I’ll add that to the other insulting analogies you’ve used over the years. Smiling too, of course; I suppose people miss that playful element between us sometimes, though it seems we’re heavy-handed enough in telling them.

So then, consider: If you will never know “the truth” but only such aspects of it that are in line with your receptors, so to speak, what is your task in 3D, and your opportunity, and your responsibility? What, relative to you yourself, and what, relative to the world you live in?

Rather than my floundering around, why not just tell me?

Indulge us. Even your wrong answers or your acknowledgements of uncertainty may prove to be of value in clarifying your understanding, in a way that merely having something said to you can never be.

All right, well – my task, opportunity, and responsibility.

For me as an individual (in its largest sense, presumably). You have said many times, we are here to create ourselves. It seems to me that this is, at once, task and opportunity and responsibility.

That is true, but superficial or, let’s say, is too comprehensive. Look at it in detail.

Well, let’s see.

Task. It’s an on-going challenge, to be as conscious as I can be, to actually live in such a way as not to waste my life in drift and superficial concerns.

Opportunity. If I live that way, I can attain greater effective consciousness, perhaps, creating a more satisfying union of the elements that live together within me.

Responsibility. If I’m the only one who can make the most of this on-going experiment in creating an individual out of mixed elements, I suppose I need to take it seriously!

Then what about your relations with the rest of the world?

That’s a little more difficult, at least I have found it so.

Task. I suppose, to relate to others as sincerely and consciously as possible. I don’t know how else to describe relations between anyone and anyone else.

Opportunity. We swap notes as we go along. We use each other as mirrors, or as fellow companions. We engage in joint enterprises. We enrich each other’s lives. I don’t see how we can maximize such opportunities if we don’t live and relate sincerely and consciously.

Responsibility. Well, as Galen said, “First, do no harm.” [For what it’s worth, it was Hippocrates, not Galen, as I found out in searching while transcribing.] At the least it is important not to do harm consciously, and at best (or, anyway, better) important not to do harm inadvertently if possible. It probably isn’t possible to live never hurting anyone even by accident, but I’d say we have a responsibility to try to be so aware that we don’t.

Now, these two lists are your response. We suggest that others would compile responses quite different. And again, there’s nothing wrong in that. Differences are quite as important as concurrences. It is only people who think they have “the truth” who can’t see this.

Now, next time perhaps we can look at this in terms of individuals at very different levels. Communities, associations, countries, etc., for, as we said recently, they are individuals too. So what is their part in things?

Today’s theme?

“Facing two directions,” perhaps?

People might find that a trifle opaque, seems to me.

Then perhaps, “Task, opportunity, and responsibility in 3D lives.”

That may work. All right, thanks for all this, and see you next time.

[A few minutes later:]

Re-reading this, it seems like “Truths and half-truths” might be better.

Your choice, always.