Tuesday, November 15, 2022
6:15 a.m. So, guys, shall we talk about “life more abundantly”?
We can.
Am I correct – oh hell, I know I am correct in assuming that my dream reflected on the situation.
[The dream:
[I was being made to sign a book that I owned, that had been given to me and had two signatures already, one at the top of the page and one at the bottom. I was signing it under duress, but didn’t particularly care what they had in mind – some trick or bit of planted evidence, I imagined. Nothing I could do about it. Oh, maybe it applies to my feeling that people are using TGU’s implied authority as support for anything they want to say. In that case, I see the point: Not my doing, nothing I can do to prevent it, might as well shrug. Thanks, that was a fast clarification.
[Yes, the point was that they were going to pretend that my signature had been there right along. For all I knew, they were framing somebody – maybe me, even – but since there was nothing I could do, no point in stressing over it. I could, though, sign very prominently, in huge letters taking up most of the page, to try to make whatever they had in mind unworkable. Maye that’s part of the message, too. Be sure it is seen as my work.]
So what do you think, should we publicly discuss the situation? Or merely the meaning of life more abundantly? Or the productive and unproductive ways to go onward? Or my personal quirks and foibles? Or what?
You are experiencing conflict between parts of yourself – but it seems to you that it is conflict between you and “other.” That’s generally how such internal conflicts do express: as if with something external.
Well, that was an unexpected response. Say on.
One part of you takes pride in the work you have done, beginning with conventionally accepted ideas about how to proceed, how to develop certain abilities, how to express both the certainties and the uncertainties, the faith and the doubt, the confidence and the lack of confidence. It has been a sustained intent over many years, and it has produced tangible and intangible results.
But another part of you feels defeated, almost anxious, wondering how what you have learned will ever get out into the world on a significant scale.
A third part of you is tempted to claim ownership, to say, I know what this is all about, what it is leading to: In short, what it means.
Another part of you says, I am but an instrument of providence, and glad to be a part of whatever it is.
Another part says, “How about give me some credit, here?” And it is coexisting with a part that says, “This is way beyond questions of credit. Individual contributions can’t really be seen, so shouldn’t enter into it.”
I see it. They all coexist, and I am more or less aware of them, but I don’t identify with any of them. So they fight it out as part of the “external” world.
That’s the way it works. People who want a peaceful world might first work on themselves, to be sure they aren’t feeding the fires by what they are, as it constellates into what seems external to them.
Well, can we begin with one specific? I realize that many people may not be understanding the phrase “life more abundantly.” It seems to me you have spelled it out more than once, but it isn’t getting through.
And what did you just realize, writing that?
It’s part of my pattern, isn’t it? Knowing something and therefore thinking that I had clearly expressed it.
You will remember your observation of your father, thinking that if he knew something, others around him should know it too.
And Bob Friedman, the same way. It is only recently that I have realized that I do it too.
Anything that irritates you in others is a good hint that it is an unsuspected trait of your own. That’s a pretty general rule.
Well, I wish you’d gotten that through to me, decades ago.
How were we to do that? That’s the point – one point, anyway – of 3D interactions: The world mirrors to you your own unsuspected features so as to give you an opportunity to become aware of them. But you have to have eyes to see. That is, you have to be able to and willing to see it. “Able to” is a matter sometimes of acquiring experience and reflecting on it. “Willing to” is usually a matter of character. Neither one can be (nor should be) forced from the non-3D.
So now, life more abundantly.
For one thing, you consistently overestimate people’s familiarity with the gospels, hence with the sayings of Jesus. You will note, we don’t usually quote from the Old Testament, nor form the epistles. All we quote from – and all you ever really used to read – is about Jesus, and less about Jesus than what he was recorded as having said.
Therefore, when you quote Jesus without naming him, you tend to expect that people will recognize the silent attribution.
But aren’t we talking about your statements?
That’s a disputed question. Yes it is our thought, yes the flow comes through you as it is doing now, but are we speaking Swahili? Apache? German, even? We are speaking what you know. How could we express anything you didn’t know – even if one or another of your Strands did know – except through a trance medium? And you and we agree that this would not be desirable in your case. So, yes, our statements, but your language, assumptions, implied meanings, etc. This is a joint production, and, indeed, making clear that such things always are joint productions is part of what you have accomplished.
All right. Your clearest statement, then, of what you have been meaning all this time when you refer to life more abundantly. And – I hear it, you want me to state and you to correct the statement if necessary. Why that way?
Because less strain on you to put it in your own words, so you don’t have to imagine people saying, “He put that in their mouths but it’s really him.” That’s just one of your insecurities, so we’re working around it.
Okay. Well, I have been hearing from the beginning – seems to me maybe when we were examining the Gospel of Thomas, but maybe earlier – that you were explicating what Jesus meant when he said that he came that we might have life more abundantly. Whenever it was, it was a clear and direct attribution.
True enough. And?
I seem to remember you making it clear (though I would have thought it clear already) that he was not talking about some future reward, some hypothetical afterlife door prize, but meant right here, right now.
We did.
And it always seemed clear to me that life more abundantly meant a richer, fuller, less obstructed, less fearful, less diminished life.
It did.
This has nothing to do with possessions or fame or any kind of satisfaction – except as side-effect of the real attainment.
All true.
So I don’t see where the ambiguity comes in.
No, it’s clear to you as you said it. Can you see that someone from another background would interpret things differently?
What I seem to see is people clinging to their assumptions and trying to hammer this in somewhere, rather than really thinking about it.
Don’t you suppose Jesus had the same problem? Do you think any teaching ever met a universally open response? You may have expected that our stuff would get that kind of response; we didn’t. So we are not disappointed. Just as you are slowly learning the futility of trying to persuade anyone of anything, so you can remember that people take what they can use. Not only does everyone do it, there isn’t anything wrong with it, if you think of these things as sparks rather than as dogma.
Yes, I see that that is what I do when I read something; I pick and choose. I can even see that although this may look like perverting the meaning of what I’ve read, from another point of view it is using what I have read to help make new connections. But. And it is a big “however”: not every interpretation is equally correct.
No, of course not, but the important thing is not how closely someone follows the argument, but how much it does or doesn’t help them hear their own internal voice.
Ah. That puts a different light on it. And of course that isn’t something that anyone else can be held responsible for.
Only do your best, and leave the universe to function. It has been doing this a good while.
Smiling. Thanks, this actually did clarify things. I think I’ll include my dream, too. What shall we call this?
“Interpretations.”
Okay. Our thanks as always.