The higher self (from April, 2018)

Friday, April 27, 2018

We are encouraging you to think of reality in a different way, a more comprehensive way, than is usually adopted. Rather than concentrating on human life as it is experienced in the physical world, we brought in the non-physical world which, for a long time, you considered separately. Then we helped you to integrate your thinking, so that your new normal “default” position was of human life as being lived in All-D, as All-D beings. No “normal” versus “psychic” life, but life, all one thing.

In fact, 3D-plus-Non-3D is not your larger being. 3D-plus-Non-3D is your accustomed being, what you might call your lower selves, not your higher selves. Reintegrating your non-3D components into your self-definition was an important advance, but the All-D self is still your accustomed self, not your higher self. You might say it is you as you live on earth, only with all your senses functioning.

Your higher self is the part of you that is not confined to your 3D existence, but is prior to it.

Spirit, as opposed to soul.

Yes, but it is well to remind your readers that those terms are not interchangeable.

• Soul may be considered to be spirit as it is bound in one specific 3D life situation. It is the Frankness of Frank, the mind of Frank.
• Spirit is the essence that is expressing this time as Frank, another time as Bertram, or Joseph, etc. Of course when we say “time” in this context, we mean “general situation.”

Yes, I get that. Spirit cannot be changed by the events of physical life (as far as I know), whereas the whole point of physical life from our perspective is to change the soul.

To allow the soul to determine changes, yes.

Now, in identifying “spirit” with “higher self,” we will be stitching together two concepts that many people have held in not-interconnecting mental boxes. For others, still recoiling from anything smacking of religion, the very word “spirit” may be suspect, or may be rejected out of hand. But this stitching-together is necessary if we are to sketch a broader view of what you are, and what you are doing here, and what it’s all about.

So, let us say your Sam – the origin and interconnection of so many past or other lives – is in effect your higher self. This will serve as effective scaffolding. Seen this way, you will see a couple of things.

• Sam as we define it is not God, not in any sense the ultimate creator, not in any sense the connector of all beings, the common field of being. Your Sam is the common denominator of Frank and Joseph and Bertram and so on, not the common field of everyone else’s lives. There are fewer Sams than human lives “past,” “present,” and “future,” but that still leaves room for plenty of Sams!
• A Sam, then, though not the ultimate creator or the ultimate source of life or form, is nonetheless a being at an entirely different level of existence than an All-D human.

It is our greater mind, to which we sometimes have access when we are particularly connected.

It is to you as you are to your kidneys, or your lungs. It is a higher order of intelligence and awareness, primarily concerned with other things.

How far can we push “As above, so below” in this instance?

Pretty far, actually. Consider your everyday mind in relation to your lungs.

• Your lungs do not read books or watch films. The things you think about or experience directly or vicariously are invisible to them, and would be meaningless to a lung if it could somehow perceive them.
• Yet, the state of your lungs affects your life. You depend upon their functioning, and if they malfunction, you are affected.
• Conversely, the lungs are sensitive to your condition. The effects of emotion may affect the lungs, but of course they cannot know what caused the change in their condition. Not only do they not know what changed the chemical balance, they cannot even appreciate that there is a balance to be considered.
• So, you, in connection to the higher self, the Sam. It is an indissoluble link, but it is also alien to your accustomed world.

I get that you said that just as we and our physical organs have different levels of perception and intelligence, and so in effect live in different worlds, so we in All-D are similarly separated from the next higher level up, which we are calling a Sam. We are intimately tied together, but we are of different levels of consciousness, hence live in different world, among different concerns.

Good enough. Now, can you imagine that your liver cares about your politics or your economic situation or the films and novels you ingest? Conversely, can you imagine even comprehending, let alone being fascinated by, the day-to-day mental life (call it) of your liver? They are two different worlds, and rightly so, and the fact that they can be seen as parts of one thing (as they are) does not change the fact of their difference.

Similarly, can you imagine that your Sam cares about your politics or your economic condition, etc.? Because it is a higher order of consciousness, your Sam can comprehend these things. It can be aware of your struggles and amusements and progress and regress, in the same way that you as an All-D creature can become aware of the vicissitudes a lung experiences. A higher level comprehends – includes, incorporates – a lower level, but not vice-versa.

As you say that, I am reminded of E. F. Schumacher in A Guide for the Perplexed discussing the medieval concept of adequatio.

That was in a slightly different context, but the concept is worth exploring, and can be found, presumably, by a search on the computer.

In short, it says you can’t comprehend something if your level of being is inadequate to hold it.

Our point here has been to caution you that it is a mistake to think that your higher self is merely you with a telescope, or you with fewer obstacles to your understanding. What you are describing in such cases is not your higher self but your All-D self when seen more completely.

Your higher self is qualitatively different from your All-D self, and the sooner you realize it, the sooner your vision will clear.

Again, we do not say these things merely so you may skim over them and nod approvingly. To benefit from new ideas – to even fully realize the newness in them – you must mull them, must ponder, must knead the dough to leaven the lump.

[Found this: https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/08/22/schumacher-adaequatio-understanding/]