Sunday, March 10, 2024
The only creative thing I have done lately in writing is retrieving and adapting pieces of “Graduation” for the blog. Charles finds it worthwhile; I’m not sure that I do, except in the freeing that comes from expressing things I have never said.
Guys, if you would, some clarity? On this or on anything I ought to be thinking about (or realizing)?
Everything has its season. It grows, it flourishes, it withers and departs. This, whether one talks about friendship, or ambition or the practice of a skill, or almost anything in life. The Buddhists say: Impermanence. You know this abstractly, intellectually, but it is true at the deepest emotional levels as well.
Well, I have thought a philosophy of taking what comes is based in a knowledge of impermanence.
Not exactly. It is based, more, on surrender. Not “surrender” in the sense of “I give up,” nor of any sense of powerlessness, but of surrendering the will of the less competent to the more competent.
Keeping my own hands off the wheel so as not to interfere with the grownups driving?
Not that either. It is a form of active cooperation, though usually not thought of that way. Your left hand works as a unit to allow you to write. But what does that mean? It means that in order for the hand to write, the various fingers and the thumb and the wrist and even the forearm have to work together. Some muscles or muscle-systems have to remain relatively quiescent if the hand is to be able to form letters. And of course you can extend the metaphor far beyond even the arm. If your right hand were to insist on “doing its own thing” while you were trying to write with your left, it would interfere. And on and on.
It becomes a problem of definition, doesn’t it?
Yes it does, though we would prefer “a matter of definition” to “a problem of definition.” It isn’t a problem, it is a decision.
Spell it out for us, if you would.
It should scarcely be necessary. If you define yourself as an individual in 3D that does not extend into non-3D, you are going to experience a different world than if you define yourself in a larger, more comprehensive way. If you see yourself as a 3D-plus-non-3D unit that is separate from the rest of creation, you will live in a different world than if you define yourself as a 3D-plus-non-3D being that includes strands from other lives. And so on.
What is meditation but an experiencing of yourself in an intuitive non-sequential way as opposed to the logical sequential way your experience yourself when entangled in words? Again, a matter of definition.
This seems a jump that you didn’t quite prepare us for.
Why? It is another example of the same thing. If you define yourself as a sequential being (what is loosely called left-brain), you will suppress all those things that would otherwise show you that you are also a non-sequential being living in the wordless now (roughly called right-brain). It is the same thing. What you call yourself, that you will experience yourself to be – unless and until an anomalous experience knocks you out of your comfort zone. And – parenthetically – where do you think those anomalous experiences come from, if not from unknown parts of yourself?
Now to answer your question more directly – the question you mean to ask, though not yet said – how does one surrender individual control and yet at the same time live life responsibly?
Yes, exactly. I find I can’t put it into words very well, but it is something like: How can I be receptive to the moment without surrendering my legitimate responsibilities? Or, looked at the other way, how can I do what I want (or let’s say what I ought to want, ignoring for the moment all the questions that “ought to” raises) without taking over more than I ought to? And there’s “ought” again.
You are asking a question for which there are as many correct answers as there are people. One man’s meat, another man’s poison.
All right, let’s talk about me specifically (or anybody else specific you wish to use, but one example): How does it work?
Let us limn a theoretical, then, not worrying about biographical accuracy. Let us suppose one’s priorities are effective action in the 3D and in the non-3D. Can you see why metaphysical wisdom says one leads either in non-3D or in 3D, but not both?
Did we say that as well as it needs to be said?
Perhaps not. Let’s restate: Wisdom maintains that one is at home in 3D or non-3D, though of course necessarily living in both. Can you see that one’s center of gravity cannot be in both?
No, I can’t, not yet. I don’t see why it can’t be one thing, spanning the division.
So you intend to span the unbridgeable difference between two realms? One with laws designed to focus attention on one time-space and the other designed to allow free ranging among all possibilities. One a pressure cooker designed to enable and require choice; the other the freedom of formlessness. One, focused here, now, even if not mindfully. The other focused within itself, not focused by externals. How do you propose to bridge that gap?
But aren’t we bridging it every minute, by living?
Well, yes. Let us restate it: How do you propose to concentrate in two ways, to aim in two opposing directions, to create rose and not-rose simultaneously?
I don’t know, I kind of thought that’s what we are doing, just by living. We’re in 3D, we have to express life in 3D, don’t we? And we extend into non-3D, we have to express life in non-3D too, don’t we? I’m very well aware that we aren’t necessarily aware of it, but still, don’t we have to be doing both, all the time?
You just put your finger on it, not noticing.
Awareness.
Certainly. Why do people need to learn to meditate, if not to become aware of something they live and always have lived? To live something is not to be aware of it until you become aware of it. A two-year-old breathes, speaks, feels, etc., but what it automatically lives is not necessarily lived consciously.
All right. Are you implying that we can shift our center of gravity by increasing our awareness?
We leave that to your engineers’ group to explore, as the exploration will be more valuable than an explanation.
Now, you are living in 3D and your goal or let’s say your desire is to surrender your little will to your larger will without falling into quietism or passivity.
I’d say, wanting to be as receptive as possible without ceasing to do the things one ought to do.
One word, and it is so simple (though not always easy) that you will be tempted to discount it: Intent.
I find it difficult enough to maintain intent over time.
As you would say, “Welcome to the club.” Who does not? Nevertheless, this is the key.
Intend without defining it.
In a way. You can (and do) know things, live things, that you can’t put into words. Looking at that in the context of this conversation, can you see why?
Sure. Words are always left-brain: They always chop up wholes into sequential logic, whether we want them to or not.
Yet words and sequence and a analysis are valuable tools, of course. It’s just a matter of maintaining a balance.
Well, it is consistent enough with what you’ve always said. Choose and choose and choose.
And if your choice changes, so what? There is no prize for consistency in goal or in procedure. Consistency in intent means constantly intending. It does not mean always intending the same thing.
Mindfulness, regardless of what mindfulness seizes on.
You could put it that way.
And it amounts to: Trust your inner guidance. It won’t steer you wrong, only you have to be sure not to forget the connection.
See? Why do you need us to clarify any of this?
Very funny.
Perhaps, but said seriously too. Remember not to fall into the unconscious habit of assuming separation where there is only relative separation.
To go back to the “center of gravity” thing.
Someone focused on 3D is likely to succeed – to be a player – in 3D. Focused in non-3D, the equivalent. Only of course remember that being a player, like “success” or other external measurements, is usually misleading. Nobody can judge another’s success or failure if they don’t know what the priorities and goals were.
Thanks for all this. Like old times.