Sunday, May 26, 2024
4:20 a.m. I have been tempted to ask about Monroe’s concept of Loosh, and have been reluctant at the same time. Would that be a productive direction to go?
A better direction would be the question of source and interpretation, for this is a special case of that, and the general problem will arise continuously as time goes on.
Remember, understanding has nothing to do with convincing. Exposition, too, is about sparks, not debate. Sometimes you will want to supply logic to help guide your listener in a certain direction, but it is not your responsibility to persuade anyone to follow the bread crumbs. In the case of Loosh, specifically, you can refer those interested to the chapters in Monroe’s Far Journeys. But if they read what is there and decline to come to the conclusions that seem obvious to you, what can you do? What should you do?
You do the best you can. Still, it is a queasy feeling to guess how our own dialogue may be misinterpreted.
Yes, let’s look at that question of interpretation. What is it but connecting the dots? But aren’t patterns of dots always de facto Rorschach Tests? Take comfort in the fact that people will be drawn to the things they need. If they need to see a tiger, that’s what they will see. If a lamb. They will see lamb. And in a way, that is just what will be there. It isn’t that reality is a clear tiger, a clear lamb. Reality is a blurry set of impressions like a scene at dusk: Your mind works to make sense out of inadequate data.
Isn’t that your entire life? Do scientists not spend their careers making patterns from inadequate data, then amending the pattern as new data seems to change things? Do not psychologists, theologians, artists, change their views in light of greater experience? Even in terms of strictly personal lives, do you not see life differently as new experiences add to and alter your understanding? Are not many young adults likely to be more intolerant than older ones, largely because they have not yet had enough mutually contradictory or conflicting experiences to soften their judgments?
“And” – I can all but hear you say – “nothing wrong with it.”
Well, is there? If patterns of behavior persist, is it not likely there’s reason for them?
Let’s bring back to the center certain facts that may tend to get lost in the argument. That is, remember context!
- Life is somewhat real It is never as clear-cut and definite as it will appear.
- Life is flexible and ambiguous. Cause and effect goes only so far. Meaning is only so definite. Everything can always be seen differently.
- You are not a separated bit of awareness except relatively. Your individual 3D input is valuable to your larger being, and thus to the whole, but it is valid as your experience, not as evidence of accuracy.
Here is what it comes to. If you were to define things strictly, you would have to conclude that almost everything you “know” is only somewhat true. It may be true in some circumstances but not in others, or in some perspectives, but not others. You yourself – who you are really – will show different aspects of yourself according to the context you examine yourself in, and so in effect you are different according to how you see yourself.
“As a man thinks, so he is”?
Let’s not get sidetracked. The point here is that the very things you may find difficult about life in 3D are integral to the experience: They “come with the territory.” So why fight them? It would be like bemoaning your need to continually breathe an oxygen-nitrogen mixture. Yes it is a necessity, yes it can have its inconvenient or limiting aspects, yes it tethers your possibilities. But even if your list of objections were valid, what practical purpose would it serve to complain about their existence? It is well to know the constraints, if only for your own safety, but what good would it do you to complain about them, or resent them?
It is just as easy to change your attitude and give thanks for what that same dependency makes possible in life. Do you suppose the deep-sea diver resents the supply of oxygen that keeps him alive? He may wish he had gills; not having gills, he is likely to be glad for a way to carry his oxygen-breathing habits beneath the surface of the sea.
We know that 3D life has its difficulties, of course. The 3D conditions were created specifically to allow you to accomplish certain things that cannot be done outside those conditions, as we have often said. It is not that the scuba diver, who cannot survive beneath the surface without that equipment, is there in order to be forced to rely on the air supply; the air supply is provided so that the diver may dive.
This sounds like, “Quit whining, there’s nothing wrong with life except the way you’re thinking about it.”
It sounds nicer to say, “All is well, all is always well,” but yes, that’s the tenor of our remarks. Life is what you make it. There are always things to object to. There are always things to rejoice in. Your attitude is not dependent upon objective evidence. Rather, your attitude reflects the evidence that reinforces it.
Now, having said that very true thing, remember nonetheless that you have a right to your attitude. We are not saying, “If you don’t see things our way, you are wrong.” (Though in a way, we are!) We’re saying, “The way you see the world is an integral part of the gift to reality that is you.” Reality generates optimists and pessimists as it generates and populates every other polarity. So, whatever your emotional makeup leads you to select as evidence, by definition it cannot be “wrong.” That doesn’t mean it will be or won’t be accurate. It means you have the right, as well as the responsibility, to be you, to come to your conclusions. Only, remember, your viewpoint is only one viewpoint among so many. Don’t confuse your right to an opinion with a guarantee of accuracy. And the same goes for anyone else’s opinion. So, don’t set yourself up as all-knowing and don’t set up anybody else as all-knowing. Remember that in every case you are selecting what you need, mostly unconsciously.
A word about that? I hear you saying, our emotions are driving what we allow into our belief-system.
You will remember, we said that in 3D you are primarily emotional beings, not intellectual. It cannot be any other way, because most of you is beneath the threshold of conscious activity, necessarily. The input is too vast, too unremitting, for a conscious mind to encompass. If you didn’t filter out most of the input, you’d be overwhelmed. But you didn’t design those filters consciously; usually you aren’t even aware of them.
I think a problem here is the word “emotional.” People may tend to think of emotion in terms of outbursts, of strong currents.
We understand, but there’s only so much we can do while confined to language. As a rule of thumb: If something seems wrong or seems inexplicable, ponder it. Meditate on it. Try to see how it could be seen that would make sense of it.
The skill that reading Thoreau taught me.
It is always important to be able to go behind the word to the underlying idea. Enough for the moment.
Our thanks as always.