Sunday, September 29, 2024
6 a.m. Jon, in our conversation of Aug. 15, you said,
“I don’t see it the same way I did when I was under the pressure of 3D constrictions and expectations. It didn’t occur to me, what I mentioned the other day, that restrictions are focus. I never thought about it this way, but frustrations can be very powerful focusing devices. I was a concentration of frustrated aspiration, and that energy form remains.
“That last isn’t quite clear.
“I never thought it would be. Let’s let it lie for a while.”
Would you clarify what you meant? Also, why did you want it to be left open for the moment?
It is at once simpler and more complex than the simple statement conveys. I said, “I was a concentration of frustrated aspiration, and that energy form remains.” Looking at it now, what does that say to you?
In context, that our characteristics as lived form a whole, and we don’t get to pick and choose, discarding this and keeping that.
Correct. The time to do that is in the midst of 3D living. And?
Well, since you already pointed out that the defects may be as valuable as the virtues (given that those attributes are merely a derivative from our point of view, which must always be partial, hence never universally applicable), I guess the universe has no discontent with you as product of that life.
Correct! And it won’t with yours, no matter who it is reading this, no matter what a botch of things you think you made, and no matter how you may over- or under-estimate yourself. The world makes use of you as a bundle, not as individual threads. If you think about it, if it wanted threads, it already had threads, so why is it always creating new bundles? The 3D offers the ability to create more and more complex bundles – you might say, more and more complex specialized instruments.
Or perhaps more specialized lenses through which to focus the energies that enter into 3D life, that we were calling the vast impersonal forces?
Yes. And by the way, just because in some discussions we may go beyond previous scaffolding, that doesn’t mean the scaffolding is now useless. A different way of looking at it is, each conceptual framework is one way of understanding things, and offers advantages that other ways do not. If you are able to retain your mental flexibility, you will see that this not only frees you from bondage to any one way of seeing things, it also gives you the powerful tool that is the ability to choose which tool you wish to use. In other words, just as you can choose your attitude toward whatever happens, so you can choose which form of analogy and analysis you wish to employ at any given moment. The carpenter who lays down the hammer and picks up the screwdriver does so because the hammer is less appropriate, less helpful, at the moment. It doesn’t mean the carpenter will or should foreswear the use of the hammer ever again.
Helpful reminder. Got it. And this seems to be linking up with other things.
Yes, go ahead, as easier.
Well, on the one hand we are always being told we are here to choose. And we are told all paths are good. And here we see that no matter what we wind up being, the universe is fine with it, and the implication is, it will find a way to use it productively.
And, remembering that this is all mind-stuff, and that the universe could be looked at as an eternally changing light-show, as changes in one reverberate elsewhere, the implication is that every version of ourselves created and re-created by changing decisions equally forms a model, a channel, for those vast impersonal forces. So there could be Jon 1.0, Jon 2.0, etc., each with a different mixture of characteristics depending upon how you reacted in any given situation. And it is an additive process, not a process of substitution.
That is good thinking. You will see, looking back, that it is less a logical process (though it seemed that to you) than an intuitive one. But yes, the continuous changes are not waste motion, not lost energy; each moment – and the qualities of that moment – exist as much “forever” as any other moment. It can all be used.
I see that as I followed the bread-crumbs, I flitted from scaffolding to scaffolding without attempting to reconcile or justify.
And that is a perfectly acceptable way to proceed. This gives you fullest advantage of all the kinds of scaffolding you have been given. It expands your toolbox and gives you leeway.
And I’m hearing something even larger.
Yes indeed, and for some this will be a liberation and for some a stumbling block. But that is always true. What is also always true, or anyway usually true, is that at first a truly significant, truly revolutionary thought seems like nothing much. It is only as the ramifications broaden out that its truly revolutionary and expansive possibilities reveal themselves.
I can see that. Well, for what it is worth, what came to me is, we already have a multitude of scaffoldings as our cultural history, only we don’t use them alternately, we tend to pick one or another and feel we need to stick to it, or we reject them all and tell ourselves we are strictly rational beings who are beyond such nonsense. I am referring to religious and metaphysical systems.
You are exactly on beam. Continue.
When I say “cultural heritage,” I don’t mean The West. I mean anything and everything any culture we know of. (Also those we don’t, of course, but they’re invisible to us, so why try to include them? If they become visible as some Champollion opens a window, that will be time enough to welcome in those strange viewpoints.)
The fact is that people pick some belief-system congenial to the particular mixture of elements that they are, and tend to say, “That is right, so other systems clearly must be wrong, or at least must be less right. And this forecloses options. Not that treading a narrow path is bad per se, but if you want to break free from unconscious mental limitations, considering alien frameworks is a good way to do it.
Yes, but “considering” doesn’t mean weighing them to see how closely they match what you have decided is the true way to see things. It means, really looking at the world through that lens, as if, for the moment, you were a believer.
People seem to find it hard to do that.
What is hard at one time in your life is easier at another time.
Do you have any suggestions for those who don’t do this naturally, to learn how?
That is a far larger subject than you realize. Can you teach (or encourage) a nail to become a corkscrew, or vice versa?
It doesn’t seem that the answer should be a flat “no.”
It isn’t. But it doesn’t happen without effort, and that means focused intent.
I have a good friend who is very open to anything scientific and most things philosophical, but – as far as I can judge – is pretty much closed to any religious system. What could he do, if he were persuaded of the utility of acquiring an inside view of another kind of scaffolding?
It always comes down to intent. Let anyone become convinced that a given course of action is desirable, and the way will open according to the intent and the application of effort.
I find a tremendous lot in what has been recorded of Jesus’ teachings, and I will never forget something that happened 20 years ago, when after two difficult days with a Christian true believer, I found a book of Sufi sayings and plunged into it with relief and recognition.
It isn’t ever a matter of intellectual logic. That logic divides, as much as it ever synthesizes. But emotional logic will not steer you wrong.
A major caveat needed here, seems to me.
Smiling. All right. Let’s say, more carefully, emotional logic won’t steer you wrong provided you don’t forget the logic part of it.
But in any case, we have all that material available, more than anyone could ever assimilate.
Yes and no. Yes, more than could be assimilated by the 3D version we are calling the avatar. No in terms of what people used to call the higher self. The higher self has a lot more RAM to play with!
Our theme today?
Maybe, “Lenses and scaffoldings”?
Sounds all right. Okay, thanks, and thanks on behalf of others who are telling me how your explanations are resonating with them where Rita’s often did not.
You’re welcome.
Till next time.