Allowing, not constructing

Monday, September 30, 2024

5:15 a.m. Jon, I have gotten through August’s entries. That of the 30^th had something that seems worth pursuing:

 “…in 3D, conscious reasoning is more obvious to you than the unconscious factors that are frequently – you might almost say usually – more important. If your thinking is being fashioned from within a given mood, for instance, the mood may or may not be obvious to you as a factor in your thinking, but either way, it will be there. So many factors go into your moment-by-moment perceptions and thought that you are always working the data while it is changing around you. You don’t have the luxury of working from a stable platform.”

Could you say more? Also, you mentioned that our ideas about “mental” and “emotional” are misleading. Say more on that too?

At this point we begin to potentially repeat ourselves, as you forget what was said later [than what I was reviewing]. It isn’t the end of the world, but it is a pitfall.

Can’t you just say, “We covered that”?

But the fact that you ask this morning is itself significant. The question embedded in the time is a piece of data. It is part of the moment, and deserves to be taken into account.

I’m not sure I get you. That sounds like we would need to pursue anything that popped into our minds, merely because it popped up.

There isn’t any “should” about it, but that would be one way of increasing consciousness. It would be a form of fishing.

Say some more?

Remember, we are looking at expanding consciousness, not as growing something, but as removing the visible and invisible filters and barriers that isolate you from the moment.

If you put it that way before, I don’t remember it. But I like the image.

Keep thinking of your avatar-level consciousness as a subset of what is real, divided from what is real by the swirl pattern of the whirlpool, or screened off by filters (it doesn’t much matter what analogy you use), and you will see that the task and the pitfalls and the opportunities are other than what you think. Again, you are not building consciousness, nor expanding it exactly, but elbowing your way into a larger comprehension.

Well, I think we got that.

It is easily forgotten again, or anyway not brought to mind in this context. And the reason to remind you of the different perspectives is so that you will see that the nature of your task is different. You are not so much constructing as allowing, and that is a very different energy. For one thing, it allows you to lean more assuredly on intuition and less on logic and inference. I realize, you as a particular individual hardly need to be encouraged to trust intuition, but after all we are speaking together to be overheard by others, and some of them will need just that encouragement.

So, in practice –

Someone sitting quietly (or, observing quietly, no matter what they may be doing) will see “stray thoughts” entering the stillness. Unlike in yoga, where you might experience this as an annoyance or anyway as an obstacle, here you look at it as indirect indicators, and you set yourself to follow the clue. “Stray thoughts” are not random in the sense of being unconnected to your life and to the moment. They may be random in the order in which you notice them; they may even be random in the order in which they pop up; but that randomness will be closely hedged in by the fact that only the thoughts appropriate to that particular moment will be able to surface. If there are five of them, any of the five may be noticed in any order, but anything that is noticed will necessarily be one of those that the moment allows. So, call it randomness within order, if you wish.

Anything you observe may link to other thoughts and may be pursued in profitable or unprofitable directions. If you slide into fantasy, the fact that you move into fantasy is itself a datum. If you get lost in the fantasy, that may prove fruitless or productive: There is no way to make a definitive predictive statement.

But it is the observing of the process we’re concerned with?

Observing for a reason, not merely as a curiosity. If you once get a sense of how dynamic and indeed almost chaotic a platform you ride, your life will change, your abilities and prospects and hopes will change. If you already know, first-hand, then you are that far ahead. But being familiar with the idea is not the same as knowing by experience.

I was thinking to ask you to talk about the various components of the swirl of our consciousness, but something says, not at this time.

That’s right. At this time, better to look at “mental” and “emotional.” Straightening out these concepts will help.

You say straightening out; I take it you mean, in context, seeing them from another viewpoint.

That’s true enough. But it is more than saying, “Look at it this way because you can see things differently.” The idea people have about mental and emotional are misleading and harmful.

Harmful?

Anything that leads you away from where you want to go while giving you the illusion of being the right path is harmful.

Even though all paths are good?

All paths are good. Is it helpful to have signposts that mislead you?

Okay.

When people say “mental” they often mean intellectual, logical. They imply that this is the factor that separates them from the beasts. They regard it as reasoning (and silently deny animals the ability to reason that animals nonetheless clearly possess). The word is often used to mean “rational” and is opposed to the word “emotional.” So if you were to take the meaning that most people would give it, you would say “mental” refers to the capacity to think that is different from the child’s world, for instance. You can watch children learn to think as they grow, although the process isn’t as clear-cut either in beginning place or in ending place as it appears.

“Emotional” is often used to mean, “carried away,” subject to untrustworthy moods, carried off balance: “beside yourself.” Good or bad (and these of course are arbitrary labels), emotions are considered to be things that happen to you, whereas thoughts and ideas supposedly are produced by your mental activity.

Let us propose a more accurate model. Rather than you being a rational being occasionally or often derailed by emotion, let’s say you are a swirl of influences and the results of influence

I don’t know how to finish the sentence, let alone the thought.

Bullets, maybe.

• Your consciousness is rooted in two “places” at once, the 3D world the avatar-self inhabits, and the non-3D world you are rooted in.
• Your non-3D component provides the only stability you have, as it is not changing moment by moment as it is carried through each new 3D moment.
• Your 3D component lives in the moment necessarily and by design; it experiences the eternal now no less than the non-3D does, but experiences it I time-slices, always, necessarily.
• Every time-slice is by definition unique in its qualities and therefore in its opportunities.
• Thus, you ride two horses, rather uncomfortably, but you get the benefit of two viewpoints, two experiences. How else could this be generated?
• The real mental activity is observing and reacting consciously. That is a form of construction.
• The real emotional activity is the effect upon you of everything unknown to you, hence autonomous to your mental activity.
• “The world” represents – mirrors – your unconscious nature. Your idea of “I” represents – lives – your own idea of who you are. Do you suppose the two might conflict now and again?

I don’t know how many people will get from this what I do, being connected like this, but that seems very clear. Maybe if people don’t get it (or do) they’ll let us know.

Can you see, now, the benefit of going through past material noting questions and unfinished topics?

I do. After I get through September’s, I’ll start on July’s. I may have to hopscotch back and forth. In any case: Our theme here?

Maybe “Allowing, not constructing.” But that doesn’t take the latter part of the session into account.

Well, I’ll think about it. Our thanks as always.