73rd talk with Rita – 4-4-2015

Saturday, April 4, 2015

F: 3:15 a.m. So, Rita, you said “there is a vector to your life, to everyone’s life.” Would you care to explain?

R: Of course, and you will find it obvious when once stated. At least, I think you will. It is the elaboration, and the implications on a wider scale, that may perhaps give you pause.

F: Well, I’ve always wanted to have paws. Go ahead.

R: What I have said to date is accurate, or at least is an approximation, but it only goes so far. You – anyone living a life in 3D – continually face an array of choices stemming from past choices. Your past is determined (from the standpoint of your present moment); your future is absolutely free within the constraints of the possibilities presented by the situation as it exists.

F: May I?

R: Of course.

F: What we did determines where we are. What we choose to do next determines where we go next.

R: True, from one point of view. And after all, this is what a “common sense” point of view would portray as obvious and in fact inevitable. However, if it were this simple, logical analysis would lead you, as it has led others, to conclude that free will is an illusion, because the situation you find yourself in at any given moment essentially boxes you in. Not only can you not start from China if you start from Peru, but you can’t reasonably expect to start as a salesman if you start as a mechanic or a college professor. In other words, the existing situation exists in overwhelming strength, and all but determines what you will do.

F: That is common sense, indeed. How often do we ever tear up our existing life and proceed down another path?

R: Not often, perhaps, though actually more often (though slowly) than you might expect. But in one logically defensible theory of human behavior, it should happen never. Yet it does. The reason why it does – why it can – happen is that humans are more than puppets and extend farther than the bounds of 3D reality. It is a complicated relationship to explain, though simple enough in reality. Words divide what is one thing.

F: We’ve seen that problem, once or twice.

R: So you have, and so you shall again. So, if you have the idea, try saying it.

F: Frank is a human in 3D, stumbling along as best he can, reconciling or trying to reconcile divergent strands within him, responsive to what seem to be external forces, and aware to a greater or lesser extent of his connection, via his comprising strands, to other times, other compound beings, continually or anyway repeatedly interacting with him.

Yet he is also an extension of himself as he exists in higher dimensions; or we might say he is a probe for a larger being, living his life with and for his larger self, part of it no matter how independent he may feel himself to be.

R: Good enough. And talking of the 3D self and the non-3D self is only a small improvement over talking about body v. spirit, or this side and the other side, etc. Words still blur the continuity and emphasize the distinctions.

The next logical step in our analysis, bearing that continuity in mind, is to see that the 3D self is not as independent as we have been implying. It may be an autonomous state, able to exercise its will freely in domestic matters, but it is not independent, free to manage its international affairs as it wishes. That isn’t the best analogy, in some ways, but it will serve.

F: I begin to see what you meant by saying our lives have vectors. Our non-3D components have preferences, and they bend us in certain directions, don’t they?

R: Here you will want to be careful of nuance, for language will lead you in very different ways emotionally, depending on what you choose. And once you set off on a path, you will find it difficult to remember that alternative ways of seeing things are equally valid.

So, you may put it that your non-3D component bends you in certain directions, and the unspoken implication is one of interference.

You may think of it as guidance, and the implication is of protection or anyway of assistance.

You may think of it as conscience telling you what you “should” do, and you may regard that either rebelliously or with a certain guilt for not measuring up.

All these possibilities – and all others – stem from the linguistic suggestion that there is a distinction between you in 3D and you in non-3D. There is such a distinction, relatively; at the same time, it is an ephemeral distinction, almost a metaphysical distinction merely. This is why you were told from the beginning that the difference between what you then saw as you versus spirits [“vis a vis spirits,” I think; certainly not “versus” in the sense of an adversarial relationship] was the turf you functioned on. At the time, you didn’t have the groundwork to understand a closer statement.

So, what I called a vector is established by the nature and purpose of your non-3D component – which, remember, includes you and all your strands and all the other “individuals” your strands connect you to, in a more active and equal relationship than you experience.

F: Let me paraphrase. I think you are saying that our conscious selves subordinate the existing reality of the other lives; we are the ring-masters of our life, and we get to drive. Yet from a non-3D perspective, a strand that existed in the 1600s is as “now” as we are, and so exerts a stronger influence there than it can here.

R: That’s right. Or, let’s say, that’s close enough for the moment. So now perhaps you can see that the larger being, as a whole, necessarily has a different reality than any one of its 3D pieces does, and its point of view encompasses them all.

F: We’re edging toward a discussion of karma here, aren’t we.

R: Yes. In effect, karma may be considered to be two things at once, or one thing in two aspects, put it that way. Or, come to think of it,

F: Sorry. Went wool-gathering. I should have enough for a sweater, soon.

R: You’re doing all right. Just get back on the horse after each spill and that’s all there is to it.

Karma from the 3D point of view is leftover imbalance that must be righted. Some see it as guilt to be atoned, but if it were that simple, what of those who get their good fortune first and their difficulties later? The traditional view of karma is quite insufficient, but was all but inevitable as long as people were seeing the balancing but were thinking of past lives as if they were unit to unit, rather than community to community.

Karma from a non-3D point of view might be considered more like the effects of inertia than of a need for rebalancing. After all, if no individual is really a unit, and no non-3D “individual” is only one 3D unit’s non-physical component, where is the opportunity, let alone the necessity, of deliberately balancing? Instead, balance occurs naturally, as in any functioning homeostatic system.

And a third point of view is premature to discuss, but should be mentioned if only for later consideration, and that is that what we are calling the larger being, the non-3D aspects of a 3D compound being, is not, itself, any more individual than anything else we are discussing. You will find it hard to keep remembering not to let the discussion tempt you into reverting to thinking of beings as separate, but it is worthwhile to make the attempt, or else your ability to understand subtle relationships will be impaired.

And that’s enough for now.

F: Very interesting indeed, Rita. Always fascinating to pick up from one of your cliff-hangers and realize, an hour later, just what you meant. I look forward to next time, and so do your many fans. Till then.