Rita – accidents, suicides, and the non-3D

Thursday, August 10, 2017

7:15 a.m. Rita, we have some questions queued up, if you don’t have other things you’d rather discuss. These are from the 2nd and 3rd of the month.

No reason not to address them.

Let’s look at Ellen’s and Ramona’s together, then, and if we have time go on to Subtle Traveler’s.

[Ellen Malkin: The manner and timing of the death of the physical body is a huge variable among 3D lifes.  Are the timing and circumstances of this death part of the pre-planning process for a particular life? Or are they determined by the various choices an individual makes in the course of their lifes?]

[Ramona: If it fits somewhere in the conversation, along similar lines as Ellen’s question today of the timing and circumstances of death being a part of the pre-planning process for a particular life? What about accidental deaths? Or suicides? From the other side, are those circumstances viewed any differently than a ‘natural’ death, or illness? Recently, in my extended family there was an accidental death, the person was only 25 years old.]

[Rita:] It will reconcile a couple major streams of seemingly contradictory information if you bear in mind that life appears to be pre-planned or not pre-planned mostly according to the ideas you bring to the subject. If you look at things as pastàpresentàfuture, as your senses strongly incline you to do, then everything that develops is going to seem to proceed from what was decided earlier, and in a way this is true. Carried to its ultimate, this can lead you to pre-planning or to free will, because in fact both are sort of true and neither is exactly true without context.

There’s a big surprise. Seems like it always comes down to the same thing (not that I’m complaining!) – it is always “sort of” this or that, and it always changes with new, deeper, context.

As you might say, “get used to it.”

I take it that partly this is because the information is coming through my filters, and another scribe would bring forth different information and, more importantly, different overall “feel,” as in more black-and-white, less endless nuance?

A different person would attract different [non-3D] interlocutors. That is one reason why it is important that those who are called to do this work not refuse to do it, out of a feeling of unworthiness or incapacity or even a shirking of the labor involved. Different people will bring in different information, different nuances, different contexts, hence different and often seemingly contradictory lessons, or, let’s say, suggested conclusions.

Which tells me, not very between-the-lines, that people should get used to not having external authorities, even if they respect and trust the source, but should act as intelligence agents working for themselves, examining this and that bit of data, accepting and weighing this person’s and that person’s testimony, and coming to their own conclusions as to what it adds up to. And that brings us to an age of less dependence on others and more dependence on ourselves, without creating the know-it-all mentality that is sometimes the alternative pole.

“Turn your beliefs into knowns.” You don’t do that by blind adherence to the words of others, nor by resting on your oars at any stage in the game. It is always a process, not an end-point.

Now, to the questions. The short answer to Ellen’s is, both, or either. A slightly longer answer is, it depends on how you want to look at it. (And note, I say “want to look at it,” because other ways of looking at things are always open to you, if you are open to them.)

What will help your underlying, unspoken question, perhaps, is that you should remember that nothing in life is unconnected to the rest of your life – and your life is being lived in non-3D as well as in 3D, obviously. So you needn’t fear accident or meaningless death. Viewed through strictly-3D lenses, life looks largely accidental, but that is only appearance. In reality, your choices rule, remembering that “you” means all of you, not merely the parts of you of which you are conscious. Even on a strictly 3D level, surely you can see that. What is a psychological complex, for instance, but motivating factors in your life of which you are by definition not in control, and often not aware? How much more so, in both a more benign and less benign sense, when you factor in the immense part of “you” beyond the 3D portion you recognize? Even more so when you include what you call past lives. But the bottom line is, don’t fear. Your death is no more an accident than your life.

And this answers the first part of Ramona’s question. In fact, by implication it answers it entirely. Accident, suicide, systemic failure, crib death syndrome, nothing that is part of life is or could be an exception to life. It is all part of the nature of life in 3D, and I can only report, nothing happens meaninglessly, no matter how it appears. A death at 25 seems to cheat the person of a longer life, but what if that shorter life in in fact an offering of vitality that will

No, I really don’t think you want to go there.

It is all right, given explanation. Those who will reject it will reject it, but others may benefit.

All right, then.

What appear to be truncated lives are the working-out of patterns that have their own logic, opaque from within 3D (though they may be intuited). A willing sacrifice of life-potential may be beneficial for that underlying individual, and for the circumstances around the individual. Remember, the 3D individual’s true center is not the 3D world but the non-3D portion of the world from which it was made and to which it proceeds, offering as its gift to the non-3D the shaping it did while in 3D. From a non-3D perspective, 3D is desirable, is difficult, is rewarding, is challenging, and, above all, is transitory. There are no prizes for longevity any more than for the quickest finish. Death as tragedy is by definition impossible from a non-3D standpoint –which means, too, from an All-D standpoint and therefore from a 3D standpoint, seen in perspective. This isn’t to say that someone else’s suffering doesn’t hurt or isn’t real; it is to say that it also doesn’t mean only what it looks to mean when seen with 3D eyes only.

And the rest of it echoes what I read somewhere – Steiner? – about war and the possibilities it creates.

Yes. But I don’t know why you should be quite so nervous. I thought you didn’t care what people thought.

Yeah, I know you’re smiling at me, but you also know why. On some subjects, people aren’t very tolerant of opinions outside of their comfort zone.

Then perhaps they are not watching the right program, so to speak.

In any case, the willing sacrifices—.

You could say it more economically, but I don’t mind taking the onus! As you say, Rudolf Steiner, who was very much in contact with what he called spiritual realities, and we would call All-D realities, living in the immense seemingly senseless slaughter that was World War I, saw that the surrender of so much life-force presented the world with the equivalent of an immense spiritual boost that would allow it to move to a higher level of culture (that is, a higher level of self-culture, or spiritual awareness). The same sacrifices redounded to the benefit of the individuals laying down their lives, as well. But all this, though true, is easily misinterpreted, as you foresee, and so requires careful chewing before swallowing. That is always so, but more so here than in most places, because it is so radical a change in view.

I’ll say. I have gotten used to it, I see, since first reading that Steiner quote and feeling that it was true, but it was still a jolt.  And it deserves more exposition, because it opens so many doors concealing various ladies and tigers. But, time running out, here, would you say you answered Ramona?

I would. Once you realize that nothing in life is (as opposed to appears) accidental, the pain remains but the meaninglessness does not.

Okay, then, I guess we will get to the remaining question (and others that may arrive) in due time. Thanks, Rita, always a pleasure.