Tuesday, September 26, 2017
4:35 a.m. All right, shall we resume? Whoever is up to bat, you have the floor, to mix the metaphor.
You see the benefit of not over-personalizing the process. If you hold your attention on the subject at hand (that is, bringing in useful illustrative information) rather than on the person perceived to be the source or conduit of that information, you bring fewer preconceptions to the table. It frees us by freeing you. Now, sink into it, and we will try to deliver information for you to put into words.
[Pause, while I remained receptive and they presumably poured.]
I get that we’re centering on that same image of humans as conduits of vast impersonal forces. It’s a huge subject, and it flows off in all directions. I’ll start and rely on you to steer me or at least head me off if I go off in non-productive directions.
The visual is sort of a horizontal torus comprising untold millions of individuals, a swirl of organized energy, call us. We know we aren’t “individuals” in the way people commonly think, but for simplicity, call us that. So, a vast orderly flow of compound-being energies, always changing, but, as I say, orderly, sort of shaped loosely. I can’t think of a good extension of the visual analogy. Not marbles or solid objects of any kind; not merely lights or drops of liquid, a little too undefined. Maybe the kind of visual image you see in close-ups of the sun’s swirling energies.
Anyway, that is the horizontal image. Then welling up vertically are the vast impersonal energies I have been sensing, the forces that flow through our lives, vitalizing them, causing complication and interest and discord and beauty and every thing humans can feel. We personalize these energies – we personify them – we think either that they are part of our being (rather than part of our environment, you might say) or that they are the forces of the gods.
Horizontally, a vast beautiful ever-changing torus-shaped image representing humanity. Vertically, an eternal upwelling of energies from far beyond human limits, mingling with, transforming, interfering with, vitalizing, all human activity as it is directed by uncounted numbers of decisions moment by moment by uncounted numbers of humans and ex-humans. (Humans, remember, in this case means compound beings whose consciousness normally is restricted to 3D conditions. It does not mean “only planet Earth”).
I say humans and ex-humans, and I am surprised at first, then I recall that of course we and they remain integrally connected, so of course we continue to be affected, and to affect, together. Not in lockstep, and I don’t even know if always in harmony, but at any rate, together.
More or less okay so far?
So far, so good. Now, why are we centering this picture at this time in your exposition?
Hmm. All I can get is, it’s time. We have reached the point where we can’t re-evaluate without changing focus.
Not exactly reevaluate. More like, you can’t go deeper without bringing what had been unnoticed background into focus.
Okay. So the question in our minds becomes, so where are we going?
Wrong question. A better question would be, where have we been? It’s much more convincingly answered, you see.
If you say so. And?
Bear in mind continually, there can be no such thing as a universally applicable statement. What is appropriate to a Western audience may not meet the condition of someone in a Chinese or African society. What meets the needs of 2017 may fall flat in 2050 as in 1950. So, don’t try to assume that everything being said is universally applicable. It isn’t and it can’t be. The underlying reality is the same, but the illustrative principles [examples?] aren’t and cannot be equally appropriate. We are speaking to you, in your 2017 now. Settle for that, and do not try to make one size fit all.
Do you think that’s what I would be inclined to do?
Not particularly, but we aren’t speaking only to you.
All right. So, where we have been, tailored to our audience. (I’d like to know how you do that. But I realize it’s a side-trail.)
Where Western society has been is a divided trail. For 500 years and more, religion and science have been fragmented because divorced from each other and unable to understand each other’s point of view. We would say the chief example of this is that your society has lost sight of the vast impersonal forces we mentioned as vast impersonal forces. A part of your thought regards them as supernatural or as only epiphenomena (because “matter” is considered to be primary, as if it even existed).
Clearly a society cannot continue such a splintering process forever. At some point the social glue cannot hold. Then comes the use of force and, ultimately, self-destruction. But remember, we are not primarily concerned with societies but with compound-beings. It is true, your society shapes you. but it is not the only thing that shapes you, and its influence can be modified. In any case, stick to what you know, which is your own experience in the world, most of that experience being internal.
That’s all the back-tracking we need to do here. Those interested in history will find the history well laid out – and the way it is laid out will tell you worlds about the mental constrictions of those who did the laying out. But, it’s hardly necessary. You all know what you are living.
Now, to come back to what is for many of you a sore point – which should be your cue that it is an important point. Religious thought is your most extensive investigation into the existence, function, and manifestation of these vast impersonal forces. We have said it before and no doubt we will be obliged to say it again, because there will be great resistance, but if you do not know these forces, you do not know your lives. If you do not know how they shape your lives, you do not know what your lives are to accomplish, or why you are in 3D in the first place.
Do we need to say we are not advocating that you go join a church? However, we are requesting that those of you who are members of The Church of Nothing-But consider resigning your membership.
These forces are real. Every society you know of, and many more that you have never heard of and never will hear of, knew it, know it, will know it. You cannot understand reality if you begin by resolutely determining that reality will not consist of A, B, or C because you were taught a cruder version of them, or because you don’t like the looks of some who talk about A, B, or C as if they knew what they were talking about and – more – as if no contradictory version could contain truth. If you allow yourselves to block off aspects of reality because of external manifestations, that isn’t exploring, it is a different form of conformity, conforming to an imagined band of holders of the truth instead of going ahead and seeing for yourself.
Understand, to say all that is not to say, give up your present beliefs. What kind of exploring would that be, either? Yet, it may seem like that, because we do say, don’t let your present beliefs prevent you from giving fair consideration to things you may have rejected. (Actually, it is more a matter of giving fair consideration to things that remind you of things you have rejected.)
Well, I can’t speak for our companions, but I understand it, anyway.
Then we shall continue next time.
Our thanks as always.
A beautiful post. Your poetic description of “untold millions of individuals, a swirl of organized energy” and the “forces that flow through our lives vitalizing them” reminded me of the murmuration of starlings: https://www.wired.com/2011/11/starling-flock/.
“Religious thought is your most extensive investigation into the existence, function, and manifestation of these vast impersonal forces.”– I agree with this completely.
“…if you do not know these forces, you do not know your lives.”–I agree with this completely, too. I just believe I’ve gotten more info on these forces from individual thinkers, often acting in opposition to the church (like Fr. Tettemer) than I have from the church. I’ve gotten more info from hallucinogens. But I can see that because of religion in the world, the idea of forces beyond us was kept alive. Churches have just exploited the idea as “power-over.”
So maybe your sources are distinguishing between the idea of religion and how its practiced in churches? That’s where I’m hung up. (I know, I know–I’ll work on it. Very useful to me.)
Jane, you are taking all this seriously, and that is the highest compliment you could pay, and the most rewarding gift you could offer. Thanks.
Jane, this from Sphere and Hologram (session 11, Oct. 23, 2001) is on point:
World Religions and Truth
R: Which of the world’s major religions comes closest to the truth?
TGU: [pause] All of them, none of them. A better question is, which interpretation by any given individual of his own religion, her own religion, comes closest to the truth?
A close analysis of all of the religions would show that they all have aspects of the truth, and no one can have all of the truth, not while you’re in a body, not while you’re in time-space slices. It can’t be done. But you can have various aspects of the truth, and what one religion emphasizes, another one de-emphasizes. It’s not so much a loss as it is different flowers. So that whereas one might emphasize nearness to the divine, and another one might emphasize submission to the overall divine, and a third might emphasize, oh, submission within rules. In other words, in Islam, the underlying idea is absolute willing submission to the Lord, whereas in Judaism it might be a little more flavored like, submission to the following laws. You see, it’s a different flavor.
If you look at all the major religions, you’ll find they all have different aspects of divinity and they’re all accurate. They’re all true. You can’t say, this religion is wrong. But if you look at Zoroastrianism, with its right versus wrong, with its very much “the world is a battleground between good and evil,” that may or may not be in favor at any given time, but it’s an accurate aspect of things. It’s only one aspect of things, but that aspect is there, and the aspect of Hinduism that says “all is one and there is no conflict” is no more and no less accurate than Zoroastrianism. It’s just that they’re choosing different attributes.
Within the overall unity of the world, there are no ultimate contradictions. But within the duality in which you live, there are many seeming contradictions, because it’s a matter of picking and choosing what your emphasis is. Having said that, if you will worship us and send money on a regular basis . . . [they laugh]
R: It seems as though some religions are more [pause] sympathetic with the human condition, or more appropriate on this level of existence, this physical plane of existence –
TGU: No, we can’t go along with that. No, your western viewpoint leads you to certain values, and religions that don’t emphasize those values or that even oppose some of those values seem to you inhuman, but yours seems inhuman to them. There’s just not an absolute standard. If there were an absolute standard, it would say something like “you’re all right, but you’re all incomplete.” Well, you’re all wrong, yeah. [they laugh] You know Frank always says that he thinks God looks down and goes, “you idiots, what are you up to now?” [laughs] But it’s not that, it’s that you’re all different kinds of flowers, and to each its own nature. When you think of the vast variety of human psychology in the world, it would be ludicrous to think that one kind of religion would fit all. There are too many kinds of needs in the world for one religion to meet all the needs. One religion for people who have a strong emotional need, and another for people who need to be part of the same thing, another for people who need to be freethinkers, you see.
There are practically infinite varieties of religion, because there are infinite varieties of emotional and mental and spiritual needs. And, rather than – we’re not saying that you yourself are doing this, of course – rather than condemning the various religions, it would be more appropriate and more fruitful to try to get inside of the mind of someone who would find that religion appropriate, and that will teach you lots. It will help you triangulate your own point of view by going to someone else’s point of view.
That was a good question, by the way.
I do get intense! But your Sources are right–it’s a button/bias–one that I’ve held onto, without examining for quite a while. The step back that your Sources illustrate shows me how I’ve been caught and how to regain compassion–and peace. My last time in a church was in a Muslim temple with a family that was part of our community study. I sat on the floor in an airless, attic-like space with a small group of women, a glass tile wall preventing us from seeing down into the male congregation. I listened for an hour as a man screamed how all the problems of the world are the fault of women. The mother, on one side of me, is a PhD public health specialist; the daughter, on the other side, is a surgical resident. A woman behind the daughter criticizes her for having a small bit of skin accidentally show at the back of her neck, below her head scarf. The daughter is in the midst of an arranged marriage. I’d become close friends with these women. Those are the ways I get caught. I can see more clearly now that religion is not something somebody does to us; we do it to ourselves, out of very human needs. And maybe something good comes out of that, in terms of direction or understanding. These women never spoke ill of their religion. Sorry for the length of this comment! But thanks more than I can say for the clarity and the healing that takes place because of what you write.
The Sphere and Hologram session is particularly helpful. I’m going to read it again.
Comment from Henry Reed
Well, you quote Jung.
What does that quote suggest?
There are “dark forces” at work in us
dark=unconscious
The goal of Jungian analysis, and in order to be a Jungian analyst you have to have “achieved” this with a certified analyst who had achieved it with their ….
achieve is not a good word, but the development of humility in actually recognizing that there were strong forces at work directing you, so you didn’t have all the freedom ego supposes. You had to learn how to dialog with the gods, wrestle with the angles, etc., your putting it into your own words is related….
In my 20s, big drinking problem… I go to AA. I hear the stories. I have an epipheny: My story, the stories I heard, they are all the same, they are not “my” story, “his” story or “her” story…. maybe the details are different, but the story is the same and it is the story of alcoholism…. I was so full of ego pride that I stopped drinking…. never went back to AA until many years later, only once to discover how dogmatic it had become… and had to learn in analysis how to wrestle wiht the gods…. my dad, and my brother, we all have the same alchol dna….
Larger forces
Archetypes
gods
the unrnown patterns and cycles (astrological descriptions of the cycles fit my experience pretty welll)
Hello fellow travellers !
This morning reading with big interest what your postings describing about all the differently “concepts” in the world.
And by sitting here and contemplate what Jane told as well as Henry Reed (I have known what Henry Reed telling once before, many years ago, back in time)….Here in Scandnavia a public investigation about Alcoholism, estimated to become every 3rd% person among the family DNA of the inhabitants. In Finland do not know.
BUT, here is what to find by asking my inner “voice” how to respond(inwardly)to what`s told in “The Scheme” of these things….And I was looking into my book shelf AGAIN as usual.
My eyes fell upon A Seth Book: The Unknown Reality, Volume One….and opening up on page 100, section 2, session 688.
And Quote Seth:
” I told you (after 10:26 in this session) that you presently perceive only the surface of the moment; so you also perceive but one line of the species` development (talking about all the animals and us the same).
Yet even within your system, there are hints of the other probable realities that also coexist.
The dolphins are case in point. In your line of probability they are oddities, yet even now you recognize their great brain capacity, and to some dim extent glimpse the range of their own communication.
At one time on your earth, in the way you look at time, there were many such species; water dwellers, with brain capacities as good as and better than your own.
The physical universe serves as threshold for probabilities. and all possible species(including us) find their greatest fullfillment within that system, each of them neurologically tuned into their own reality and their own “time.”
You COULD (underlined twice) walk into “yesterday” as well as tomorrow at that point of birth…..etc.etc…. and indeed your perception brings you events both in and out of time sequence.
The End for now before it becomes too long.
Hm, well then, the conclusion must be (supposingly) in us to be “born with” ALL (probable) opportunties. Because “the Unknown” = The subconscious mind, more and more will be “recognized” as such? The same “Force” all the way(Star Wars: May The Force Be With You).
Happy ending, Inger Lise
To me, this all veers very close to Jungian archetypes, or gnostic “religion”. These, to me, have given the most useful tools in grappling/tumbling in the reality we have. The archetypes (gnostics talk about archons) are impersonal forces, etc.
I can’t wait to see where we wind up. I’m remembering though to not say “ah, this is…” as things come around, lest the comparison process blind me to what’s new.
Yes of course – the gnostic attitude is to use ones own lights to illumine what seeks to become visible. No theory can replace that. And Jung speaks of archetypes but he never gave a list of them.