Saturday, March 10, 2018
7:45 a.m. I wish I could absorb the material’s underlying logic, so that when I am about to start a day’s conversation I would know what we are going to be talking about, so I felt more confident that I wouldn’t be skipping something, or wandering. But I suppose you keep your own bookmarks.
In the first place, yes we do. In the second, no we don’t, and it isn’t necessary.
Very clear. Glad you cleared that up for me.
Well, look at it this way. If it were under your control, you would know where you were going, or you wouldn’t. If you did, how would you know? What part of you would be holding the place, setting the syllabus? If you did not, where would your next foray come from? Even if you could imagine it being random, what does that mean in practice? Where would the content of “random” come from?
From the great mystery of that which is outside the little circle we are aware of.
Precisely. Even if you envision yourself as blindfolded, reaching into a pool to fish out an unknown something, it amounts to the same thing. You – conscious 3D you – always function by means and in ways that are beyond your knowledge, understanding, or direct experience. At best, you make up ideas about what is probably happening. “I got an idea,” “I had an inspiration,” “A thought came to me.” Active or passive, it’s all metaphor. “I dreamed this up,” “I got it from The Guys Upstairs,” “I channeled Velasquez, or Julius Caesar, or Martha Washington’s chambermaid.” Attributed to “your own” non-3D mind, or other non-3D minds, or past life minds, it’s all metaphor. The fact is, you do not know and can not know what really goes on, and neither can we (assuming, for the moment, with a smile, that we exist and are not being made up moment by moment by you or Martha Washington’s chambermaid). What you know is phenomena – that is, surface appearances – and no more. What things really are is unknown and unknowable, and what they appear to be depends upon the observing half of the equation.
Interesting phrase, that I almost stumbled over and crossed out, till it occurred to me – or you nudged me, or whatever happens – that it was a key.
What a thing appears to be depends partly on what it is, partly on what the observer is.
You mean, how it appears depends on the two together.
Yes, but your sentence does not correct ours, it merely restates it, for, as we say, appearances are all you ever have to work with. And it is no different for us or for Albert Einstein.
Taking that as given, what is the point of trying to learn how things really are?
You know the answer to that, if you look for it, only do not expect to come to ultimates.
Yes, understood. So, after this lengthy prologue –
You think of it as an aside, but it is as important to the exposition as anything else. Consistently we have intermixed observations on the process with those on the subject being discussed. It is a deliberate strategy, extending from the beginning of your conversation – really, from the beginning of your particular life.
Yes, I see that, and of course I have been told that before, but it’s like we speak of sunrise while still knowing that it is the earth that is turning relative to the sun, or speak of “the other side” in referring to the non-3D. Habit, and not particularly harmful, as far as I know.
Of course, but once in a while you remind yourself that “the other side” distorts the way to see it that preserves new understandings, and once in a while we remind you that we know what we’re doing, and it is only the question of “which you” that blurs certainties.
I feel myself mentally smiling, even as I don’t quite see the joke. Curious feeling.
Well, the point under consideration is the relation of your lives to the vast impersonal forces that sweep through your lives. And this we can go into at another time. You are tired though it is still early in the day, and you are due for a day off anyway, so let this be it.
I am both disappointed and relieved.
A sure sign, then, no?
Possibly so. Very well, till next time.
This stuff feels so laden, so important, so core. I feel it rearranging my awareness. I can’t look out the window in the same way.
Seth’s “spontaneity knows its own order” takes on a new meaning.
Enjoy your day off!
Jane P
Frank,
For a guy who says he doesn’t resonate with science, ‘you’ sure do sound like an engineer!
Maybe this small engineering joke fits:
An engineer and business man are driving through a rural area with sheep pastures. The business man says “Look, those sheep are sheared!”
The engineer smiles and says “Those sheep are sheared on this side.”
Yes I said it was a small joke 🙂 …
But it symbolized a worldview: “What you know is phenomena – that is, surface appearances – and no more.” Engineers and scientists learn methods useful in investigating some types of phenomena. TGU is sending out ‘sparks’ that outline paths to understanding non-material (All-3?) phenomena … a new and exciting direction for me!
Get some rest; guidance seems to be smiling that smile that says “Hold on, this ride is heading toward wild and unknown places!”
Jim
My brother told me an engineering joke. How do you find an extroverted engineer at an engineer’s cocktail party? The answer is, of course, that he’s the one looking at the top of someone else’s shoes….
To be serious, come to think of it, I object not so much to science as to materialist scientists who purvey a dogma in the name of open-mindedness. As to engineers, though, engineers do very well at places like The Monroe Institute, because typically they are more interested in what works than in theory per se. Unlike Reagan’s famous joke about the economist who worried that just because something works in practice, doesn’t mean it will work in theory.