Discernment

Friday, January 4, 2019

5:45 a.m. All right, my friends. Shall we have our first consultation of the new year? What is on your mind(s)?

Spending time accomplishing many little practical things is not a waste of time, is not “killing” time. Neither is doing nothing in particular. The idea that one must be continually doing something in order to be productive is a mistake rooted in the idea that one earns one’s place in the world. But you don’t earn a place that way; you are here by right, each of you. Each of us, remember – for we remind you, the separation of 3D and non-3D worlds is only one of degree. The separation is no greater than the identity. That is, yes, separate, to a degree. Yes, identical, to a degree. One world, one people, so to speak.

When you left your previous life of employment during weekday hours, and first came to live without restrictions built into every day as either weekday (workday) or weekend, there came a time when you were somewhat disoriented. First came a feeling of guilt that you weren’t at work during those hours; then came a realization that you could take a walk in the woods during the day if you wanted to, even if it took you away from your self-imposed task of writing a book. It took a while for you to realize that you could do what you wanted to do and no guilt or anxiety attached to it.

Regimentation is hard to shake.

Particularly when you are your own jailor, as Thoreau pointed out long ago. Well, there is a larger point here: Again, you do not earn your place in the world. It is a gift. Now, you may treat that gift well or badly, but gifts do not have to be earned, and in fact can’t be earned. Strictly speaking, they can’t be deserved or undeserved. A gift is free, or it is no gift but a bargain of some sort. Therefore, do what pleases you. Do what is true to your own nature, and you will not go wrong. However, knowing what is true to your nature isn’t quite as easy as it may sound, and you will soon find out by experience, if not by prior understanding, that this does not mean, “run riot.” It does not mean, “I am the only person who counts.” It does not mean, “Follow any whim.” For, just as we often ask, “Which you?,” so should you ask of an impulse or a pattern, “From which ‘me’ and for what purpose?”

That will sound contradictory to many people, unless spelled out.

Practical life will clarify it easily enough. In day to day life, it is clear that there are abiding urges and transitory ones, and they don’t necessarily pull in the same direction. There are whims and there are purposes, and they may cut against each other, or they may represent an alternation of energies. As with so much of life, it is a matter of discernment. You realize one day, you don’t feel like working on your book, nor reading. You’re feeling cooped up, and you are tempted into wandering for a couple of midday hours in the nearby woods. Is that a whim or a deeply rooted urge that is worth listening to? How can you know?

In practice, usually the rest of the pattern of our lives indicates.

Do you think so? What of situation where the breaking of bounds is the best thing for you? Everything might (and, likely will) make it difficult for you to break these bounds: Does that mean that breaking them would be a good thing? A bad thing? Can you safely depend upon the world’s guidance in such things? Can you safely depend upon your own unexamined reactions?

Aha, I begin to see the point you are moving on, here. At least, I think I do.

You do. We are merely setting limits to what might seem an unlimited vector.

That is, don’t proceed in one direction only, but remember that the opposite direction also holds appeal, or, maybe I should say, also has its own validity.

Yes. By all means follow your intuition, only don’t discard common sense. Wisdom lies in using both halves of your brain, logic and intuition.

It isn’t anything I don’t teach in my course on accessing guidance, only of course I emphasize using intuition, given that our culture undervalues that, and overvalues (by comparison) logic and reason.

Our point is slightly different, which is – How do you differentiate intuition and other non-rational impulses? How do you avoid reductionism without becoming a flake? You indicate the necessity. We would like to say a word on the discernment process.

Yes, I see the difference. And –?

A close connection to your non-3D component, with its sure access to knowledge from other mentalities, is certainly an advantage, a resource to be developed. But what of the interaction within you of so many strands, be they “past lives” or tendencies? These may mesh smoothly or conflict bitterly, or anything between the two extremes. Surely you can see that this complicates the question of listening to guidance.

Sure. Carl Jung said that his anima tempted him to say that his drawing of mandalas was not science (analytical psychology) but art, and he had to push back, insisting that they were what he felt them to be. Otherwise, he said, if he had accepted the anima’s judgment that they were art, she might later have said, “Nonsense, they are nothing of the sort.” He said, “She is quite capable of it.” I take it that he in his time was expressing something of what you are saying.

Something of it. In the day he lived in, only so much could be said and conceptualized. You must remember he was doing his own bursting of the bounds – personally and on behalf of his culture – and so had limits on what he could think or experience or express, as is always the case. This is why people are only as wise as their times allow them to be, and people who are inherently less wise, less experiences, less learned, but who live in later times, may surpass the insights of the giants who preceded them.

Better a live dog than a dead lion, Thoreau said, I believe.

It depends upon the use you wish to put it to. Live dogs make poor floor ornaments. Dead lions make poor sentinels. But if you are living your life as best you can, remember in matters of wisdom the lesson Lincoln gave you about attitude.

Yes, he said too much reverence is as distancing as contempt.

Similarly, too much reverence for past wisdom and accomplishment and genuine insight may be distancing you from your own perhaps more germane understandings, even if those sources are in fact worthwhile.

It is not always easy to know the difference between valid and invalid, between appropriate and inappropriate, between germane and irrelevant. The existence of different strands within you means you do not have a platform from which you can deliver objective judgments to yourself. You may “get carried away”; you may find yourself unable to transcend certain overwhelmingly strong prejudices; you may become overcome by desires, whims, ideas that seem self-evidently true at the moment, and perhaps self-evidently false not so much later.

In short, we have no infallibility. That isn’t news.

Well, you have no infallible way to discern which impulses or biases stem from an infallible source and which do not. That’s why judgment – discernment – always comes into play. It isn’t safe to follow every whim; neither is it safe to follow every rule, internally or externally imposed. Life is more complex than that, by design. Therein lies your freedom. And that is enough for now.

Thank you, as always. More another time, I presume.