TGU — About that question of “why?”

Sunday May 28, 2006

(9 a.m.) [My friend Charles Sides] asks, sincerely, if I will ask why. Why are we here, what is life all about? He lists several of the things people say about it – and people don’t seem to be shy about pretending to know. He’s looking for a purpose to the 3D world, a question he and I often pursued in our Sunday morning discussions back when he was a neighbor. As it happens, I think I’m beginning to know, and I think that what is wrong with so many schemes that tell us what we’re doing is a false idea about who we are. But I don’t seem to have the energy to write it out at the moment. Maybe later.

(And BTW that is interesting in itself, because when somebody comes in, fatigue is not a factor until I run out of steam, usually at least an hour later: It is never a matter of looking forward and saying, geez, that’s going to be a lot of work.)

(12:15 p.m.) Okay, let’s see if we can do this. I’ll start and hope someone chimes in at the appropriate time.

As I’m beginning to see it, the 3D world is an integral part of the non-3D world. Whether 3D always existed or was created, I don’t know. Whether, if created, it was created once for all, I don’t know. Whether 3D creation comes into being repeatedly – that is, one creation appearing, living its lifespan, and disappearing, to be succeeded by another creation (as Hindus apparently believe) I don’t know. But for our purposes right now, we know that 3D exists, regardless whether it is ultimately illusion, and regardless whether (as is very likely) its true nature is quite different from our ideas of it. Some think that 3D is the only thing that exists, but to them I have nothing to say, nor would they listen if I did have.

It seems clear that a major distorter of our ideas is the spatial analogy that sneaks into everything. Thus we think of 3D as being “here” and non-3D being “there”; elsewhere. I prefer to think of everything being a matter of frequency, of vibration (though that is analogy as well, which is hard to remember) so that there is only one “here” and it encompasses all that is; physical, non-physical, whatever. Now granted, it is an extensive here; still, it is the only game there is. We in 3D can’t experience non-3D with our senses but can experience it otherwise. If we can remember that it is right here we eliminate or minimize one source of error, the spatial analogy.

Another distortion arises from our belief in what the guys call the “convenient fiction” of individual existence. Believing that we are individuals, we carry that belief over to our ideas about the other side. Thus we think (if we believe in reincarnation) that one life is a rebirth of another, as if any of the lives in 3D were a unit. Thus “I” am a reincarnation of “Joseph” or “John” or “Katrina.” But – am I? In what sense? Instead, it appears that the soul is created at birth (or conception, or somewhere thereabouts; whenever spirit hooks into body) and continues another sort of existence after the death of the body. That soul’s attributes may well share inheritances, via spirit, of other past souls – but it is not a straight re-run of those lives, and should not be thought of as a continuation of them except in the sense which we may think of ourselves as continuations of our physical ancestors. So – the individuality analogy as source of error.

Given that we are here to choose (that is, accepting what the guys have said), our choices in 3D somehow influence the other side by changing what we become. It is as if we in our lives are voting on values, and the votes are being continually tallied on the other side. The vote is not what we think so much as what we are.

When the voting becomes final, so to speak, or even if it ever does, I have no idea. But they have made it pretty clear, at least is seems clear to me, that

[nteresting. I interrupted myself by letting my mind stray while I was writing out that “at least” clause, and now I have no idea how I was going to end the sentence. I suspect that it’s time for a word from our sponsors.]

How’d I do so far?

You show a pretty good working understanding of what we have been telling you. You haven’t mentioned delayed consequences as a sort of explanatory device – making sure you absorb the results of various decisions, you know – but otherwise unexceptionable.

Still your question remains: Why do you do this; why does the universe exist; why is there a God or a box of corn flakes, and what are they to you.

You used to say to Charles that you are in the position, while in 3D, of being a fish at the bottom of the sea trying to imagine a man on the top of a mountain watching television. Nice analogy, and still true.

“Why is there air,” Bill Cosby used to ask as part of a comedy routine. Nothing wrong with asking the question, as long as you remember (or realize in the first place!) that there can be no answer divorced from the interests of the questioner. “To blow basketballs up with” is logical, accurate, and germane, if that is where your interests lie. “To provide an exchange medium for plants and animals” would be equally true – but no more true, merely from a wider perspective. We could continue but, we assume, there is no need. “Why” is a question whose answer is always improvised according to the nature of the person responding. In our view “why” does not rank with “how.” You may never know why you live, but you probably should give thought to how. Naturally the two questions are related, but either question is more meaningful in connection to the other than standing alone; that is why we bring “how” into the discussion.

Thank you very much. I’m tired now, but I get that you’re finished anyway.

For the moment.

(12:50 p.m.)