Tuesday, October 8, 2019
2:55 a.m. I have forgotten where we were, what you were building toward.
Fortunately, we have not. Let us consider the celestial kingdom in some detail.
Every time I write that, at your behest, I think of China.
Well, we could call it something else, but there isn’t much point, really. Any name will have associations that distract. Whatever we would call it, still we would need to describe a part of the natural order of things in the 3D world that are not to be perceived by the senses, nor by instrumentation, hence are invisible to common sense and to science.
I find I am too tired even to stay awake, which is quite a change given that I only got up because I was having trouble breathing. Score one for the nebulizer. Back later.
5:40 a.m. As we were saying –
Underlying the physically obvious aspects of the 3D world is another layer we are calling the celestial kingdom, the fourth kingdom. In our scheme of things, we are stressing the multiple layers of discrete but interacting energies that go into the making of a stable environment. The world you live in didn’t just happen, and doesn’t just happen to continue, any more than, say, a subway system just happens, or just happens to continue to operate. Layer upon layer of interlocking function is required to produce and sustain the effect that your 3D vision sees as a solid material world that exists on its own.
You are giving me back Paul Brunton’s vision of how the world exists, only in different detail and in fact broken down and assembled in a way he never did.
There is a reason why you didn’t quite finish The Wisdom of the Overself despite learning from it and in fact finding it inspiring. You got what you needed, and sometimes it is as important to not get someone’s completed thought as to get it. It is much more important that a book or a teacher or a friend or a situation spark you, than that they convert you, and particularly than that they convert you into a disciple.
Nonetheless, he helped enormously.
Yes, he provided logical pathways to connect what you knew to what you intuitively but not scientifically knew to be true.
It is as I say sometimes, he provided an excuse for me to believe what I already knew.
Yes. Now cite the logical conclusions you derived from Brunton’s thought, without worrying about accurately summarizing what he said. That is, regardless of what he said, tell what you heard.
That’s a very interesting distinction. [For ease of reading, I’ll put the next five long paragraphs into Roman rather than continue in italics.]
Brunton logically analyzed our experience of the world and convincingly demonstrated that we can know nothing of it except what our minds report. All our data – of what this desk feels like, say, or the pen in my hand, or the hand itself, or the light that lights the page, or the coffee that fuels my awareness – all of it is, you might say, only known to us second-hand. You couldn’t prove the desk actually existed, even though you may have helped move it, and even though you may be relying on it being there as you use it to hold the book you are writing in. All we really know is an elaborate representation of reality; there is no way to know if any of it is real in the way it appears, even though in practice we rely on it – and us – being there moment by moment.
Now, this seems like merely playing with words and concepts. After all, we live in the world. When Samuel Johnson was told of this view (expressed by Berkeley, or Hume, I think), he kicked a stone and considered that he had answered the argument, and he had, for himself and for all the common-sense people of the world. But he hadn’t disproved anything, not really. The fact remains, when you look at it closely (I can’t go into Brunton’s reasoning and examples) it is clear that the physical world cannot be proved to exist outside our own minds.
But in that case, where are we? After all, in practice, there it is, as Dr. Johnson demonstrated, or thought he demonstrated. The world can’t very well be billions of individually produced illusions that only happen to mesh.
Brunton shows (I cannot, but I was convinced) that the world as we experience it can only exist in the way we experience it if it is, in effect, dreamed up and continually dreamed up, by an overarching unblinking mind that encompasses it all. To posit anything less produces paradoxes and logical fallacies. What I am clumsily saying is that he showed why people concluded that there is a God; or concluded that the world is mind-stuff and not the independent external reality it appears to be; or concluded that the world winks into and out of existence (today we might say, is continually “refreshed”) forever; or concluded that if God were to forget us for an instant, we would cease to be. Without subscribing to any of those views as such, he shows why they came into existence, what they explain and do not explain, and what larger view incorporates them.
In short, nothing is as it seems, but it cannot be meaningless either. We are not what we seem, and neither are we nor our lives meaningless. As I say, he carried me by evidence to what I already felt but could not logically demonstrate. And that is as much as I can do to show what Brunton’s lifetime’s conclusions meant to me. Not more than you wanted, I trust.
[TGU:] No, admirably done. As usual in such cases, you setting it forth as your thought allowed you greater freedom than you would have felt if you had thought you were conveying our thought.
But I felt you in the background anyway, putting in your oar, helping me make a clear statement.
Yes, and a word on that process. If one is in good connection with the larger self, the “unconscious” mind, the non-3D component, one’s functioning is going to be smoother, easier, more reliable, because of just that sort of background facilitation.
Okay. So what will you use that summary for?
It provides a concise statement of many assumptions that have been implicit but not stated. It helps people make conscious connections that until now may have been only semi-conscious, or indeed undreamed of. You – we – are functioning as generator of sparks, remember, not as layer-down of the law.
The fact is, Brunton’s exploration of what the senses can and cannot establish is essentially without flaw or gap. His further exploration of how “mind is the builder,” to use Edgar Cayce’s words, is equally flawless. And finally, the movement beyond the two pillars will lead to enlightenment any who are ready to enter in. Bear in mind, to become enlightened does not mean “to become an exalted one”; it does not mean “to suddenly know everything,” or even “to be endlessly wise.” It means, to be in light instead of darkness. It means, to see because the conditions (light) now allow you to see, whereas before, conditions (darkness) prevented you from seeing.
I get as subtext, just because you become enlightened doesn’t mean all your opinions of things – even of the things you have just experienced as enlightening – are necessarily accurate.
That’s right, and it is important. There is a distinction to be made between (1) the process of seeing, and (2) what is seen, because what is seen has been interpreted, and interpretation is always an individual (that is, a subjective) thing. So one may become genuinely enlightened and yet remain pig-headedly or absent-mindedly stupid about some things.
That’s actually a very freeing thought. Thus we may follow someone’s footsteps without committing ourselves to believing every word s/he says, however convinced we may be of his or her sincerity and intelligence and knowledge.
Ultimately one has only oneself. However, used properly, the tool should be more than adequate for everyday purposes.
Very funny. Is this a pause, then?
It is. Nice work today.
I think it is very interesting – and it is very agreeable to me – that you continually remind us of our possibilities and our limits, both. You’re always saying, “Here’s how it is, only maybe not.”
Not quite. It would be closer to say we are always saying, “Depend upon yourselves, but remember that you don’t know everything, and might easily be wrong about any given thing; but depend upon yourselves.”
And here I was hoping we were writing scripture.
Well, you’re writing in script, doesn’t that count?
Smiling. Till next time, and our thanks as always.