The external world and us

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

4:05 a.m. Last time, you said you were doing two things: talking about the problem of evil in the coming civilization, and talking about individual self-development as it appears. Pray continue.

A chief source of confusion for people is how the “external” world can be really only an expression of unknown parts of themselves; and can be, equally real-ly, fully existent in and of and for itself. If this is once understood, many things clarify, because who and what you are clarifies. As long as you can’t see yourselves as both individual and shall we say not-individual, you are going to have to choose between what seems to be a divide. When you see a thing as if it were two things, obviously you won’t be able to see it whole.

This is another time when I think I know what you mean, but the words that well up to explain it don’t seem to me to be adequate to the task.

You try, then. But first, let’s explain the problem once again, as part of our continuing seminar on the process itself.

Well, I don’t know how others experience the process, but for me, it is mostly a matter of writing what seems to come of itself, something like the way we talk in conversation, the words welling up (a) to express our meaning and (b) sometimes saying things that surprise us, as if the words themselves are doing our thinking ahead of us. I got used to that, decades ago, and got myself into awkward situations often enough, talking without knowing what I was going to say – not occasionally, not when drunk or feverish or overcome by emotion or whatever, but habitually. The only time I have seen reference in print to this way of speaking before thinking was a novel by Elia Kazan, The Arrangement, I think it was.

That’s how it usually is here. But sometimes the words don’t come, and I have a feeling of what is to be expressed, and I need to search for words to express it and even, sometimes, have to search for the idea that wants to be expressed. And sometimes, on the opposite side of the spectrum, I will actually know the words as words, as clearly as if I had heard them.

But I’ve said all this before, so what’s the point of repeating it now?

Repetition in a new context is often helpful, for one thing. Plus, let’s look at what you just described. You will notice that sometimes the flow dries up because it is an unfamiliar concept, or else a disturbing one. In the former case, it becomes a matter of formulating connections previously not made; in the latter, it is finding a way around what you call mental blocks, or emotional resistances to seeing things in a certain way. The former is easily understood as process; the latter, perhaps not so much.

When we say “mental blocks” it may suggest determined resistance, and in fact sometimes this is an accurate description. But it may also be blockage in the sense of a railroad whose trackage is interrupted not by a landslide covering them, say, but by a stretch never laid down in the first place. That is, two things previously not connected in thought, now seen, or felt, or intuited, as indeed connected, but the way to traverse the distance between them not having been set down. And a third case is where this track seems to lead over a cliff, such as a thought suddenly seeming to lead to nonsense.

In any of those cases – resistance, pathlessness, apparent dead-ends – the flow may come to an end, and it will be up to you to – shall we say – think in faith, or receive in faith, or write in faith. That is, be willing to continue in the hope or assurance that perseverance will prove worthwhile.

And then there is the “Eureka!” moment, more like a lightning flash than laying down railroad tracks, in which you suddenly see previously unsuspected connections, and everything is different.

This fast survey for the benefit of those who begin practicing ILC, so that they do not needlessly suffer doubt or discouragement when things seem to flow other than smoothly, or not flow at all.

So to return to the point at which you were feeling that our exposition was inadequate to the subject-matter: the integral yet separate experience by the individual of what is external.

We trust that by this time our description of reality as without absolute boundaries has been absorbed.

No, this is hopeless. I get that you want to recap so many things like reality being projected rather than existing as “real” in the way it appears to us. You may be able to trot all that out again, though I couldn’t, but how are you going to spend the hour recapitulating and then have any time for anything new? Plus, your tips on the process took up more than half the hour anyway.

We understand the frustration. Do you have a better idea?

What about just putting out the headlines, and let people use their own search-engines?

Interesting idea. Bold idea, even. But can you transcribe the headlines?

I don’t know. Let’s try, and we will or we won’t get something.

All right. Headlines:

“Life is but a dream.” Also, “All is one”; “As above, so below.” “As a man thinks in his heart, so he is.” “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life, and you will call it fate.”

I will paragraph them in transcribing them. [Thus:]

• “Life is but a dream.”
• Also, “All is one”;
• “As above, so below.”
• “As a man thinks in his heart, so he is.”
• “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life, and you will call it fate.”

Okay. I see promise in this. Continue?

• Beyond this mortal realm, there is another, not mortal; yet the two are one.
• You are not primarily 3D beings and yet you are. Which way you define yourself (con-fine yourself) determines who you appear, how reality
• The only permanent thing is that all is in eternal unceasing change, and yet eternal change is itself a form of changelessness.

And you see the problem as well as the possibility: Too concise a statement emerges as paradox or cryptic allusion. Our habitual slow process of exposition avoids that pitfall.

Maybe worth alternating. I for one get a little tired of plodding exposition, continually half-repeating previously established views so as not to let them fall into oblivion.

Alternation may have its value.

Yes. I think of Bronson Alcott’s Orphic Sayings, which meant something to him but were entirely opaque to his contemporaries. He set forth, but he did not explain, hence did not communicate.

We have done plenty of explaining, these past years.

We have. If you wish to wax orphic now and again, I suppose we shouldn’t complain of opacity.

Well, then, another headline or two, as it is 5 a.m., and then we will pause.

• You are the entire world, yet you are only the tiniest part of it, rather like a hologram.
• As a “divine spark,” that is, stemming as you do from something that is not of the 3D level of reality, your nature cannot be satisfied with 3D reality alone.
• Earth is not a school; it is closer to a gymnasium, or basic training.
• You are neither ignorant nor isolated nor limited, and yet your 3D experience continually tempts you to see yourselves that way. Why do you suppose that is?
• Life is vastly greater than the 3D version of life that you are living in one part of yourself.

And enough for now.

Thanks. Let’s pursue this headline idea next time. I kind of like it.