Author: Frank DeMarco

Sunday, April 28, 2024

6:15 a.m. So, is it practical to ask how the world works? In effect, why we are here?

In what way would it be considered practical not to ask what it all means? Plenty of people live their lives without considering the question, or, if they do consider it, they quickly assume the answer can’t be known and don’t pursue the question. They get along just fine. Or, people don’t consider the question because they don’t realize there is any question: Their surroundings give them an answer and they do not question it.  How they are raised is how they remain.

For any of these people, the question does not arise, so pursuing it is not an issue. But if a great question-mark does fill your horizon, would it be practical to assume that it is there for no reason? If it matters to you, it is likely to matter a lot. Doesn’t it make sense to assume that something that you feel matters, does matter, even if you don’t immediately know why?

And of course there is a third, intermediate, position. It comes to matter or ceases to matter. This intermediate position is a variable state, and is the state these sessions my help.

So, three possible conditions:

• It matters to you, and you are going to pursue it if possible.
• You begin your life concerned with other things, but your life brings the question into focus. Or, you begin by questioning and leave off when you can’t find a way to satisfactorily answers.
• It doesn’t matter to you. You consider it a dead issue, or a settled one, or one that never arises.

Those in the third position have no need of answers, and even if you could rouse them to an awareness of the importance of knowing why you are living, to unsettle them might do more harm than good, like the African “mission boys” of the colonial era, who were widely considered to be worth little either to their own people or to the conquerors’ society. A merely intellectual conversion may leave a severely divided person, not really able to cope or to fit in.

(Bear in mind, that doesn’t mean this is a detour for that individual soul. You can’t know the ultimate effects of any life experience, if only because there is not final “ultimate.” So we don’t say don’t disturb people in this position, we say merely that they aren’t the ones who will profit from a new way of seeing things.)

When we say “practical,” we are confining our field of inquiry to this life, this time, not some theoretical other life. To look at anything beyond the life you live now would be to sneak an answer into the question, like people trying to prove by logic that God does or does not exist. We’d rather not do that.

If the question matters to you, it matters for a reason, and we would say it ought to be pursued, just as you would pursue anything else in your life that mattered to you. To you.  That’s the beginning point. Does the question matter to you? If it did not, why would you bother about it? But if it does matter, how could it be considered practical to not pursue a question that poses itself to you whether or not you want it to? We regard it as a basic ground-rule: If it matters to you, take it seriously. Don’t pretend it doesn’t matter, just because you may not see immediately how to pursue the question.

For, this is the other half of the question about practicality: Can you pursue the question effectively? Can you really know anything if you put in the time and effort? And we’d say the answer is yes, but the process and result are not what you would probably expect. You won’t come to logical proof. You won’t stack evidence higher and higher until you are forced to a conclusion. You won’t discover a mathematics that proves anything. This isn’t that kind of question.

So then, what can you expect?

We’ll tell you. You will find yourself knowing more by a process of recognition than of logic or compiling data, certainly not by being persuaded by appeal to authority.

You already know. We are here merely to clarify what you know and don’t necessarily recognize that you know.

Does that sound circular? In terms of logic, no doubt it does. But in practice, not only does it work, but it is the only process that does work. You don’t get persuaded; you don’t grab some belief arbitrarily; you don’t throw up your hands and say, “It can’t be known.” In practice, what happens is that you recognize the truth, and the only learning that takes place is the association of ideas and conclusions and limitations and relationships that may not have occurred to you in the absence of conscious recognition.

We say this is the only learning that takes place. True, but that’s a big “only.”

We will point you to the truth, and then it is up to you. As we said earlier, everyone’s truth is going to be different, with overlaps. This is not about creating a movement, still less about creating a religion. It is about saving you time and energy in orienting yourself.

Here is an implication that some will shy from: Everyone’s particular subset of the truth is important. Everyone’s particular nuanced result fills an ecological niche that otherwise cannot be filled. Do not undervalue your participation in the great task. Do not hesitate to set your own understanding against that of the entire world. How else is any refinement of understanding ever accomplished? And how do you know but that your individual piece – which by nature must be unique – may be the very piece needed by another? You may consider this to be one meaning of Jesus saying that the discarded or disregarded stone becomes the keystone that holds up the arch. Do not assume there is only one discarded stone per universe. It happens all the time. You might take a careful look at your own stone, as it reveals itself.

And this will do for the moment.

And next time? Can you give us a headline?

Don’t press. Take it as it comes. As Seth says, it will be in perfect order. And if you nevertheless wish to reorder what comes, who is to stop you?

Okay. Our thanks as always.

 

Saturday, April 27, 2024

5:05 a.m. Mt friends, I have decided that if we resume our regular chats, I want us to work on the summary book together. I will do my best to steer it by questions – and I will hope that others will contribute questions as well – only this time we will work on explicit ground rules (which, of course, may change as things develop). This time we’re going to produce entries for the blog and for email lists, but with the understanding that I may change things extensively when it comes time to produce extended discourse. That is, I may rewrite.

It was never our intent that you reproduce us as if being a scribe and an acolyte or even a translator. We told you that repeatedly.

You did. But doing it my way left a record – a more or less verbatim record – documenting the process. From here we will concentrate on a clearer exposition. I consider that if this process hasn’t been demonstrated on the record by now, there is nothing more we can do by way of demonstration.

Well, we never fought you on the idea, merely reminded you that the restriction was on your end, not on ours.

True. So, to work? Let us address ourselves to the eventual reader. That will reduce the burden of rephrasing when it comes to putting it together.

So, first question: What is the practical use of changing our view of the way the world works? Life has plenty of obvious and serious problems. Why divert ourselves by trying to know what can’t be known?

If it couldn’t be known, there would be force in the question. It’s true, “Life is real, life is earnest, and the grave is not its goal.” [Longfellow] But consider.

• Is it true that “the way the world works” can’t be known?
• Is it true that, if it can be known, the question is not practical?

We would say that the answer to the first question depends entirely upon one’s definitions of “known.” It can be known, enough to be of use, as we will show. And the second question is an easy, “Yes it is practical to ask.” And we will give our reasons why it is practical.

As to knowing the meaning of life – which is the same question, really, as knowing how the world works:

What do you mean by “knowing”? The same word may mean different things. There is the knowing that can be established by scientific instrumentation, testing a hypothesis to see if it can be falsified. Clearly this kind of knowing is not what we mean.

On the other end of the scale is the knowing that relies entirely on “what feels right.” This strictly intuitive approach is legitimate, but it has its pitfalls and its limits. We can’t rely on individual intuition to provide us with the answers to the meaning of life, to the way the world functions. Because it is individual, it is subject to psychological vagaries that not only may send you off the track, but in any case may make it terribly hard to communicate with your fellows. What is true for one may provide sure guidance in life for that one. Yet what is true for one may not be at all true for another.

The most productive approach to investigation lies between these two extremes, or is an alternation between them, or uses one to correct the other. This may seem a very insecure platform to rely on, but perhaps it is more reliable than it seems at first sight.

The first rule of investigation is to measure by the tools proper to the matter being examined. You don’t do psychological testing to see if a given geological area was the product of certain physical phenomena. Similarly, you don’t measure weight, density, etc. to see if human life has purpose. The right tool for the right job.

It isn’t like the questions haven’t been asked over the years. Why are we here? What is the meaning of life? Is there a God? What should we do with our lives?

• Some ask these questions relying heavily upon logic and thought, using other people’s previous answers as data, but subjecting everything to the test of logic. You call such inquiries philosophy.
• Some ask as the result of personal experience (painful or ecstatic) or strictly out of a burning curiosity, and their investigation relies heavily upon other people’s testimony about their own experiences. This is the part of religion that attempts to trace what reality is, not the part that attempts to deduce or transmit what this implies (or commands) about human conduct. You call this theology.
• An intermediate discipline attempts to come at the truth by taking personal testimony seriously – as evidence of the human mind’s functioning, not necessarily as evidence that what that mind concludes is correct. It also applies thought and logic to that data, and you call it psychology.

There are other approaches as well, but they are all variants of the two extremes, science and religion, and the intermediate position of psychology.

Using these methods of inquiry, yes, the world can be known. Human life can be understood. Only, bear in mind, true understanding will not produce only one answer.

This may seem contradictory: How can there be more than one truth?  But in fact, truth has so many facets that it can never be known in full. It can only be known from a given viewpoint. Every different viewpoint will show truth in a somewhat different perspective.

Perspective – the necessary result of viewpoint – produces different partial views, none of them necessarily “wrong,” or even “incomplete” or “misleading” – provided that you remember that they are partial views, not one (impossible) comprehensible 360-degree view. Try to imagine a view that sees not only 360 degrees around the horizon, but also every 360-degree view that can be drawn through every degree of altitude from the horizon to the zenith. It can’t be done. The only way to get to such a comprehensive view is to leave 3D limitations and move to a non-linear – non-3D – framework. But this you cannot do while still in the body. You may be able to conceive of it, you will be unable to accomplish it, any more than a rifleman could shoot in all directions at once.

But just because you cannot get a universal view beyond viewpoint, doesn’t mean you can’t get all you need, because (as we will show in its proper place) you represent a viewpoint. You are one bit of data out of the entirety. Just as you are not everybody, so your viewpoint cannot be everybody’s, and this is as it should be. But the one bit is valuable, and if you will think holistically, you will understand that every bit contains the whole.

Next time we will show why it is practical to ask these larger questions.

This seems to have worked well. Thanks.

 

Friday, April 26, 2024

Every time I write the date in an entry – or, not every time, but often enough – I am reminded of the months I spent wondering if the final entry would be any time soon. It seemed it must be – but never was. Well, someday.

Okay, guys, ready if you are. It is 4:35 a.m. (rounded as usual) and I have my very welcome coffee.

Consider your pleasure in writing in your accustomed journal book rather than the off-format one you endured for three months, and remember your thought about the philosophers.

Yes, I get it. I thought, yesterday, reading about Colin’s thought and life, that so many schools of philosophy were built upon totally inadequate models of human life. Incomplete, actually wrong, clearly demonstrated in  years since how incomplete and wrong they were, and yet their influence persists. Tabula rasa, for instance. Clearly wrong. Sartre and so many existentialist thinkers making assumptions and perhaps not even seeing that they were assumptions rather than facts, and so concluding that man is a useless passion, that life is inherently meaningless, that everything is contingent. And the link you are making is, I think, an example of how many connections we make that have nothing to do with logic or thought. In this case, the physical familiarity of the journal book and pen, the pjs and robe, the early morning coffee and the surrounding world’s quiet, with perhaps the distant sound of cars or trucks on the highways outside. Such physical clues are missed, just as are more debatable ones as heredity, affinity, past-life memory, etc.

The reason we wanted you to write the book interpreting our words is that no one else will be able to do the job you could do. Others will be able to do what you cannot do, but they won’t be able to do what only the one on the inside of the process can do.

Maybe I already did it in The Cosmic Internet.

To a degree, you did. But you know more now than you did then.

Well, I don’t know what to do about it. It’s like “The Stone and the Stream” manuscript that I looked at yesterday, for the first time since ceasing work on it in October. I can see that it won’t do; there isn’t any point in finishing it. But I can’t see how to go ahead with a new version, nor how to fix what I have. We may have to settle for what is done.

We aren’t the ones concerned about it.

No, but you are the ones quietly nudging me, I think. Or maybe not, maybe the distinction was never more than relative. In any case, I enjoy the feeling of being back in contact with you. I had reconciled myself to having finished all this, but I prefer it. And I bought a six-pack of these journals, as a sort of act of faith,. I hope they get filled with substance.

If I had the energy and the reason to do it, maybe I’d write a sort of autobiography. Colin thought I should, and that was before Rita and I even began our 2001 sessions.

As usual, it is your choice.

Let’s talk about something. I know it’s my choice, theoretically, but maybe it will get done or, more likely, maybe it won’t.

Consider your drawings.

I have gotten a good deal of pleasure out of the process of drawing in pencil, then later coloring the drawings with colored pencils. I have done hundreds of black-and-white sketches, and have colored a small proportion of them. I just framed and displayed nine of them on my dining room wall, as you know. Satisfying, fun, effortless in the sense of hard work, yet not effortless in the sense of time and attention spent doing them. None of this can come to anything except for myself. Maybe journaling is no different, despite that background sense that says, “This ought to be made available.”

Maybe it isn’t an either/or. Maybe things done for their own sake are accomplished regardless whether anything further is done with them. [They meant, I think, are an accomplishment either way.]

Like Charles absorbing 50 years’ worth of philosophical and religious reading, or my reading of so much history and biography.

The mental association is work; it results in a product within the mind you are, regardless if it is ever put into the world in overt form. We said this long ago. No one’s life – communicated to others or not – is “wasted.” No one’s connections are ephemeral. It is hard for people to realize that: It is one thing we still hope you will work at getting across to them.

Something of a contradiction there. It isn’t important that such things be communicated, and then it is.

You can untangle that yourself. It isn’t very complicated, and isn’t much of a contradiction.

I see that. You’re saying all our lives are important records of experience and connection (besides what else they are), and so whether we communicate to others isn’t important. But you are also saying it can be important to tell people this so they know.

One thing you came to do is to encourage people. What more encouraging for them than to be reminded that their inner world is not “inconsequential unless expressed.” And this ties in to your earlier thought about the failed philosophers.

Yes, it does. They judged us as if we were merely disconnected individuals, no Upstairs (non-3D) component at all, no psychic links and transmission, no purpose, not even any innate wisdom or radar. A totally inadequate model of what we really are, and we suffer from accepting that model to some extent except when we happen to wake up to its falsity.

If the inarticulate private citizen once realized that every mind registers, think what a heightened sense of responsibility and purpose and hopeful construction may result. “Mute, inglorious Miltons” may be seen as not having been wasted at all; they are closer to being God’s spies.

“God’s spies.” From Lear, I think. I have had that thought over the years. Most of us do not have access to the media megaphone, whether we would or would not want it. We live our lives as private things. We report (silently) on the world as it is beyond the media spotlight.

All paths are good, the life lived in the spotlight, the life lived in deliberate or inadvertent obscurity, the life mostly private and a little bit public, the life public but still unavoidable private. There is no preferred mode, as far as we are concerned, and no mode that is unfortunate. The more that people realize this, the happier and the more satisfied they will be.

I was thinking, the other day, I’ll bet every concept you’ve given us over the past 25 years can be found in my earlier journals. Many of them, anyway. It is as if I already knew it, but needed someone sort of external to call my attention to it.

“Sort of”? We are external to the degree that anything can be external, and internal in that we are all part of the one thing that is. And if your readers will remember this, they will see why it is impossible that they be disconnected or unimportant or disregarded, regardless of external circumstances or appearances; regardless even of how it feels to them.

We are going to have to find a way to bring the insights of religion back into our lives without at the same time carrying the rules and superstitions that accreted to the insight, to the mind-awareness, to the stance more in the All-D and less in 3D-only.

And that’s enough.

Fifty minutes, not bad. I’d say you earned your money today.

And we’d say you earned your coffee.

Which is cold, the little that’s left of it. Our thanks as usual.