7. Mental and physical

Friday, May 3, 2024

4:30 a.m. The mental life connects; the physical life separates.

That isn’t quite the way to put it, though it is what we said. Phrased more carefully, it would say, the physical circumstances lead you through the experience of isolation, but your mental life, carefully observed, provides you the evidence of continual connection that otherwise might not be noticed, not indeed believed.

It may seem to be a paradox. As always, any paradox may be resolved by considering the elements comprising it from a higher or deeper level. Here, the paradox resolves easily. (In fact, many will not even see it as paradox, seeing the resolution instinctively.) It is mostly an example of separation of function. A matter of specialization, one might say.

Your mental world functions from (connects you to) the non-3D from which you emerged. It continuously provides you access to abilities and perspectives you could not achieve if you were confined mentally, as you are physically, to 3D conditions. This is why some people discover liberation in meditation or prayer or any discipline that frees them from 3D sequential thinking.

Your physical existence in a separate body lives by very different rules, in very different conditions. This is not poor design, nor the result of bad choices, nor punishment, nor accident. Your 3D life is designed to place you in 3D conditions of seeming isolation in one time-space moment at a time. An illusion of separation is a part of that isolation. It functions as it is supposed to function.

However – and if you are reading this, you almost definitely know this from personal experience – this illusion of separation, of isolation, may be overcome by a realization of a deeper unbreakable connection, and that realization will certainly change your experience of 3D. The same conditions that provided a painful isolation now support a very different situation, in which physical confinement to one time-space moment may be connected to mental awareness of connection, to provide the best of both worlds.

You understand? At one level of consciousness, the phrase “All is one” will be seen to contradict everyday experience. How can all be one when conflict and cross-purposes and painful isolation are so evident? But then you achieve a higher or deeper awareness, and you see, you experience, that in fact both halves of the seeming contradiction are one.

When that occurs, you perhaps restate the situation in your mind as “Life is all one thing in its origins and in its non-3D manifestation, and it appears in 3D as separated elements because of 3D conditions.” Later perhaps you restate it more concisely. “Diversity in unity,” perhaps, or “Unity disguised by an appearance of multiplicity.” Any rephrasing is going to distort the fundamental understanding, because selection in 3D always does that. Sequential exposition – which is what language is, after all – cannot present all aspects at once, and even if it is able to list every single attribute of a situation, it cannot help but imply a hierarchy of importance even by the order in which things are listed, or by the length at which various things are discussed. With this in mind, you see the value of holding an image, or a feeling or a memory, so as to preserve your connection to the reality behind such statements as “All is one” or “All is well.”

We are tempted to digress, and perhaps it is as well to make note: The saying “All is well, all is always well” is so contrary to everyday experience in 3D that it can only be accepted provisionally (that is, on faith that it will prove true), or recast as a pious wish, or denied outright. If your being assents to it, it does so not on logical grounds, nor exactly in defiance of logic, but because something within you recognizes the truth of it. Of course, that may be said of anything we say, but it is particularly true for statements that seem to contradict experience so flatly.

How is everything always well? Phrase your understanding and we will assent or dissent or modify.

I’d say that the 3D can never be understood as a unity by logic based in sensory experience. Judging it by how it appears, we see joy and we see suffering, but we do not see an underlying unity, just as when we look at a family or any group from a 3D level, we see diversity and conflict and cooperation, but never unity. It is only as we look at life from a non-3D perspective that we see that the diversity proceeds from the fact that our consciousness of underlying unity is split by 3D conditions chopping life into time-slices and space-slices. This being so, it is clear that the appearance of diversity has to be rooted in one non-divisible underlying unity that we can mentally see but cannot physically experience.

Yes, that is a good summary. Your senses report on the world at any one time-space moment; your intuitions report on the underlying unity of time, and of space, and of life.

How could something that is one thing be self-contradictory? How could it be random? How could it be chaos, or divided into opposites such as good and evil, knowledge and ignorance, etc.? It may easily, almost inevitably, seem that way, when perceived at the level of consciousness that 3D conditions encourage, but beneath this appearance is the reality, and your deeper selves, your higher selves, will show you that, once you quiet your 3D logic and its insistence on presenting evidence of diversity.

So to return to the main point, not yet quite made: Your mental/physical outlook determines the nature of the world you live in. this does not – could not – depend upon the action or inaction of anyone else. It doesn’t and couldn’t depend upon political or economic or societal events of any kind. (Well, in one sense it may be said to depend upon physical externals, but only in one sense. To the degree that anyone allows external evidence – “the news” or ideology or religion or scientism – to shape their understanding, then yes, it could be said that only certain conditions allow people to get to the point where they can see the underlying reality, because it will keep them from doing the meditation or yoga or prayer or whatever that will quiet the sequential chatter and allow the deeper wisdom to emerge. But even this caveat depends upon sequential logic, you see. It assumes a lack of coherence in the interaction between the individual and its external circumstances.)

Do you really think that most people are precluded from achieving such contact until the world is at peace, or everybody learns to think alike, or all the stoplights across America turn green at the same moment? Such – slightly exaggerated here for emphasis – is 3D logic, saying, “This is how the real world is, as opposed to your pleasant fairy tale of unity and all being well.”

But if the life you experience may change as a result of a change within you – a decision to concentrate on the perception of underlying unity, rather than the appearance of chaotic diversity – what a hopeful fact! It is within your ability to choose how to see the world, how to see life. Your choice, no one else’s. Your choice, and it is not dependent upon wars and rumors or wars, nor upon the next election for city council. Your choice, and it need not wait for supportive others, and need not first clear out non-supportive others.

Could there be a more promising situation than to know that the life you live rests upon your own decisions, your own efforts? Jesus didn’t say, “I have come that you may have life more abundantly, once we’ve cleared the Romans out of here.” He said, “The poor you have always with you,” meaning not that this is a good thing, but in effect saying, “Don’t wait until social conditions are perfect (in your opinion); work on yourself now.” Or perhaps we should say more carefully, not “work on yourself” (which implies a long process) but “Decide now to be what you want to be.” This does not rest on results, but on your acquiring a surer basis to life.

Now, this is enough for today, and because it makes it easier for you to begin again, we’ll say that next time we may (or may not) begin with the effects on your lives of the fact that you are composed of strands – other Ives – which continue to live as you are living, even though from your vantage-point they are not in the living “present moment.”

This is wonderful material, and we are grateful for it. I am, particularly, given that I had thought we were done.

6. The roots of choice

Thursday, May 2, 2024

4:15 a.m. So, to continue. Not sure how to proceed.

Relax the reins; let us worry about exposition. Remember, you can always shuffle the resulting passages if need be.

Let’s talk about choice as it can and cannot be manifested in 3D life. You will remember, we have said that providing the possibility of choice is the very reason for the existence of 3D conditions. By forcing your consciousness to concentrate on one time and space, 3D conditions provide the ability and the de facto necessity of choice. But what does it really mean, to choose? If human life were the relatively unitary, relatively separated thing it appears to be, choice would be nearly impossible, for it would involve changing the result of so many conditions that brought you to where you were.

But you are not what you appear to be, and therefore neither is choice. Because you are not the solitary individual units you appear to be, change involves not change of what you are, but change of emphasis among the many strands that you comprise. It is easier to change relative emphasis than it would be to bring in new elements.

This isn’t coming our clearly yet.

No. We see we will have to move to a more remote starting-point. Leet’s look at what a soul is, and which ways it can be considered to be continuing from a prior point and which ways it can be considered new in each incarnation. That will show how it is that choice represents a choosing among elements rather than an introduction of new elements. It will also show how different theological tenets arose from people seeing one but not other aspects of the human condition.

To do this, we will need to make certain flat statements of fact that the reader will have to accept or reject or hold in suspension, depending entirely upon whether the statements resonate. We remind people, there’s nothing wrong with accepting an idea provisionally and then later changing your mind if need be. Exposition is our part; judgment is the reader’s part.

So:

Into the making of a 3D human, many things contribute. The physical heredity has its analogue in what we may call the spiritual heredity. The two shed light upon each other and (as we shall show sooner or later) interpenetrate.

A 3D being created via sexual reproduction is necessarily a compound being, not a unitary one. This should be evident. One’s father’s line provides certain characteristics; one’s mother’s line provides certain characteristics. The resulting child is a compound of the two lines, every child different not only because of circumstances including time and place, but primarily because the possibilities for inheritance from both lines are so numerous, no two people (other than identical twins) are likely to share them all. And this is true all the way back along each parent’s line, and all the way forward along the lines contributed to by each descendant.

Thus, physically you contain characteristics taken from  each of two lines, each of which lines is composed of countless individuals who were equally composed. In short, you are the latest in a long series of mixtures, a very complex result that can be considered individual only in that you each live in separate bodies.

This is so, physically. It is equally so spiritually. When the spiritual (the non-3D) elements came together in the new baby, they too were the result of mixtures going back to the beginning of human life. (And farther, but we will not concern ourselves with that at this time. The exposition is complicated enough as it is!)

Some people believe in reincarnation, the return to 3D of souls that have lived there before. Others believe that each new body receives (or contains, let’s say) a new soul. Both are correct as far as they go, and neither goes far enough, because each considers the 3D human is if it were a unit, when in fact it is a compound.

Reincarnation is valid, in that the same elements live again. It is not valid, in that it is not the case of one unit dying to 3D and being reborn to 3D. If you were units, it would have to be one way or the other: Either the unit came back or it did not. Thus, reincarnation would be true or it would not.

Individual souls being created for each 3D incarnation, similarly, is valid and not valid, depending on how you look at it. When you see that each new soul is a combination of souls that have lived before, you see that yes it is new, in that that particular combination never existed together before, and no it is not new, in that the elements that comprise it are not new. As in so many things, it is all in what factors you include as you consider the matter.

So we propose this scheme, which is somewhat simplified but is accurate enough to be going on with.

  • The human body is a compound, not a unit. It may be said to be a collection of characteristics that have to learn to live together. This is true physically and also spiritually.
  • Physically, the characteristics from either line are so manifold that there is little possibility they will all mesh smoothly. In greater or lesser degree, what one piece needs, another piece may suffer from. Hence, illness, incapacity. Hence also, certain remarkable seemingly superhuman abilities.
  • Spiritually, the same. You are composed of many strands of – shall we call it non-3D DNA? If several different combinations of previous lives go into the making of a new 3D consciousness, you may expect conflict, cooperation, and overlap among them, just as in the inherited physical characteristics.
  • In a sense, it could be said that both body and soul enter this life with unfinished business. By this we mean, not a conscious agenda, but a vector arising out of what the elements in combination create. Your life is a drama, you might say, and both in physical and spiritual terms, it involves the conflict and cooperation of elements that have come from different places, have different needs, have different aptitudes.

Does this clarify our description of life as choice? You know this by your experience. You live the conflict and cooperation of your constituent elements every moment. You choose among available options, all of which are equally you. It isn’t a matter of changing what you are, it is closer to changing the order of precedence of your various constituent elements.

You may ask, “Why?” Why is life this way? Life is often painful, or boring, or liberating, or ecstatically joyful – or any other possible state of being – but does it mean anything more than the passing of time?

Recognize that some questions cannot be answered too soon, or they get falsified by lack of context. But keep the question in mind; it will give point to further exposition. For now, consider the idea that you are not a unit in any sense but as a separate body. Your physical and nonphysical composition is a combination; your mental life is not separate –

In fact, that is where we should resume, with the fact that your mental life connects you, even as your physical life separates you. This should follow logically from the fact that the mental functions in non-3D; you would expect it to follow different rules and exhibit different characteristics. However, the idea may not be obvious until stated. We will go into it next time, probably.

Wonderful. Our thanks, today, as always.

 

5. The cosmic weather

Wednesday, May 1, 2024

4:45 a.m. Rereading the four previous entries is both encouraging and daunting. OT1H, a sense that the material is flowing. OTOH, what a mass of material to hold in mind together! But I will assume that you will provide a logical exposition. I am trying not to press, trusting.

Trust is always good, subject to later verification. “Later” verification, note. You can’t verify as you go along, any more than you can analyze while perceiving. First absorb the material, then pick it apart if you feel the need.

Now, we sketched a vision of time as continuing to exist before you move through a given moment and after you have moved on to the next moment. We are tempted to discuss what is called the Akashic Record, a concept we see as widely misunderstood. The misunderstanding stems from a small and seemingly insignificant distortion, but although it is small, it may not be so easy to demonstrate.

We will attempt an analogy with ordinary 3D life as experienced, and see if it illustrates our point. Just as “The map is not the territory,” so “The memory is not the experience.” Or, let’s say, the individual memory is not the same thing as an objective record.

We are not thinking of lies, nor of incomplete or inaccurate recollection, nor even of the construction of narrative using inadequate tools. What is at issue is not any inadequacy of individual recall. Instead, we are discussing the difference between, say, any careful individual’s record of the day’s weather, on the one hand, and the graphs and charts produced by scientific instrumentation, on the other. The latter form of recording is one degree less subjective than the former.

Think of it this way: The Akashic Record is not decided upon, at whatever level of reality. It isn’t like the concept of a recording angel, taking notes. It is automatically produced, it is the image of each moment. It is that moment, in a sense, and ultimately is a compilation of all such moments.

You see the distinction? The record is the shadow of the event, you might say. Or, the record is the event when seen from any other moment of space-time. In that sense (only) the Akashic Record appears as such only when viewed from the 3D. From within the non-3D, there is no distinction between “now” and “then.” Therefore there is no distinction between “now” and the other times that in 3D you see as available on the Akashic Record. That record is a 3D construct, making sense of what otherwise would not make sense in a context that assumes that “past” moments no longer exist.

You see? Someone in 3D, viewing any other moment, may accurately be said to be reading the Akashic Record. But it would be more accurate to say that they were reading, not the record, but the reality, because all those moments continue be as alive in potential as your present moment. A mere static record could not contain the possibility of choice, but – as we will show – just that possibility does exist in every moment. The world doesn’t freeze just because your time moved on to another moment, any more than Detroit freezes when you move to Cleveland. Life continues, whether or not you in 3D are in a position to observe it.

And this provides a segue into other topics, for everything connects. You should remember as we go that many things said in one context will have to be clarified – in effect, revised – when considered in other contexts. This is not because of slipshod exposition, but because different facts reveal different facets depending upon the viewing point. Thus, we are going to discuss choice, but later we will discuss the community nature of what seem like individuals, and what we say now will be understood differently then. This is a drawback of language (sequential exposition) and cannot be avoided. However, it can be kept in mind, which will result in a helpful attitude of readiness for revision, as opposed to thinking in absolutes.

So, choice. Remember that to us, the 3D is a crucible, concentrating you in one moment, one space, one set of circumstances at a time. Now remember the image of your sun and planet pulling you smoothly through space, and envision each such moment as being also a particular bit of space. That is, planetary motion moves you from one moment to the next (as you see it) by moving you from one bit of “space” to the next.

Each bit of space, each moment, has its own particular set of qualities. It is emphatically not true that one moment of time is the same as any other (much less every other), and it is equally untrue that one bit of space has the same qualities, the same effect, as any other. Careful analysis of your experience will tell you this. And this is why such arts as astrology and geomancy work. Once understand the underlying principles, and the working-out in practice follows. (Of course, in the absence of the theoretical background, such arts will necessarily seem to be superstition or fantasy.)

Every moment of time having its own nature, it follows that some things will be easier at one time, harder at another. This is another reason why astrological correlations were studied and codified: They provided predictions for the cosmic weather one will sail through, and when.

Notice, too, that your lives are the interaction of cosmic weather (in effect, the external world) with your own psychic makeup (the internal weather). Rough water for some will be smooth sailing for others. The difference is not in the times, nor in the individual makeup, but in the interaction of the two.

Now whether you are in a smooth patch or a stormy one, you still have the ability to choose. That is, after all, the point of 3D, to provide the continuing ability to choose among possibilities that are available. Each past choice has brought you to your present moment; each choice from here will bring you to your next choice. (Bear in mind, one valid choice is to continue as is. Choice doesn’t have to mean change of direction. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t.)

But what exactly does it mean, to choose? The answer may seem obvious, but if you look carefully at the question, it will reveal aspects that may not be immediately obvious.

You are what you are. The possibilities of the moment are what they are. Where is the ability to choose? Haven’t your past actions determined your present, and therefore your future? Isn’t free will an illusion, when  stacked up against cause and effect? It may easily seem that way. And if what you know were the total of what is, you would have to conclude just that.

That isn’t clear.

No. let’s try again. Your present and past and future may be made to seem predetermined by feats of logic honestly intended and carefully constructed. But logic is only as strong as its weakest link, and there is more than one weak link in the chain. For one thing, you as individuals are vastly more like communities than you realize, and none of your constituent elements ever gets to fully express itself. By a change in emphasis among them, you may seem to change, and that change of emphasis depends not upon (external) circumstances, but upon an effort of will, of intent. Hence even if everything external led toward one predicted result, the actual event is likely to surprise you. In effect, you are many people, and you have many possible futures. It is not that simple, of course, but we are well past your usual hour, and it would be as well to pause here.

Interesting. I seemed to perceive your choosing which rocks to step on as you crossed the river this morning.

An unrecognized difficulty of this kind of communication is that we cannot give you anything without breaking it down for sequential exposition. But, enough gets through to justify the effort.

Well, thanks for making that effort. Next time.

 

4, Time-space as a crucible

Tuesday, April 30, 2024

2:40 a.m. Very well, the continued existence of each moment of time.

This is a fundamental concept that differs from the accepted “common sense” idea of what goes on. Once absorb this concept and many things open up to reinterpretation. Those for whom it does not resonate will be unlikely to agree with much that will follow.

The difference is this: Instead of the commonly accepted idea that moments of time are created, exist briefly, then cease to exist, we tell you that this is true only as seen from within 3D, because 3D is necessarily experienced as if that way. Outside 3D – that is, outside time-space – reality does not exist as a moving platform. Instead, reality is every moment of time existing as it always did exist, not created, not destroyed. In 3D, you are conveyed from one moment to the next; Outside of 3D, you may go where you please, and it is all there, just as you experience in your minds alone while still in 3D.

You may wish to think of it this way: When the universe is created, it is created entire. Every possible moment exists, immediately, and if you had no way to filter out most of it, you could never make sense of what would be an overwhelming chaos of impressions. That is what 3D does; that is what the body and its brains do: They filter out all but a small manageable slice of reality.

You may wish to think of all moments of time in the same way you do all “moments” of space. There is the vast territory, and you traverse it, one step at a time. The movement of the planet through space carries you smoothly in rhythmic patters, vast spirals through space, and each bit of space is a bit of time.

This is either obvious to you or counter-intuitive, or a confused idea, so we will have to restate it for the sake of the stragglers.

What you experience as time is actually a property of space, as encountered by the earth’s movement through what you may call All-Space-All-Time. You cannot get away from your local movement even if you travel to the moon: After all, your entire solar system is only a tiny, tiny dot in the whole fabric. So you do not experience one such moment while your neighbor experiences another (excepting trivial differences) because you and your neighbor cannot help stand side by side. The qualities of the space-time moments you are being carried through may be very different – will be very different – from those experienced in other galaxies, but of course you cannot know this experientially, only, at best, conceptually.

You may get a faint echo of this reality by considering your experience of geography in 3D. The African desert and the Siberian steppe and the Brazilian rain forest are vastly different from each other, just as they are all vastly different from the deep Atlantic or the heights of Everest. In 3D you can travel in space, so you can experience these differences if you wish to. Well, in non-3D you can experience the similar differences in time.

For those this hasn’t lost:

The 3D world is a focusing device that makes possible things that could not be done otherwise. You live in one time, one space. The world you live on carries you from one moment of time to the next, never returning, never skipping, and you say “time passes.” The time factor is constant even if you move in space from one place to another. You do not – by flying from one continent to another, say – escape the narrow confines of the moment. You can’t fly into yesterday or into tomorrow. (Your flight may last until tomorrow, but wherever you are, whatever you do, you are carried through time smoothly, just like everyone else, necessarily.)

But because you are carried from one bit of time to the next, and then the next, that doesn’t mean that the bit you left ceases to exist, nor that the bit you move to does not exist until you get there. It will seem like that, but that is the difference between a concept – an interpretation – and the experience itself.

This will make sense of certain anomalies that have been noticed. The relativity of time and space, for instance. The possibility of precognition and retrocognition. Accurate and inaccurate prophecy. (Sometimes the mind sees what is coming; sometimes it sees what might have come but won’t. It can be hard to know the difference.)

As we say, the constrictions of the framework of 3D existence make certain things possible. They may be summarized as the ability to concentrate experience into one crucible. You live moment to moment, necessarily. Although your mind may range backwards and forwards, your bodies are held to what is in effect the eternal present-moment, and therefore must deal with life that way.

There is a tremendous advantage to experiencing life in so concentrated a form. It allows you, forces you, to decide from moment to moment. Your entire life may be regarded as one long succession of choices. This is because your lives are experienced in the way they are experienced. If you were released from the constraints of the time-space crucible, your perspective would vastly widen, and you would become aware (again) of so much that you cannot be aware of in 3D for sheer lack of ability to process overwhelming mountains of data.

And of course, this liberation is exactly what you experience when you drop the body at the end of your 3D life.

Now, you may think, “If what follows 3D life is a release from 3D constrictions, why not go now? What is the advantage of staying?” The answer is simple: The qualities that constrict also concentrate; the things you experience as painful or boring have the qualities of their defects (to turn the old phrase on its head). What is seen as disadvantage in one light will be seen as advantage in a different light. The hard work that goes into learning a trade or organizing some specialized knowledge pays off in increased capacity.

When you leave 3D, you will exult in your new freedom – but you will also see that certain things that had been possible (mostly pertaining to the shaping of your essential character by a process of continual choosing) are not possible outside of that crucible. So, it isn’t all gain, dropping the body. Like any journey, there are losses that accompany the gains.

But anyway, think about this way of seeing reality and see if it resonates with you. Those who learn to see time and space in this new relation gain the ability to see their life differently.

That must do for the moment.

Next topic?

Again, try not to anticipate. But the matter of choice is one likely possibility.

Our thanks for all this, as always.

 

3. 3D and non-3D

Monday, April 29, 2024

1:25 a.m. I suppose we should begin at the beginning, since we are not trying to prove anything logically. Shall we start with 3D and non-3D?

It matters less where we begin than how we proceed. By explaining as best we can, relying on the reader to recognize what will ring true (rather than attempting to persuade), we gain one great advantage: Everything connecting to everything, as it does, we may begin anywhere and procced in any direction. Indeed, this is what we have always done.

It is well to begin by recognizing that many pictures of life and the world leave out much of reality. To try to describe life without remembering that half of life exists, and continues, outside the 3D is to severely distort the picture.

So we will proceed to do two things along silent parallel tracks.

  1. We will describe what can be experienced.
  2. We will sometimes say why this is so, and the reader can take this or leave it.

That is, “The world is composed of 3D elements that may be perceived by the senses, and non-3D elements that may be perceived by intuition.” This is a statement that anyone may verify by personal sensory and intuitive experience.

But then we may say as well, “The 3D world is a subset of the larger reality which – as it contains both the 3D and the non-3D elements – might be called the All-D.” This kind of statement cannot be verified, nor falsified, by personal experience. It will be assented to, or denied, according to the individual’s judgment, but it can not be experienced; it can at best seem true or untrue or doubtful.

By proceeding in this way, we can sketch an interpretation of reality that the reader may verify by experience as we go , and at the same time we can provide connecting logic that may or may not be accepted but perhaps will help connect the dots – again, as we go along.

We will not explicitly label these examples as verifiable or not; that is up to the reader, for if you do not do your part to stretch toward the meaning, little can be conveyed, and less will change within you. Life doesn’t provide something for nothing. Or, to put it positively, life rewards effort.

So let’s begin with the nature of the physical world you experience. It is 3D and non-3D, and although language makes it seem like we are discussing two things,, really it is one thing – the All-D – with two poles. It is important to remember this every so often so as not to slide into dualistic thinking: There is only one everything, and so there are no absolute fault-lines. The world is never this or that, it is always this and that, and they are always in creative tension. As a rule of thumb, whenever you come to what seems like an either/or, you can find the underlying connection between the two at a higher or deeper level.  The world does not have fault-lines; it cannot be cracked into pieces.

The non-3D has its nature, the 3D a different nature. We as humans and non-humans and ex-humans respond to those differences, necessarily. As we have always said, the difference between those who are in 3D and those in non-3D is primarily the difference in the turf they live in.

The 3D, compared to the non-3D, is a compressed, slowed-down form of consciousness. In 3D, you experience one thing at a time. You are in one place, one time, and you cannot move yourself except by 3D rules. Your body can never more forward in time nor backward in time. It cannot traverse space except by going through whatever space lies between beginning and end points. That is the nature of 3D reality, constriction to one moment of space-time. There is no way around that.

Mentally, however, you may roam at will. You may imagine tomorrow or yesterday, may project your consciousness to ancient Atlantis or the surface of Mars or Abraham Lincoln’s Illinois. This is because the mind functions in non-3D, therefore by non-3D rules.

The various brains in the body function as transducers, or you may wish to think of them as radio sets, receiving non-3D signals and transmitting to 3D, or vice-versa.

So, to provide a rough-and-ready snapshot of the situation, we may say the body lives in 3D by 3D rules, the mind lives in non-3D by non-3D rules – and therefore you live in both 3D and non-3D alike, recognize it or not.

Right-brain/left-brain theory gets a glimpse of this by seeing that one half of the brain centers on obtaining (producing) holistic views (gestalts), and the other half centers on processing data in detail, sequentially. This is only an illustration, but if not carried too far it will clarify the point.

Thus you have the equipment necessary to experience 3D (through the senses) and non-3D (through intuition). Or really, we should say you have the equipment necessary to realize that you already experience 3D and non-3D, both, and always have. You may not have conceptualized your experience that way, but surely it is clear once pointed out.

Once you realize that you live, and always have lived, in non-3D as well as 3D, you see that every interpretation of the world that failed to recognize this fact is incomplete, often useless and occasionally harmful. This isn’t the “fault” of those who proposed those interpretations. People do the best they can, and nobody gets anything exactly right. But once you see that a given picture is incomplete, you are free from any impulse you may have had to consider it The Truth. It may have a part of the picture, but it will have defects. At best, a distorting mirror. At worst, a compilation of irrefutable logic built upon false premises.

From this point, other questions arise, such as, “What’s the point of life in such circumstances?” We will argue that 3D life is important in ways that may not be obvious; also, that in the nature of things, the life that ends when the body dies (hence no longer holding the animating spirit to 3D conditions) acquires, or let’s say resumes, a different nature when freed from the drag of 3D conditions.

But first we probably ought to explain life in non-3D in connection with freedom from 3D constrictions. The continued existence of each moment is an important concept. Next time.

About 55 minutes. I’d swear you were college professors. Our thanks.

 

2. Is it practical?

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.

 

1. Can we know?

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.