Metaphors for 3D existence

Sunday, August 22, 2021

1 a.m. I must remember to invite people to submit hard questions about the material. If they find something indecipherable or contradictory, I wish they would say so, so that we can put the question to the guys and see what’s what. That worked very well, back in the days when Rita and I were working. Sometimes questions occur to me while I am writing, and if I do not stop to register them, often later I can’t remember the thing that had bothered me, or the thing it had suggested. It always seems a loss.

1:20 a.m. To it, then? Our life as localized consciousness?

The fundamental revisioning here is that you no longer think of the body as merely or mostly an inert platform designed to carry your consciousness. It is so much more than that. It is so much busier than that.

Yes, we got the three centers of activity you sketched yesterday.

Well, we set out some ideas for you to consider, each of which would provide ample food for thought. But it was the third of the three that we did the least justice to, mostly from lapse of time. [did they mean lack of time?]

Seems to me you gave it about as much as you gave the other two, perhaps more, even.

The question is, though: How much is there to be said?

I am here to listen.

You are and you aren’t. Try a nap before we proceed, and if it turns into full sleep, no harm. But you can feel how tired you are. Willingness – even avid interest – is not always enough (speaking of the body!)

2:40 a.m. Okay. Try again?

Your 3D life leaves you stretched uncomfortably, and perhaps comfort is not the be-all and end-all of 3D existence.

If it were, it certainly would miss!

Even people who consider themselves on good terms with 3D existence are not as easy as they think they are, if only because you are like a taut canvas, stretched to your limit – the very stretch being intrinsic to your purpose. If you feel more comfortable on the 3D end, you will feel less comfortable on the non-3D end. If you relate easily to this, you will relate less easily to that. Nobody extends to all creation, just as nobody exists without a home somewhere within it.

I can sense myself insufficiently “here” to do this well. Slide switches once again: maximum clarity, focus, receptivity.

In effect, that is saying, “Maximum energy diverted to here,” without your wondering about an elsewhere or elsewhen.

That’s what focus is? A redistributing of energy among the places where it exists?

In a sense, yes. No need to make rules or definitions about it, though. Perhaps some other time.

If you now begin to actively consider your body as a focal point among so many variables, you will perhaps begin to treat it with more respect. You are in possession of a precision tool, not a taxicab. Proper attention to the interface between non-3D and 3D will show you your immense power at your disposal. You are not a helpless victim in the universe, no matter how disappointed or disillusioned or disoriented you may be. The three axes we mentioned all converge in you (and of course in everyone) living in 3D. We mentioned them separately. Now consider them as effective simultaneously.

• Multiple strands with everything they connect to.
• A localized unit functioning in awareness, its focus always one specific time-place.
• A localized consciousness which functions in 3D yet retains a capability of accessing and interacting with non-3D consciousness.

That is, (1) multiple strands, coexisting (2) as if a unit in a moment of time-space, while also (3) connecting to the real world beyond the 3D, at a less or a more conscious level.

To that improved picture we may add the shared subjectivity as a frequently under-considered part of you. Because, remember, that is what (2) and (3) imply. When you interact with the world via a time-place, you are interacting with the part of you that is beyond your particular localized consciousness. When you interact with the non-3D, you could be said to be doing the same thing in a different way, for just as the 3D has its non-3D aspects, so your role as interface within 3D also implies a role as interface beyond 3D.

You are not defined by your 3D function alone. (You are more than your physical bodies, to coin a phrase.) You, Frank, are Frank, but certainly are not merely Frank’s body, nor merely Frank’s consciousness narrowly considered, nor merely whatever he knows, learns, does, values. You are you, and “you” is always more than any one definition. Hence we are continually saying, “Which you?”

That is: If you try to define yourself without including the shared subjectivity as an intrinsic part of you (in the same way that you might be defined, in turn, as an intrinsic part of the shared subjectivity), you miss the more important part of you beyond the more or less conscious coexistence of strands within you.

The idea of us being an intrinsic part of what seems to us an external world is now familiar, but I don’t know that it is clear. I mean by that, I can accept it, but I can’t yet get an active clear metaphor for it.

It is one more stretch.

Yes, but an image would help clarify it, even at the risk of distortion.

It may be worth the effort of trying to provide one. Let’s see. A radio network overseas? The Internet? Either analogy has its instructive points, but leaves something unsaid. What about the circulation of air among you all? “Group mind” may be the closest, actually, and you have at least some experience of this.

Four good metaphors, I think. Shall we spell them out?

Not today. You should quit for now.

Very well. Today’s theme?

“Metaphors for 3D existence.”

And when we resume (whether I do or don’t take a day off)?

“Examining the metaphors,” perhaps. Only, we are very likely to be carried in a afferent direction. We shall see.

Okay. Our thanks as always.