[A few years ago, when I picked up my author’s copies of Awakening from the 3D World, I had a thought perhaps worth preserving. and then i had a welcome visitor, and one thing led to another. Thinking about the book, I said to myself:]
Look at it one way, I did it all myself. Look at it another way, by myself I couldn’t have done it at all.
Both true. Probably both a model of our lives here.
It is up to us to decide what to do, moment by moment, and then do it; but we live in a vast invisible web of support that we may disregard (“I’m a self-made man”) or recognize (“Thank God for my friends”). Equally true, which means, in both cases, only true in relation to one another, not true as absolutes.
[A familiar “voice,” not the one I expected!] You are feeling pride in our accomplishment. Nothing wrong with basking.
Hi, Rita. I guess that’s why I browsed the introduction [of Awakening from the 3D World] and re-read the conclusion, huh? And now I see why I was moved to think back on all the work we’ve done. The primary person I didn’t mention – not the only one, but the primary one – was you, of course. But I doubt you are here for the purpose of getting your film credits.
No, but our case is an example of how little we know our life’s shape ahead of time. We didn’t meet until I was already 80 years old and bored with life. Who knew what lay ahead?
We did those sessions, and more in 2004, and they didn’t seem to come to anything in terms of the outside world beyond the Voyagers Mailing List and our own friends. And then because you did the initial work, the path was open for us to work together in this new way over the past three years, and it continues to stretch ahead as a possibility. But the intellectual work could not have been accomplished without the other work which was not work but a natural joy, and how shall we describe it?
In a way you could say we were taking care of each other. You were mothering me, I was the dutiful affectionate son you never had.
That emotional trust and intellectual and spiritual companionship laid the basis for what we did, because as you know, these things proceed not from intellect alone (where they may easily turn rancid) but from the heart.
Where there is trust, there is no room for fear, for one thing.
Yes, but more, where there is trust, there is assurance, there is a sense of being guided. Almost the same as what you just said, but not quite.
Remember, at least as important as any information you bring through is your encouragement of others to do their own equivalent thing. So the more glimpses behind the scenes they get, the more they realize, you are just another guy, just as you say but they don’t always hear. Of course, you are but you aren’t. What distinguishes you is that you do the work; you follow where it leads; you are willing to serve. But that should encourage, too, for that is a decision open to anybody to take. It’s up to them.
Everybody’s circumstances surround them, obviously, and since their own unimportant boring surroundings, the flat and unprofitable details of their lives, cannot match anybody’s they read about, the temptation is to say “I’m nobody and I can’t expect to really do anything.” And of course that is wrong.
The fallacy of insignificance, somebody called it.
Your own life always looks relatively flat and humdrum in a way, even when it also feels exciting and even dramatic, because you yourself are at the center of it, and so where is the room for the drama of the unfamiliar? But drama is not a sign of significance any more than heartburn would be. Your own judgment of your life is unlikely to be an accurate one, because you cannot usually get any perspective on it. But if you are doing your best, and are living your truest impulses, and are following where it leads, how can you be wasting your time even if it feels like putting in time is all you are doing? The mother raising her children may feel like the days are going by without anything in it for her; that doesn’t mean that is the judgment she will come to when she looks back on her life as a whole.
If our readers don’t realize that that paragraph was aimed directly at them, well – I’m pointing it out.
There is an aspect to pioneering that perhaps they have never considered, and that is that your own true path is never obviously important, never obviously the path to significant achievement internal or external. It usually looks like “mere everyday stuff.” When you come to know that “mere everyday stuff” – speaking primarily internally – is the gold, your appreciation of your life will change. Everybody has a unique gift to offer. No two gifts are identical, any more than any two gift-givers are identical, so while you may use models for your conduct, use them as models of character, not as models of circumstance.
Nobody’s life is identical to anybody else’s, and nobody’s is redundant or insignificant. You know what Bob [Monroe] said.
“You do the best you can.”
I don’t know what more anybody could do.
What a great conversation. Thanks for posting this.