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Continuing on from my last Writings post…

December 20, 2008
Hello, Michael:

A little Abraham to get me started:

“In your action, you lose sight of the vision, you lose sight of your trust in the process, and you just bang around in a sense of futility. Hold the vision and trust that the Universe will acclimate to your vision. Hold the vision and trust the process.” ~ Abraham-Hicks

Well, we’re nearing the winter solstice – traditionally marking the transition from death to life as the days stop getting shorter and start getting longer again.  And that’s entirely appropriate for me as I transition from whom I used to be to whom I am becoming, and most of all, who I am now.  Been thinking today about being open to allowing more and what that entails, and no matter which path I follow I always end up at choice.  Interesting… So, since the choice is mine, I’m choosing to be all I can be.  I thought for a moment about a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly and what the caterpillar thinks about that.  Of course the caterpillar and the butterfly are the same animal, but the caterpillar must give up itself to become the butterfly.  It could be said that the caterpillar’s body necessitates this process as the body literally starts dissolving itself, but let’s assume for a moment that the caterpillar goes forth willingly, and this is a process of acceptance and cooperation.  As I stand at the brink of my own transformation, I find these thoughts going through my head as I’m giving up what I’ve believed myself to be in order to become what I can be.  It’s scary and exciting at the same time.  I’m reminded of the phrase, “They are not fools who surrender that which they cannot keep to gain that which they cannot lose.”  In the past I’ve thought of that quote in terms of the physical and non-physical, but  how about looking at it from the perspective of beliefs, instead?  That which we cannot keep is limiting beliefs, and that which we cannot lose is our unlimited being.  My perspective is that at death we surrender our sense of limitation so why not do it now?  Surrender that is.  Choices, choices, choices…  It’s interesting to look at life as a pretend game, where the roles aren’t set in advance but made up as the game goes along.  And it’s my conscious self who has to decide, like Jumping Mouse, to stay with the old man mouse or to keep going because I hear this roaring in my ears.  It still seems strange to me to look at spiritual growth as something to look forward to, to be excited about, rather than simply looking at things I have to give up in order to proceed.  I’ve crossed over to the other side it seems.  And that’s a good thing.

Love,
Me.
_____
December 21, 2008
Hello, Michael:

Well, I’m at Starbucks after mailing off some Christmas cards and Marcia’s presents.  I have a Christmas card for the folks here as well, the last one out of the box I bought last week.  Sent off cards to Marcia’s family and our family and my family – Carolyn and Jen too!

So, the past few days I’ve been exploring my infinity and being in joy and things like that, and the farther I go along this path the more I’m getting into it.  As I wrote yesterday, I’ve shifted from looking at spiritual development as a process of removing negative and/or limiting beliefs to one where I’m now looking at spiritual development as a progression, a growing, a building or adding-on.  In terms of renovation I’ve reached the point where I’ve finished demolition and I am now in the process of construction.  That even sounds ‘constructive!’  One thing that used to concern me was – and this sounds silly on the surface but isn’t – the idea that when I reached the point where I had nothing more to worry about, then my mind would run out of things to do.  As I said, it sounds silly on the surface but my mind and the workings of my mind have been very important to me.  What I’m finding instead is that my mind is simply adapting to the new conditions and finding more positive things to think about.  I’m feeling more in the flow, and as a result of that my mind no longer feels it necessary to be constantly haranguing at problems.  Tom Brown says that when living in the woods one only needs to work about 3 hours a day, as opposed to the constant stress city people find themselves in.  I think that’s a good metaphor.  Relax, let go, and let Spirit carry me.  Intention is the rudder that steers rather than propelling the boat.

Actually, that brought for an idea or two that I haven’t considered before.  I’ve written about having my canoe in the stream, and paddling to augment the flow of the current – to make things flow faster as it were.  But, what if the current is already flowing faster than I can paddle?  I’ve never considered that before.  When I think about being in the stream and being carried by the current I’ve always tended to think of a nice leisurely flow, meandering along.  But what if that thought is essentially putting the brakes on a process that is naturally much faster?  What if my perceptions that the process must be slow have kept it slow?  Instant manifestation is possible.  I’ve seen it.  But I’m dealing with an experience of Creation that is so vast as to be beyond what I’ve yet to even imagine.  And so, given the immensity of this, why should it take time – as in a long time?  In ‘Illusions’ Richard Bach wrote, “The greatest mistake is to limit the Is.  Don’t.” It’s like I’ve tried to squeeze the infinity of this down into a size where it was understandable to me, rather than expand my sense of self enough to encompass it.  That’s what I’m involved with now.  I am an infinite being, and I’m expanding my understanding of myself to acknowledge and understand that.

The second thing that came to me from the idea of paddling was the idea that all the ego can ‘do’ is hinder the process.  I remember being out in the canoe on the lake with Autumn and Jesse, and they both wanted to help paddle.  We would have made much better progress if they hadn’t!  Anyway, I’ve been playing with that thought for a long time but what came to me is that the process itself is perfect in its own way and so the best I can do is to be a part of that perfection and the worst I can do is to step away from that perfection.  It’s not that involvement by the ego is necessarily hindering, because by acknowledging and working with the flow the ego steps into its own perfection.

Okay, there was one other thing I was going to include, but it’s eluding me at the moment.  Must be time for a break. . .

Actually, one thing that just came to mind is that my awareness of other realities has been increasing again.  Yesterday I was addressing envelopes and I kept jumping away into different realities, and every one was bright and vivid.  I kept coming back to this reality, and then I’d be gone again.  Actually, it’s interesting to think that when I went ‘away’ it seemed it was always to different places, but when I came back it was always to ‘here’.  But is that really true?  Or is it just that this ‘seems’ to be my waking consciousness because it feels right, it makes sense and I have memories here?  At the same time, whenever I’ve found myself in another reality it never felt like it was ‘Me’ somewhere else, displaced, but rather who I am ‘there’ makes as much to me as this reality does.  Another aspect of my learning – these ‘jumps’ will be encountered after death, and as Seth said, we are as dead now as we ever will be.

Love,
Me.
_____
December 22, 2008
Hello, Michael:

Well, it’s coming up to 1:00 again so I’m going to be brief, as I have to take mom shopping tomorrow.  I just wanted to add a couple of quick notes in here.  The first is that in reading about different cameras, reviews, benefits, deterrents, etc. I’ve sometimes wondered which would be the best way to go – Canon, Nikon, Sony, etc.  What came to me today is that they are all perfect in their own way; what I need to do is make a choice and accept that whatever choice I make is best for me, at least for now.  I can always change my mind later.  The second thought is that I keep coming up against Chapter 41 in the CC writings, which talk, among other things, about aligning the self to the self.  And what came to me this evening about this is in surrendering my idea of who and what I am.  I know I’ve written about this recently, but I had more of a clear picture of getting beyond the idea of ‘Me’ as being my conscious mind/ ego as separate from my Self, and to start seeing myself as my Self.  Seth says that the ego spends most of its time looking outward, but that doesn’t mean that my ego is limited in terms of what I can do, what I can be or where my focus is.  Aligning myself to myself means expanding my awareness of who and what I am, giving up self-imposed restrictions and being infinite.  I have a sort of mental picture of this, but the words aren’t really coming.  Must be time for bed.

Love,
Me.
_____
December 28, 2008
Hello, Michael:

A little Seth to get me started – a quote I hadn’t come across before:

“Change flexibly with the gracious dance of all being that is reflected in the universe of the body and mind. This does not include crucifixion of the ego.” ~ The Nature of Personal Reality, Session 639.

Okay, here’s what I wrote this afternoon:

Well, Christmas has come and gone again, and other than that Pop and I were both sick, it was a quiet time.  I had no presents to unwrap, but Marcia sweetly bought me a license for Lightroom 2.2, which was certainly unexpected!

I’m at the Willow Park Starbucks once again, the temperature has risen considerably over last weekend and the sun is coming through the front window, warming my back as I write.  Before I go any further I wanted to add a note that I set my coffee down at the table and went to get a napkin, and when I returned the foam around the edges of my cup had arranged a perfect heart shape ♥ in the center.  I was tempted to get the camera out but it only lasted a few seconds.  Still, it was there in the perfect moment for me to see it. (Editor’s note: When I talked with Marcia this evening, she was in the Starbucks in Victoria when it happened.  I knew it was from her – just like the rainbow in Stratford).  Funny, I was thinking today about memories, and while I certainly have memories going back to my childhood, if I reach for a memory at random it probably has Marcia in it.  It’s like there was a previous life before she existed.

I was out walking today for the first time in several days… it felt good to be out and about.  As I was walking I came across a car stuck in the snow, with one kid driving and one kid trying (unsuccessfully) to push it out.  I dropped my backpack and got behind the car and together we shoved the car out and up the hill and out, but the interesting thing was that when I got behind the car I felt like I could lift it if I wanted to.  It wasn’t an adrenaline-filled sudden rush of energy sort of thing, just that I recognized in that moment that the car was insubstantial, like I could create the scene any way I wanted.  I’ve had a lot of time lately to work on understanding my creative abilities, and this was one more example of spontaneous events that illustrate that.  Another thing I’ve noticed recently – on Sundays the local paper has a colour comics section and at the bottom of the page they have one of those ‘Magic Eye’ puzzles.  I’ve been able to see those in the past but usually it takes a few minutes of quiet concentration.  Well, these past few weeks they’ve simply ‘popped’ into place almost immediately.  It seems I can shift brainwave patterns much more easily now.  All I do is shift my focus and relax my vision a little and it just forms before my eyes.  I like it!

Something that came to me the other day was that while I’ve thought of Lemuria as being in the distant past I’ve also considered that it might be in the distant future – no matter – but what if Marcia and I and those like us who are seeking increased conscious awareness are the pioneers of what will become Lemuria?  What if I am, in a sense, growing now into the Marel I will someday become – although he also lives in his own ‘now’?  Seth said once that Jane would someday become Seth, but that she would be a different Seth than he is.  Hmmm…

Last night I was thinking about creation, and I got to thinking that in the past my interest was in learning and understanding how to create my reality, with the idea that once I knew how I’d be able to create my reality as I want it to be.  But as I was thinking about that I had a sudden thought about when Marcia and I first showed up at the t’ai chi centre in Newmarket, and right then and there learned the first few moves.  In the beginning I felt like an elephant in ballet slippers, but the movements became more fluid, more refined, more natural.  With my first driving lesson the instructor and I got in, I turned the key, and we headed out onto the road, no practicing in the parking lot first.  Granted he did have his own brake pedal, but at times I’m sure that was small consolation!  And it got me thinking, we learn to do by doing.  We learn to think by thinking, walk by walking, sing by singing, calculate by calculating, observe by observing and dance by dancing.  Life is not a spectator sport!  And sometimes you get embarrassed in front of Master Moy, but you learn and go back the next day and he congratulates you gruffly and walks away.  I think ‘Much better. Good’ was the most he ever said to me directly.  And so I learn to be a conscious co-creator by consciously co-creating.  I acknowledge my successes by noting intentions that appear in my life, and let go of the events that were ‘invited’ but not desired.  And I continue on, learning, being aware, waking up to myself.

The other day I read a section of the CC writings that talked about focused thought and focused action vs. hard work, and that makes sense to me.  I’ll have to go and find it…

“Recognize that movement into more spontaneous living, that dedication to the principle of following your impulses is a highly creative act in itself. For it recreates your life experience and in doing so, gives you the opportunity to make significant changes in your belief systems, your attitudes, (particularly about the self) and your thought processes. By allowing yourself the opportunity to experience the self in these larger and larger unrestricted ways, you develop a repertoire, a knowingness, which has previously been unavailable to you. It is out of this knowing that the new creations can be born.

By relaxing your grip on reality as you know it you provide room for new and expanded experiences. Ultimately the steps that you take will provide you with everything you need and all you must do is acknowledge your observations along the way. It is by changing your reference or point of focus, by giving more credence to your intuitive and impulsive events that you empower the self, to bolder and bolder creations. Remember in this process that the antithesis of hard work in the old culturally acceptable sense is gentleness with the self. And it is this gentleness that you seek. Hard work and highly focused motivated action are not necessarily the same thing. Highly focused motivated thought, for that matter. The further you travel along this path of self-exploration, self-acceptance, and expanded awareness, the more these distinctions will become clear to you. And the easier it will be to set about intentionally, consciously creating your experience.

Remember as you move through the process that all of your experience is your creation, so that any event, moment, experience, etc., can be a tool to your greater understanding, when you begin to unlock the puzzle of the psychological structure behind the creation.”

Highly focused motivated action.  That’s the phrase I was looking for.  Moving the car today was focused action, but it felt easy, as if I could lift the car if I wanted to…

In session 21 of the CC writings they talked about energy combining into form, and I’ve had to read this section over several times to make sense of it.  Here’s the section:

“Again it is a separation from the outer perspective which assigns all physical results, physical cause and action. That is to say, no physical result is ALLOWED within the outer perspective one-line consciousness, without some correlating physical cause or action. While you on the other hand perceive directly the inner creation and creative force while perceiving a lack of movement in the physical. It is precisely in these moments, in these pauses, in these calms, that the greatest power is released because the self is integrating in new ways and creation is taking form.”

When I first read this I read it as nothing being allowed to happen in physical reality without a physical cause and effect principle coming into place, and while I could argue that point I was prepared to accept it to begin with.  But subsequent readings changed my perceptions of this section.  To me now it says that if I perceive my reality from an outer perspective one-line consciousness, a separated self, then from that perspective I can only view creation from a cause and effect perspective.  I remember back a few years to an event I wanted to create for example, and I used to imagine in my head the entire sequence of events that needed to take place for this to happen.  However, as I go farther along in integrating my self and my understandings of my self, then I’m able to understand creation from a much broader perspective.  And that got me thinking about explaining these things to others and I realized I don’t have to.  Others will find their own answers, based on what they’re willing to accept and believe.

Something that came to me the other day is that I’ve been shifting from living in a world where someone else – business leaders, politicians, religious leaders, etc. make the rules and everyone else abides by them, to understanding a world where everyone makes their own reality – including me, and the full significance of that is something to wrap one’s head around!  I found a Seth quote (of course!) that connect to this.

“Value fulfillment means that each individual, each entity, of whatever nature, spontaneously, automatically seeks those conditions that are suited to its own fulfillment, and to the fulfillment of others.

In the most basic of terms, no one’s fulfillment {can} be achieved at the expense of another’s. Fulfillment does not happen that way. Your very lives seek the best direction for fulfillment. Our work seeks it own best direction for fulfillment.” ~ Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Vol. 2, session 922.

Last night I came across a Seth quote that I’ve seen before but which ties in directly with what I’ve been working on lately.  Here’s the quote…  Okay, I can’t find it, but I know it was from NOPR and the quote was simple: “There are no boundaries or separations to the self.”  I’ve come from a place of breaking down and dividing up every aspect of my life and Being to try to understand myself but I’ve realized that the whole truly is more than the sum of the parts and I’ve been looking at myself more in that regard.  It’s more than just accepting that my conscious mind/ ego is more than I’ve believed it to be, and gets into looking at my Self in a way I haven’t fully defined for myself yet.  But for example, I used to think that I have a physical body – now I’m looking at my body as ‘Me’, expressed physically.  My conscious mind is ‘Me’ expressed as thought and emotion, primarily but not entirely focused in this reality, and so on.  In the CC writings they talked about intuitive knowledge, and that intrigues me too.  In short, I am more than I ‘think’ I am and I know more than I ‘think’ I know.

“And in those places where you are uncertain or unclear as to the details of how, for example, you affect changes in physical reality, extend your knowing and explore new information, explore new ideas, and extend an acceptance that you do know intuitively the way in which the processes work and this intuitive knowing will lead you not only to successful creation and manipulation of physical matter but to conscious awareness in a more direct fashion of how it is achieved. It is not so difficult a process to ask yourself where you are headed and to discern the implications. Ask yourself where you are in the moment and acknowledge the implications. For where you wish to go is in direct relationship to where you are and so it is not hidden from you, just as the nature of where you are is not hidden from you.”

And finally, for now, I’ve been using these ideas and Abraham’s LOA perspectives to look at life from a completely cooperative basis.  Imagine, at the root, that everything in existence is based on cooperation – even conflict.  People who want to experience war agree to create those conditions so they can experience it.  Others choose differently and so create differently.  There’s a sentence in the CC writings about gathering in one’s own energy and using discernment not judgement when it comes to choosing for one’s self.

“It is also useful for you, at this time, to recognize, center, and contain your own energy fields, particularly when you are in the presence of others. You are learning to recognize when these energy fields, which are not yours, begin to intrude upon, or move into, your own. It does not require forcefulness on the part of your behavior to set this right. Indeed, you can be gentle, both with yourself and with others. But it does require that you close your own energy field to their intrusion.

Again, levels of boundary, energetic and physical, emotional and tangible. You were quite clearly able to observe competitive patterns and energy events at your Saturday gathering. Now we ask you to be aware of your own interaction with these. To make conscious decisions about your own energy and your own behavior. While moving through the process, you have been able to observe how the various interactions work. Now you will allow yourself the next step of making choices rather than simply being swept up in the event. Now you become the active participant as well as the observer, making definitive choices, both in how and with whom you exchange energy.

Be more clear within yourself in those moments when you observe patterns in others which no longer interest you or which you find distracting or counterproductive. Withhold your energy at these times. Simply gather it back to yourself, and remain still. Then you may choose whether or not to engage or remark directly regarding the process and patterns you see before you to those involved in them. Frankly, often it will not be worth your time. For people attached to energy patterns, played out in personality dramas, are no less powerful than you. They are simply making different choices. And it has never been your job or your role to change their choices. Your role is simply to be the example of your own choices. And in their way, they provide you with insights as to where these choices still operate in your own lives.”

The other part of this is that I don’t need to choose for anyone but myself – nor can I.  Each person is an infinite being, making his or her own choices.  My choices lead me to situations and people who are of like mind (or opposite, depending on my choices) and they to me.  It becomes, no, is, constantly self-fulfilling.  My choices?

• Action Follows Intention
• Create Joy
• See Everyone and Everything as Infinite
• Believe in Myself
• Be More
• Love Everything Because Everything is Lovable
• Expect No Difficulties
• Allow Flow
• Relax and Let Go

I am an infinite Being, a conscious co-creator… I like it!

Love,
Me.

P.S.  I came across the following from Lloyd on NWV, one of his conversations with himself.  It reminded me of the ‘well of knowledge’ Marcia and I were told about, way back.  Jane also had a psychic library…

“OK.  But the meaning of the Library?  I’ve always been drawn to libraries.  I’ve spent many, many hours going through stacks of books and pulling out things that interest me.  I love it!  But this seemed different.  Like it was alive.  Like it was information I KNEW wanted to FIND ME!  And then the dream ended.

And indeed it is information that IS finding you.  The “library” is YOURSELF!

What?  How can that be?  I don’t understand what you’re saying.

The knowledge and wisdom of all Creation is contained within yourself, because your “library” is the crossroads of every information channel that exists throughout the Universe.  You may still think that you must read every book and explore every academic path.  Indeed not!  You simply must “activate” your inner channels.  As a matter of fact, conventional “knowledge” is obsolete.  Have you noticed what appears to be happening as we speak?

I know that everything I thought I knew about financial stuff is NOT working any longer.  But there is a huge push to try to resolve things by doing much more of the same sort of “manipulation”.  And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  It seems like the entire world is crumbling!  And every sort of lying scheme seems to be coming into view right now!

And it is about time for that to happen!  So that YOU will awaken to the vast resources that you have through your own genetic makeup!  And activate the channels that have been forgotten and lulled to sleep through manipulation and deception by those who would control you!”

_____
December 29, 2008
Hello, Michael:

Let’s start with a couple of Abraham quotes, from Christmas Day and Boxing Day:

“If your desire is strong enough, it doesn’t matter what your beliefs are. If you have a desire that is strong enough, that desire will be the dominant vibration, and it will over-ride any other vibration that you have.”  Excerpted from a workshop in Atlanta, GA on Saturday, September 13th, 1997

“No matter what the issue is, don’t try to justify why you don’t feel good. And don’t try to justify why you should feel differently. Don’t try to blame whatever it is you think the reason is that’s keeping you from feeling good. All of that is wasted effort. Just try to feel better right now.”  Excerpted from a workshop in Tallahassee, FL on Sunday, January 21st, 2001

I like the first one especially.

Okay, then.  I wrote the following out this afternoon.

It’s been a bit of a strange day.  Quiet this morning with some reading, and then shortly after noon I walked down to the Grand 10 and saw ‘The Tale of Despereaux’.  Not a terrible movie, but not very good either.  The plot was too thin.  I’m not sorry I saw it, but it could definitely wait for DVD.  And now I’m at the Starbucks on Leathead, doing a little writing and having a coffee.  As I was walking to the movie I was thinking that I hadn’t seen anyone from the old neighbourhood out and about, and as I was walking along 97 I saw Andrew driving the blue pickup.  Just like that.  And now I’m thinking I haven’t seen the manifestation of my desires yet.  And I let it go…

As I was walking along this afternoon I was thinking about something I read in the CC writings last night, which was that wherever we are within ourselves at the moment, we tend to see our present place, our present understandings as ‘normal’ for us, and it can be very easy to forget how far we’ve come, how much we’ve learned, how much we’ve released.  And thinking about that got me thinking that the one area in my life where I’m still most aware of offering resistance is with regard to myself, and even accepting all that I know, all that I’ve learned, all the skills I have – both psychic and physical.  I’m sure there are others who have more knowledge of some things or who are more adept in certain areas, but that doesn’t discount my own skills and abilities.  Just as being healthy doesn’t make anyone else ill, and being wealthy doesn’t make anyone else poor, being proud of myself doesn’t negate anyone else.  I know this, and yet it still seems difficult for me to shake.  Patience, Michael.  I’ve reached the point where I recognize I have value as a human being, so this is just an extension of that understanding.  I am wise, skilled, knowledgeable, and the sky isn’t going to fall down if I admit that to myself.  In fact, denying that, by extension denies all of me as everything is connected.  So I’ll work on accepting this and then I can move into feeling really good about it.

I am an infinite being.  I am a physical being and a non-physical being.  I am a fully aware, strong, powerful, multidimensional spiritual being, and I am creating a world based on that.  I always used to wonder how my world would shift and what it would look like as I grew in awareness and expanded my sense of Self, but as with who I am, my world always feels ‘normal’, for here, for now.

I’ve had quite a few concepts to play with lately if I take a moment to think about them.  Focusing on joy as a primary motivator, considering and tapping into intuitive knowledge, taking highly focused, impulsive action, being whole – more than my consciousness – expanding my sense of who and what I am, learning to create by creating, a reality based on intrinsic cooperation… probably a few more… and this is ‘normal’ for me.  Hmmm…

One quick note before I go: I’ve recently finished reading Frances Mayes’ book ‘A Year in the World’ again, and in the past couple of days I’ve read ‘A Year in Provence’ and ‘Toujours Provence’ by Peter Mayle.  Both authors write in a similar style, but what attracts me to them is the celebration – of food, of place, of home, of every day moments, of friends, of family.  There’s one section in ‘A Year in the World’ where Frances and Ed are on vacation in Scotland with five other friends – cooking together, traveling together, reading together, walking together, etc. and I thought, “Marcia and I don’t have five friends we could do that with.”  Then I thought, “Yes we do.  We just haven’t met them all yet.”

Love,
Me.

P.S.  Brian from NWV has offered up some more quotes from ‘The Afterdeath Journal of an American Philosopher: The World View of William James’, and so I’m going to add them in here:

“Nevertheless, I feel myself growing out of myself in a certain fashion.  My adopted characteristics are becoming too small and cramped to contain my new growth and development, and I will move on most certainly to a larger psychological quarters.  It is not only the physical body we outlive, but the psychological house we have chosen. First, after death we add new rooms and suites to accommodate our greater experience, but it is soon obvious that the entire structure has had its day.  We must move out of it completely.” ~ The Afterdeath Journal of an American Philosopher: The World View of William James, Chapter 10, page 159

“It was only after death that I understood life’s full achievement; appreciated the fine focus of Consciousness tuned so precisely and triumphantly to one place and time; and felt the power of earth-dimensioned life as in life I had never known it. As a result I came to terms with my own spirit, and gave it it’s freedom while in life I over-tended it, believing that it was ill served by mortality’s experience.

It is to comment upon that earthly experience that I now once again shape the components of my Consciousness into that general cast they once possessed, and adopt to some extent the characteristic bent of thought by which my works were known.” ~ The Afterdeath Journal of an American Philosopher: The World View of William James, Chapter 2, page 46.

“So from my vantage point now, I would like to remove some of the misconceptions about the drama itself that cause so many persons to ‘misread’ their lines, to stutter, or act without the full knowledge available to them.

My own experience is a case in point from which anyone can benefit.  First of all, however, a few comments.  These may at first appear so obvious that my readers wonder why I bother mentioning them at all, yet the very simplicity of the following issues is often overlooked in the sometimes murky or ponderous climate of conventional thought.  The main point, so easy to forget, is that each person IS the hero or heroine in his or her own life. Everything else, all actions seem to revolve around us personally in life.  This is not an illusion, but a fact of metaphysics and psychology as well.

We are each, in life, a center, a focus of unique consciousness; possessing our own quirks, talents, characteristic methods of expression, and our own spiritual or psychic tints through which all experience is perceived.  That is, we ourselves each stamp or stain our mark upon the world.  We are each so unalike that we might be members of different species entirely, so diverse is the nature of our inner realities, so different is one person’s soul from another’s, one person’s challenges, dreams, and intimate contact with life.

In society we must, of course, also acknowledge our similarities and cooperate in civilization’s ventures.  I do not mean to minimize the vast uniting qualities of the emotions, for example, but only to stress that each person will experience them in his or her own way, and that one man’s love may hold depths and nuances completely alien to the same emotion felt by another.  More, each person’s vantage point in the Universe is his or her own, a platform for all of his or her acts that can be possessed by no other, is inviolate and, in an inexplicable fashion, absolute.” ~ The Afterdeath Journal of an American Philosopher: The World View of William James, Chapter 8 pg. 134-135

_____
December 31, 2008
Hello, Michael:

Well, it’s the last day of 2008.  Little did I know a year ago where I would be today!  Today I had to get out.  I hopped the 97 (front seat!) and headed downtown.  It’s sunny today and would be warm except the wind has a real bite to it.  I walked around by the lake for a while and made a few photographs, but the LCD screen started getting jumpy and I put the camera away.  I don’t think it likes the wind either!

I thought about stopping off at the Woodfire for lunch on the way down, but decided to just keep on going.  Then I thought about going to the Grateful Fed, but it’s closed.  So was the Bohemian across the street.  Marcia and I have yet to eat there!  Anyway, I ended up at Le Triskell.  Brittany, not Provence, but close enough.  I ordered a crepe with tomato sauce, ham, mushrooms, egg, and I’m not sure what else.  Tasty!

Okay, after Le Triskell I’ve come to The Bean Scene for tea and dessert.  After the four shots of expresso I had yesterday at Jim’s, I’m staying away from coffee today.  So, Earl Grey and a molasses cookie instead.  The lady behind the counter just mentioned that they’re opening a new store in Rutland in January.  If I’m still around I may have to check them out – once – but I still owe allegiance to Jim.

The sun’s shining in through the front window and if I put my head down I’d be asleep in seconds!  As it is I’m enjoying my tea and cookie.

When I was walking around the lake I was thinking about Jay’s call this morning and that brought me to the question, “What do you do for a living?”  And it struck me as such a silly question.  Basically reworded it asks, “What do you do in order to justify your existence?  What do you do in exchange for life?”  Such a strange concept, and yet in a way it underlies the entire basis for our society.  Our world has ceased to be based on cooperation and is based on justification instead.  And there are only two apparent choices – either play the game or cut yourself out of it.  Cutting yourself out of it puts you on the edge, though, on the edge of the world, invisible.  But maybe that’s not only an outmoded view, but highly restrictive as well?  After all, ‘society’ is, in a sense, Me.  My world is a reflection of Me.  It’s like I’ve written before about shifting from a worldview where some small group makes the ‘rules’ and everyone else follows them or rebels against them, into a world based on choice and respect.  It’s the third option, the doorway I’ve been looking for.  And it all begins with acceptance.  I’m still learning to accept myself, my desires, my actions, my views and my choices.  And it’s more than that, too.  After so many years of invisibility I’m looking to be noticed.  Not paparazzi levels of noticed, just acknowledged.  No, more than that – appreciated, not tolerated.  I’m still running smack into my own beliefs, but that’s a good thing!  I’ve gone beyond feeling that my beliefs are separate from me and control my life, and moved into seeing my beliefs as ways I express myself.  And that’s a good thing.

So, back to the original question.  What do I do in exchange for life?  Nothing.  My value is intrinsic because I AM.  And society can be a whirling mass of different shapes and colours, all achieving harmony – like a rainforest.  It doesn’t have to be just one key, repeated.  I am broadening my horizons and that’s one of the things that appeals to me about travel – different people, different cultures, different Ways of Being, but all Being together and working best when they are themselves and not trying to be someone or something else.

More later perhaps.

Love,
Me.

“You have chosen a different kind of consciousness. That kind of consciousness necessitated different kinds of challenges, so that with your new kind of mind, you would come to different crossroads. You would forget what the animals knew, but with a different kind of consciousness, you would triumphantly then become aware, but in a different way, of the animals’ blessed knowledge and use it again in new terms as conscious co-creators. You have not as yet reached that level but you are working. That is in partial answer to your question.

“There is a great conscious revelation that in all probability can come to each of you and to those of your species in which you understand the nature of your own race and your relationship with All-That-Is within the reality that you know. And then you will realize many things, when you do not define your existence as physical only. Then you will not feel that you should agree, or because you feel that your immortality is dependent upon the seed that falls from you into the earth. You will recognize your own immortality and therefore be free and joyous in your mortality. And you will gracefully take your part as co-creators at a conscious level with all the conscious and unconscious beings that dwell within your physical reality.” ~ ESP Class, June 11, 1974.

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January 2, 2009
Hello, Michael:

Well, the first time I’ve written out 2009!

A few things to write about today.  The first is a carryover from my writings on Wednesday.  I was writing about society and it brought me to a place where I could see society, not as the core of civilization with other groups outside of it, but I saw society as being the complete framework, including everyone and excluding none.  My vision of society broadened immeasurably in that moment and became inclusive, not exclusive.  And with that newfound sense of acceptance of society as a whole, I also discovered a place, a way to find acceptance for myself.  And this is an acceptance based on me as I consider myself to be rather than acceptance of me based on some set of prerequisite conditions.  Now I’m moving my way up from acceptance to welcome.  I’m sitting in my favourite Starbucks, napping a little as I write, and feeling welcome to be here, to drink my Earl Grey, eat my cookie, write my notes, etc.  A world based on cooperation.  And in seeing society as a tapestry incorporating everyone into its fabric, then I can also accept my ability to be a part of this fabric, and with the ability to choose my own role.  Michael as the person who has what he desires most, Michael as the person who lives and loves and travels and gives and receives and so much more.  I’m welcome in this society as a dynamic part of it.  There are no aberrant threads in the fabric; everything and everyone has a place.

For much of my life I sought to be invisible, or simply avoided by others.  And now I’m finding a different way because the old ways no longer fit.  They’re too small, too constricting.  This Way is a much better Way to be…

Yesterday I started reading ‘Inkdeath’, the third in the Cornelia Funke series, and all of the characters are now living in the Inkworld, engaged with the story itself.  Here and there Fenoglio or Orpheus will write changes into the story itself but in large part he story continues on its own and sometimes the writings of Fenoglio bring unexpected results.  The story very much has a life of its own.

As I was out walking today I was thinking about that, and also about Seth’s idea that our thoughts, for example, create worlds that we’re only peripherally aware of.  And like with Inkworld, these realities don’t cease to exist when we stop thinking of them but continue to form and live their own existence.  Like Inkworld, there is a basic unpredictability to this too.  Not everything can or should be rigidly controlled.  A couple of threads lead from that one.  One is the idea of living in the physical vs. non-physical.  For much of my life I sought to get beyond the physical, and as I opened up more to myself I began to live more in this world, to make this reality the most important.  Now I’m learning how to do both, to live in the physical and non-physical at the same time.  My fear in this is that I’ll only experience the things I desire in the non-physical, but that simply shows me a place where I still need to improve, an area where I can relax and let go more completely.

Love,
Me.

“I do not, therefore, want you to concentrate your efforts in memorizing methods of perceiving other realities, but to realize that such insights are everywhere within your grasp. If you understand that, then you will rearrange the organization of your own thoughts quite by yourself. You will begin to read your own thoughts as easily as you now read a book. It is far more important to read your own thoughts than it is to learn to read the thoughts of others, for when your own feelings are known to you, you easily see that all other feelings are also reflected in your own. When you look away from the world you are looking at it more closely. When you read sentences like the last one you are somewhat freeing your own minds, opening greater organizations. Your life is one “dream that you are remembering.” ~ Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Vol. 2, Session 940.

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January 5, 2009
Hello, Michael:

I followed an impulse last night to look at the CC website, and ended up at session 35.  There were two things there that jumped out at me.  The first was near the top, and while the context was about ‘spreading the word’, there was one sentence in there that talked about finding answers through the dream state (emphasis mine):

“It’s up to each person to choose their own expression. This is the absolute basis of absolute freedom. We would suggest to you that if you wish to make changes, that is, you wish to have some mass effect or larger impact based on your own use and interpretation of the ideas, that you are absolutely free to do so in whatever manner you choose. And we would also suggest that you would make much greater progress and certainly more rapid progress if you were to approach these “problems”…”challenges” from within the dream state.”

That really got me thinking because I’ve always sort of thought of my dream self as being the opposite or complement of my conscious self – like the Roman Janus, with two faces looking in opposite directions.  And while I’ve recognized events and elements from my conscious state in remembered dreams, I’ve never really thought much about interplay between the two and I certainly haven’t thought much about shifting from one state to the other to find creative solutions to specific challenges.  As I was typing that I thought about Jane, and how she went into one state of consciousness to sing/ write Sumari, and how she then had to go into a different state of consciousness to translate what she had written.  As I come to understand myself better and become more aware of integrating what I once thought of as disparate aspects of my self, then this makes a lot of sense.  I’m recognizing in more concrete terms that I am more than my conscious mind, and the results of that are quite astounding.  Something that came to me as I was writing this section was that it’s more than just expanding the boundaries of my conscious mind and making my conscious mind more than it was.  It goes beyond that, and gets into the realm of… how do I explain this?  I used to see my consciousness as ‘Me’, and while I recognized that there are other aspects of my self, because I identified myself so strongly with my conscious mind these other aspects of my self were delegated to some greater self of which ‘I’ was only a part.  That’s what’s different now: I’m recognizing that I am more than my conscious mind, and claiming those other aspects of my self – becoming more aware of them.  It’s like I’ve been living in a huge house but most of the rooms have been shut up.  Slowly I’m opening those doors and discovering the other rooms.  And it’s not that I’m living in the house.  I am the house.  The interesting thing is that this awareness is coming on a conscious level, so while I say that I am more than my conscious mind, at this point I’m discovering this connection and expansion from the perspective of my conscious mind.  No, that’s not quite right.  This awareness is coming to all aspects of my self, and each aspect understands this information in different ways.  I’m still focusing primarily on the understanding from the perspective of my conscious mind because it’s still the most familiar to me.  As Seth said, “There are no boundaries or separations to the self.”  But how do I understand my self from the perspective of my dream self, for example?  My belief has been that all awareness in this level of reality must be filtered through the perspective of the conscious mind.  What does it feel like to let go of that?

It also occurred to me as I was writing this out that from early on, going back several years, I set out my desires but I told myself that I couldn’t see how they could be created using rational, physical means.  I also told myself that I wanted to remember and rediscover the skills and abilities ‘I’ have in Lemuria.  Should it surprise me then that my journey these past several years has led me to understand my self in a way that takes me beyond just using rational means?  Should it surprise me that my teachings are leading me to discover the knowledge I have in Lemuria?  Probably not.  Whenever I ask for something of my self, of the Universe, of All That Is, it still surprises me when the request is granted and the answer given, but maybe it shouldn’t.  Whatever, I am grateful.

The other thing I got from reading the CC writings last night was… let’s see here…  For years I’ve used the CC writings as one of the primary teaching tools I have for metaphysics.  Seth’s the other primary source, and Abraham, Bashar and others fit in there too.  Me too, of course!  But what’s suggested in session 35 is that it’s not enough to understand the information as given.  The challenge is to go beyond it.  Again, emphasis is mine:

“It’s about extending the boundaries, not setting them in place. If you insist on setting the boundaries in place around the work we have already accomplished then you have missed the point entirely. For the work has just begun. You have chosen the job of expanding the work, not conforming to it. So naturally you use all of the tools available to you within the work. Believing despite any physical reality as evidence, etc. etc.

But you know instinctively and intuitively that it’s your job to go beyond, otherwise you become lowly apostles, followers, and essentially, blind sheep. Blind sheep. Leading more blind sheep. And what is the good of this? It accomplishes nothing. For it is one thing entirely to begin to understand the nuances of your own creation, the coloration of your psyche, the subtle textures and hues with which you color your own world. Think carefully about your journey today along the country road that symbolizes so much of your own desire and the physical manifestation of nature in balance with humanity. Every detail and your every response to it tells you something about the inner workings of your own psyche. And this is perfection. And this is the perfect understanding of yourself and it’s wonderful. And you recognize it and thrill to it.

But you know instinctively that this is not all there is. It is not simply about a drive in the country. It is about claiming your place within this picture. With a freedom and abandon that states clearly who you are without any ramification or connection to any of the rules or mores or qualifiers of the outer perspective. Do you understand our meaning here? This is the expansion. You know where you are at home and you create yourselves there. Your only difficulty lies in rectifying the rational mind’s position – the rational mind at this point really doesn’t have a clue. And in case you hadn’t become aware of this, the rational mind has decided that both of you are nuts and yet somehow you are functioning within all of this.

Now the danger or the precipice if you will lies in not paying attention enough to a rational mind which may choose to act on its own belief, i.e. you are crazy, in such a way as to hope to protect you. In this case, we do not feel that you have much danger here as the rational mind has accepted that fact that there isn’t much it can do about it. In a way, it is as if you have forced the rational mind outside of its own comfortable box where it is reluctantly but still assuredly affirming the fact that it has no answer here. That there is nothing it knows to do to “save you”. And so the magical takes precedent. And this is healthy for the rational mind to the extent that it recognizes the dream it creates…to the extent that it embraces the symbols it sees in the outside landscape that correlate with its own knowing.

So, to the extent that you follow your intuition and impulses and gives yourselves adequate signs along the way, the rational mind is upheld. And to the extent that you do not, the rational mind feels abandoned. So if you will understand this, the symbols, that is, the outer appearance, perspective, experience, of the places you travel speaking directly to this traveling you have done within these certain areas of physical location, to the extent that these themselves correlative with the inner symbols of the rational mind you strengthen your position. To the extent that they do not correlate, you feel weakened. Lost and confused.

When you think about this in retrospect you will understand it perfectly. There is no place where the impulses and spontaneous experience, being allowed to move forward, will not guide you exactly and perfectly. It is only to the extent that you stifle this information within yourself or in communication, as in one to the other, as pertains to where you drive, etc., or what you feel in this moment, that you lose your way. For as long as you allow the impulse to guide and to lead, then the spontaneous nature of your being, which is directly connected to that which you seek, and to its own inner comprehension and understanding of its rightful place within this discrete framework of ATI… you cannot help but arrive within the perfect surroundings.

In this sense, the understanding of doubt should become very clear to you for doubt is the opposing force which leads you away from that which you seek. Trust is the force that brings you to your perfect expression and value fulfillment. Ultimately it seems from this perspective, to be a simple matter and yet you must comprehend that in the terms of your culture, the structure which you have chosen to work all of this out in, and the larger perspective of the creative environment in which you operate at this time, this is the heart of the matter. For were you capable of moving from the very moment of your birth in complete trust forward through your expression, there would never be any sense of resistance, doubt, fear, or struggle. Ultimately these are the things you have come to resolve and this is the task before you. So it is rather pointless to beat yourself up or negate your efforts with thoughts that you should have been more trusting. If you should have been more trusting, you would have been. And ultimately since the goal of this expression is to be more trusting, it seems ridiculous to demand the goal at the outset.”

As I wrote to Marcia last night, “I remember a Seth quote that I don’t have readily available, but it was about challenges created in one level of reality being solved by another portion of the self or in another level of reality.  Just gave me something to think about.  Here we are, and we know that we’re more than our conscious minds and our bodies, and yet (speaking for myself), I’ve been trying to solve my current challenges in this reality almost entirely using the tools available in physical reality.  Doing so denies a much larger part of my self.  Remember in the movie ‘Contact’, when they’d downloaded these thousands and thousands of pages of information but they didn’t know what to do with them because the pages didn’t fit together?  And then Mr. Hadden figured out that they had to be joined in three dimensions, not just two?  Something like that… thinking outside the ‘box’ so to speak.”

Okay, it’s coming up on 1:00 and I have to get up to go grocery shopping in six hours so I’d best call it a night.

Love,
Me.

P.S.  Just had another look at session 35 in the CC writings, and the first two sentences jumped out at me:

“It’s up to each person to choose their own expression. This is the absolute basis of absolute freedom.”

Hmmm…

“… you are not fully conscious unless you are aware of the contents of your conscious mind. I am emphasizing the fact that the conscious mind is equipped to receive information from the inner self as well as the exterior universe.” ~ The Nature of Personal Reality, session 616.

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