Hi Folks:

I’ve been somewhat reticent to write this week’s ‘He Says, She Says…‘ post, mostly because I didn’t know what to write.  It’s not as if I have nothing to say; if anything the opposite is true.  That’s the problem: issues like this tend to peel me off in layers, going in several directions at once.  Well, I’ve made a start, so let’s follow it and see where it goes…

If you haven’t read the beginning post for this week’s topic, you really should as it provides context for the rest.  Go ahead, I’ll wait.  No, I’m not just stalling for time.

Welcome back.  Now, one of the questions I’ve been mulling over is whether to write this page with regard to this particular development or whether to write about unrequited dreams or desires in general.  Maybe both.  Since Marcia and I don’t read each other’s work before posting, I don’t know which perspective she’s taken.

We’ll start with the position that, well, started all of this.  Marcia was intentionally vague in the opening post as to the nature and location of this position, so I’ll respect that.  I’ll only add that it was in a field in which she’s had experience, and an environment she loved in the past.  The location for this particular position is in an area of Victoria that we both love as well.  The combination of location, work environment/ people, more regular hours and increased pay all seemed tailor-made for her, and those with whom she spoke were obviously impressed with her presence and her credentials.  So what happened?  That, as it were, is the question.  Another question is, what comes next?

The interesting thing is, I knew they were going to call her that day.  I knew it when I woke up in the morning, and it was part of the reason behind my suggestion for the e-mail she was working on when they called.  Some time just after lunch I also had a niggling feeling that their decision had been made and it wasn’t going to be favourable for us.  As much as I wanted to deny that feeling it wouldn’t go away.  I’ve been wrong before – just not this time.  The person who called did so specifically to ask her to apply to upcoming positions, so there’s still potential there.  We shall see.

Leaving this particular instance aside, we come into the broader arena of desire and attention and it’s here that I get pulled away in numerous different directions.  The answers to the questions like ‘why did this happen?’ and ‘how do you feel about it?’ barely scratch the surface, yet each has its own multitude of answers.  For the first, someone with a Christian background might answer, “God answers all requests.  Sometimes the answer is ‘no’.”  For the second, someone with a basis in Buddhism might advise that desires are not the issue, that ‘attachment to desires’ is what inevitably causes pain.  And those are only two perspectives.  So, what follows is a brief look at a few different perspectives, in which we’ll wander in and out and maybe touch upon a kernel of ‘truth’ now and again.  A smart person would probably cut and run at this point, but if you’re willing, let’s continue on.

To start with, we need to decide the basis for the creation of the reality we experience every day.  If we accept that ‘God’ or fate or destiny or some cosmic accident put us here and all we can do is stumble along as best we can, then there’s not really that much to say.  Life is.  Live it and carry on.

However, if we accept that we are individually and jointly responsible for the creation of our days, then we have somewhere to go, but in accepting this we open a Pandora’s box of sorts.  This version of Pandora’s box doesn’t ‘just’ release darkness into the world; it’s capable of releasing great joy as well.  The choices, as always, remain with us.  Seth wrote:

“Your ideas and beliefs form the structure of your experience. Your beliefs and the reasons for them can be found in your conscious mind. If you accept the idea that the reasons for your behavior are forever buried in the past of this life, or any other, then you will not be able to alter your experience until you change that belief. I am speaking now of more or less normal experience. Later we will discuss more particular areas, such as circumstances in which illnesses date from birth.

“The realization that you form your own reality should be a liberating one. You are responsible for your successes and your joys. You can change those areas of your life with which you are less than pleased, but you must take the responsibility for your being.

“Your spirit joined itself with flesh, and in flesh, to experience a world of incredible richness, to help create a dimension of reality of colors and of form. Your spirit was born in flesh to enrich a marvellous area of sense awareness, to feel energy made into corporeal form. You are here to use, enjoy, and express yourself through the body. You are here to aid in the great expansion of consciousness. You are not here to cry about the miseries of the human condition, but to change them when you find them not to your liking through the joy, strength and vitality that is within you; to create the spirit as faithfully and beautifully as you can in flesh.

“The conscious mind allows you to look outward into the physical universe, and see the reflection of your spiritual activity, to perceive and assess your individual and joint creations… In a manner of speaking, the conscious mind is a window through which you look outward – and looking outward, perceive the fruits of your inner mind. Often you let false beliefs blur that great vision. Your joy, vitality and accomplishment do not come from the outside to you as the result of events that ‘happen to you.’ They spring from inner events that are the result of your beliefs.” ~ The Nature of Personal Reality, session 615.

Later in that same book, he wrote:

“You are given the gift of the gods; you create your reality according to your beliefs; yours is the creative energy that makes your world; there are no limitations to the self except those you believe in.” ~ The Nature of Personal Reality, session 677.

Now that seems pretty simple, and maybe it is truly meant to be so.  Just to mix it up, however, on another occasion Seth said:

“Creativity is always discontent – and always about new surprises. Therefore, the entity itself is never completed. You are learning to be conscious co-creators. But you do not always know what the creation, in your terms, will be.” ~ ESP Class, March 17, 1970.

The basis of the message ‘You form your own reality’ is an old one, but the idea has expanded by leaps and bounds in the past decade or so.  All around the world millions if not billions of people are discovering for themselves what these five words actually mean for them.  Some who teach this promise health, wealth, happiness, fulfillment, success, loving relationships, and others offer to tell you what you need to know if/when your first experiments with these ideas didn’t have the results you ‘expected’.  Still others will trail off philosophically, expounding on such concepts as ‘Who is the ‘You’ in ‘You Create Your Own Reality?’

From some we’re told that it’s not our conscious selves or the outer ‘ego’ that decides what experiences we have.  It is often suggested that it’s the inner self or higher self who gets to decide what experiences we have or don’t have.  The list goes on and on.  I have no argument per se with any of these viewpoints – to me, people will continue to experience the ‘truth’ of their beliefs, whatever they believe them to be.  From the consciouscreation.com site:

“Perhaps you should, for the time being, take every thought which suggests to you a limitation or a reminder of an experience which “proves out” a limitation, and simply assign it with the label “belief.” Imagine if you were to look at your whole world this way – every single thing in it is only in it to the extent that you believe that it is. You believe your car is parked outside and so it is. You believe you are currently focused in Washington State in the United States of America and so you are. This would be closer to the truth than the assigning of any experience as fact. And if you can perceive ALL of your experience this way, then it is not so difficult to expand your experience to include those things you want, you seek, you desire, to the long list of things that you are already experiencing as a result of your beliefs!

For is it not true that physical objects are more spacious than object? Is it not true that the molecules within physical objects are made up of particles vastly smaller than the distance of space between them? And is it not true that the computer you type upon is more space than computer? And yet you BELIEVE in it, and so it works. Listen to the rational mind now. The rational mind says, “This is lunacy.” The rational mind says, “There IS a computer on the desk.” And you smile at the rational mind and say, “Belief!” Apply this EVERYWHERE. Apply this in every moment. And in every thought. You will see that everything works much more easily from this perspective.

All of your coincidences make perfect sense – how else could it occur but in the way which you BELIEVE, and in a way which SHOWS you what you believe. You believe in telepathy? You experience telepathy! You believe in creation, you experience creation! You believe in limitation? You experience limitation! This is the sum total of your life experience! So rather than trying to sort out the underlying beliefs, why not simply admit that it’s ALL beliefs. The cars on the street, the birds in the trees, the bunnies on the lawn, all belief. All you, creating, to show you yourself. All belief! Who are you? Who do you believe you are? Imagine that the truth is that you do NOT exist. That this is simply a void space which you have filled with your imagination and you have filled it SO well that you have believed that your creation is REAL. But there is nothing here.

There is nothing here but YOU. All of you. Experiencing all of you. And calling it real. And no amount of evidence that you pile up will change it! Ask yourself when you’re dreaming, when you’re caught up in the drama of a dream, do you not feel the ground under your feet? Do you not experience the reality of the dream? You have trained yourselves so well in this dream of physical reality that you hardly EVER allow yourselves to experience the KNOWING that it is your creation, that it IS your dream. Sometimes, in your dream states, you will remember you are dreaming and you will say, “Oh, this is a dream. Oh, I can change this if I want to because this is a dream.” See if you can do it in your physical reality dream! The nature of the dreams are the same. “This is a dream. I can change it if I want to.” And change it. In the dreams, you never ask yourselves, “Oh, HOW will I change it??? Oh, how will I make it happen?” You are not helpless; it is YOUR dream. You say to yourself, “This is a dream, I can change it!” – and you change it!

Choose. Act from the place within yourself that knows and request the rational mind to participate in the uncovering of the beliefs. And the selection of new choices. Let the rational mind tell you all of the things it wants, and then give it to them – give it to yourself. Now, perhaps, some of you are going to be very frustrated with us. And with yourselves. Perhaps once again we will be accused of saying things so directly that are so simple and yet which you will lament are so difficult to achieve. We are smiling as we remind you that this is a belief. PLAY with your lives. After all, what is the WORST consequence possible? You will DIE and wake up from the dream. And perhaps you will do this before you do what you are so sure you want to do. You will lose your love; you will lose your grand idea.

Choose. And remember that the fastest way to lose your love or grandest idea is to forget that this IS the dream. Do not be afraid. Take your grandest visions of yourselves and create them! For what else could you possibly be here to do? And what risk are you taking? None! The only real risk is that you fail to seek, to be, the grandest vision of yourself. The rest is all details. Yesterday, today, tomorrow, earlier, later.”

I mentioned the ‘truth’ of our beliefs, and to me, that begins to approach the crux of the matter.  I’ve invested a lot of years looking at the nature of my beliefs, and it was only this past week that those who guide me said that it was too bad I had begun with so many preconceptions.  They do have a tendency to be forthright.  From Seth again:

“… the first important step is to realize that your beliefs about reality are just that – beliefs about reality and not necessarily attributes of reality. You must make a clear distinction between you and your beliefs. You must then realize that your beliefs are physically materialized. What you believe to be true in your experience is true.” ~ The Nature of Personal Reality, session 621.

The thing is, working within this paradigm, beliefs affect us whether or not we’re aware of them, and whether or not we ‘want’ to have them.  The difference between this paradigm and one involving a distant, separated ‘God’ is that in this paradigm we each have the choice to discover/ uncover our beliefs, to understand the motivation behind our actions, and to change our beliefs when we find them not to our liking.  That can be a challenge, a deep, dark tunnel into despair, or it can be a light, joyful event.  Whether you believe yourself to be a physical being or a multidimensional spiritual being can make a huge difference in your perspective.  Whether you believe yourself to be set upon by a vengeful God or by fate or by some other, inner aspect of your own Being, or whether you believe that you create joyfully, playfully in expanding the nature of your consciousness and All That Is will yield vastly differing results.  Do our beliefs create our reality only if they believe they do?  That’s a question all on its own.

Here’s something I wrote yesterday.  The other night I awoke at about 1:00 a.m. with some notes to record, and I finally got to writing them out.  What follows came from those notes:

“The other note I got the other night was about desires and desire fulfillment.  What they said was to shift my thinking from “This is what I desire because of what my life is missing…” to one of, “I live a life of constant fulfillment, and this is what I want to experience next.”  The first emphasis is on what’s missing – the hole that needs to be filled in order to be complete.  The second focuses on what is fun, what is wanted as the next experience because one is always and perpetually fulfilled.  In being fulfilled, there is no need to focus on fulfillment as a task to complete and the emphasis shifts to the next desired experience.  I’ve spent most of my life living the first way; I look forward to investing my time in the second.

This thought reminded me of a child with a parent in a store where the child is constantly saying, “I want, I want…”  When I was younger I was taught that such children were being selfish and deserved nothing instead.  From my perspective now I can see that the opposite is true.  The child isn’t expressing fulfillment and isn’t really expressing continual wanting.  Rather, s/he is expressing an expectation of constant disappointment and using a scattergun approach in asking to see if anything bears results.  When we are taught not to want, desiring something becomes a big deal, not a natural process.  It need not be that way.”

So, we’ve only begun to cover one aspect of desire and intention; we haven’t even scratched the surface.  Leaving that aside for a second, another avenue we could pursue concerns the myopic view we have with respect to time and the unfolding of events.  A classic example is of a person who’s due to depart on a business trip, but on the day of the event everything goes wrong.  His/her child develops measles, the babysitter calls and cancels at the last minute, car keys are lost, and the end result is that the scheduled flight is missed.  What disaster!  What this person doesn’t yet know and may not discover is that this plane crashes, killing all onboard.  Or it may be a simple as walking down the sidewalk and twisting an ankle.  Doing so causes pain and is damn inconvenient, but what the person involved doesn’t know is that by slowing down his or her pace s/he will meet someone important in his or her life.  There are many more possibilities.  One thing that I have discovered about reality creation is that while the events and experiences of our lives grow out of the beliefs we hold about ourselves, each other and the nature of reality, reality creation is rarely if ever a linear or mechanistic process.  Seth again:

“… magic is everywhere in the operation of your body, and in the operation of the world.

“My definition of magic is this: Magic is nature unimpeded, or magic is life unimpeded. It is true that your thoughts and emotions and beliefs form the reality that you experience – but it is also true that this creative construction is, in a manner of speaking, magically formed. That is, the construction of your body and the construction of a world are produced with the greatest combination of order and spontaneity – an order and spontaneity that seems hidden rather than apparent.” ~ The Way Toward Health, March 10, 1984.

Therefore, for me, the other necessary ingredient in reality creation is trust.  That’s been a hard one for me to learn, and I still run (hard) into my own walls at times.  I maintain, however, that trust is essential in accepting the events and experiences of our lives.  Our thoughts, ideas and expectations plant the seeds in our lives, and we can nurture and water them with our intentions and high energy patterns, but we must still trust that they will grow.

Well, if you’ve made it this far, my thanks for meandering along with me.  There’s so much more I could write, but if I do I’m going to have to break out into chapters so I’ll leave it here for now.

Love,
Mike.

P.S.  One more from Seth:

“I have something to say to each of you, and all of you. In many areas of your lives, you go to learn discipline. You are taught by another and by a teacher and by a great authority. You are taught to become disciplined. In this class, there are other issues involved, and now I will tell you the terrible truth!

“For I am an un-teacher. And an un-teacher un-ravels you, or lets you unravel yourselves, back to the truths of your being. An un-teacher helps you un-learn your ‘discipline.’ An un-teacher, hopefully – and it is a difficult task that I embark upon, playfully – an un-teacher, hopefully, lets you lead yourselves toward the freedom of your being. So, when you are used to discipline, you may, for a while, feel un-done, or without a foundation. And then, when you let your disciplines go, you feel the great foundation of your own being, and its greater freedom.

“There is a purpose to this class, as all of you know, and for all of my talk, you see, you still have not un-learned enough. For when I tell you that you create your own reality, none of you are really sufficiently secure in that belief to take advantage of it as yet; to grasp this great creative freedom of yourselves, and use it to make the life that you presently [live] be the most creative and joyful for yourself and others. And so you give yourselves and others excuses, and you are in this position because of that, or you are in this position because of that person, or because of your background.

“Now, this applies to everyone here, Ruburt included – to each of you. When you thoroughly recognize the majestic freedom of your own being, and your own creative power, then you recognize yourselves as creators, creating your daily life and joyfully helping create the mass experience of the world as you know it. And then, you are ready to say ‘I act out of the full joyful knowledge of my creativity.’ Then you do not blame events or others or circumstances. Then you are able to thank yourselves for the joys of your being, and the glory of your days. You are able to say to the smallest cell within the ear, ‘I give you greeting. I am thankful for our joint creativity: for our eternal knowledge which is ever new.’ . . .

“And your dreams will help you point the way to your own freedom – and they are pointing the way to your own freedom.

“Again, from my reality to yours: if there is one gift that I would give you, it is the reflection of yourselves as I see you, returned to you so that you could sense, as I do, the miraculous joy and freedom, and trust it. If you make mistakes, they are your own mistakes, and you can learn from them. If you make decisions, they are your own decisions you can make new ones. If you are afraid of making decisions, you cannot learn from them.” – Conversations With Seth, Volume II

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Follow this link to read Marcia’s View.