What shall I do to-day?
What will to-day do with me?
What will I do to to-day?
What will we do to each other?
Hello, play-friend day, here we are so wonderfully arranged, each on our own side of the tennis net of life, neither of us concerned to win but only to be the best companion in the game.
We may touch upon surprise or we may enjoy the re-happenings of old joys. The new and unknown thing still loves to reveal itself among the best of the beauties stored in our treasure chest of the known.
If I wish I can choose to Be with the thrill of the cutting edge of this game, where 'the net' is. The thrill can be so deep that what we would call its excitement is so much a part of its primary Being that it feels as though it is utter peace at the same time. What a paradox.
I look at IT, and then IT looks at me with 'that' smile.
Do you know 'that' smile in yourself ?
It seems to be able to smile on everything, whatever it is. How can it do that unless everything, whatever it is, is something to be glad about ?
I will ask...
The reply comes...
'I only smile like this because I know that everything that is happening is in place of nothing happening. You and I both want to play the game of the happening of living experience - whatever happens - instead of remaining in the Absolute Being state of no game, the state of Pre-Creation and no happening.
Because of your strong connection with a relatively coarse level of physical play most of you fail to see My smile and so you forget what the atmosphere and mood was that set it all up, and still broods over it all.
Ah well, play is play and one thing leads to another, but there are times when I wish that your fever of dominant self-wilfulness would subside, with all its contrary forms of unplayful activity, for these confuse you and you don't realise that life is meant to be an opportunity for you to live out your best joys with as much definition as possible. I want you to smile on Me as I smile on you. I don't know how I can say it more clearly than that.'
Wednesday, 20 February 2019
Saturday, 16 February 2019
Floundering - by William Arkle
Trying to understand what is just beyond us may be called floundering after the 'x' factor.
Floundering is a bit like splashing about in a swimming pool. But floundering is also a necessary precondition to new vision, better vision and growth.
I suppose we can come to the cutting edge of 'Lifeness' through a careful build-up of captured and understood bits of Reality, or through a sudden mad dash. I notice that a genuine contemplation of everlastingness alters the shape of my vision and purpose, so that I guess that a contemplation of the 'X' factor, or fact, may also alter something that I can't explain until it happens.
'X' is a shut-off. All our sense of understanding can build to what we call Being - Consciousness - Bliss ('BCB') and that is exactly as it should happen. But it is quite natural to feel a great wonder about 'how anything so wonderful ever got started in the first place'.
To look 'X' straight in the face for a while seems to increase the appreciation of the 'BCB' factor or, more succinctly, the 'BC' factor. I don't mean to go on splitting hairs for the sake of it, but I am drawing attention to the principle of contrast in connection with waking up. (I am also giving free rein to my instinctive flounderings to see where they take me.)
We can grasp 'BC' (Being Consciousness), but there are degrees of that grasping. I wonder if looking at X increases the appreciation of 'BC', in the same way that looking at everlastingness, or 'E-X', increases our appreciation of NOWness, or 'N-X'.
There seems to be some connection of this X-ness with....
X + E-X = N-X
(The unknowable with the addition of an everlasting approach to itself, gives the most mysterious and potent form of nowness.)
This is permanent aspiration....which makes one feel quite tired even thinking about it....so long as X is unbelievably 'Beautiful'. Beautiful, in this sense, is a step beyond the amalgam of all valuable qualities. In other words, there is so much more to be appreciated in NOWness than we have yet begun to wonder about, and it is this most profound appreciation and tasting of the NOW that is also the most profound form of Being Awake. The unknown as unknowable is with us NOW and will for ever lead us on towards knowing IT. For 'IT' has to be something very wonderful indeed and must have the seed of our equation, above, within it.
My own attempt to do this was to paint and photograph 'Flowerness' through attending to flowers. There is beauty hiding there which draws me by it's over and above- and beyond- and is an everlasting smile- and always offering the Absolute best..... SO FAR.
This 'so far' is also a clue to 'God being everything, so why does He bother?' question. God is a LIVING God not a 'done it all, that's it, God,' and so He flounders at the 'not yet done' as we are doing now. As we can say, 'It's just for Fun-Delight,' and, 'I can't stand being bored,' reasons. This is also a clue to 'X', I suspect, in that however IT arose, it arose with this kick behind it. But that makes no sense. Nothing makes sense when we try to understand how the 'Seed of all Seeds of lifeness and consciousness' got started. It feels so strange to me that we can grasp this concept with our awareness, which arises from the answer, and yet get no answer.
I don't intend to go on beating my head against this, but I quite enjoy grasping the bones of it and clarifying it to the best of my ability. It seems to be part of the same package that enables me to enjoy the light and colour and shape of flowers in the N-X of now. I detect a big amused smile being directed on me from SOMEONE ! It's a loving smile and also says, 'I like you to be like this, so that we get a really hot game going between us'
IT DOESN'T MATTER WHERE IT GOES SO LONG AS IT'S HOT.
Have you noticed that when we do something that is really fun a great feeling of love arises at the same time? Super fun produces super love.
It's not easy to produce super fun because it's God's extreme delight, but it's a super challenge!
Floundering is a bit like splashing about in a swimming pool. But floundering is also a necessary precondition to new vision, better vision and growth.
I suppose we can come to the cutting edge of 'Lifeness' through a careful build-up of captured and understood bits of Reality, or through a sudden mad dash. I notice that a genuine contemplation of everlastingness alters the shape of my vision and purpose, so that I guess that a contemplation of the 'X' factor, or fact, may also alter something that I can't explain until it happens.
'X' is a shut-off. All our sense of understanding can build to what we call Being - Consciousness - Bliss ('BCB') and that is exactly as it should happen. But it is quite natural to feel a great wonder about 'how anything so wonderful ever got started in the first place'.
To look 'X' straight in the face for a while seems to increase the appreciation of the 'BCB' factor or, more succinctly, the 'BC' factor. I don't mean to go on splitting hairs for the sake of it, but I am drawing attention to the principle of contrast in connection with waking up. (I am also giving free rein to my instinctive flounderings to see where they take me.)
We can grasp 'BC' (Being Consciousness), but there are degrees of that grasping. I wonder if looking at X increases the appreciation of 'BC', in the same way that looking at everlastingness, or 'E-X', increases our appreciation of NOWness, or 'N-X'.
There seems to be some connection of this X-ness with....
X + E-X = N-X
(The unknowable with the addition of an everlasting approach to itself, gives the most mysterious and potent form of nowness.)
This is permanent aspiration....which makes one feel quite tired even thinking about it....so long as X is unbelievably 'Beautiful'. Beautiful, in this sense, is a step beyond the amalgam of all valuable qualities. In other words, there is so much more to be appreciated in NOWness than we have yet begun to wonder about, and it is this most profound appreciation and tasting of the NOW that is also the most profound form of Being Awake. The unknown as unknowable is with us NOW and will for ever lead us on towards knowing IT. For 'IT' has to be something very wonderful indeed and must have the seed of our equation, above, within it.
My own attempt to do this was to paint and photograph 'Flowerness' through attending to flowers. There is beauty hiding there which draws me by it's over and above- and beyond- and is an everlasting smile- and always offering the Absolute best..... SO FAR.
This 'so far' is also a clue to 'God being everything, so why does He bother?' question. God is a LIVING God not a 'done it all, that's it, God,' and so He flounders at the 'not yet done' as we are doing now. As we can say, 'It's just for Fun-Delight,' and, 'I can't stand being bored,' reasons. This is also a clue to 'X', I suspect, in that however IT arose, it arose with this kick behind it. But that makes no sense. Nothing makes sense when we try to understand how the 'Seed of all Seeds of lifeness and consciousness' got started. It feels so strange to me that we can grasp this concept with our awareness, which arises from the answer, and yet get no answer.
I don't intend to go on beating my head against this, but I quite enjoy grasping the bones of it and clarifying it to the best of my ability. It seems to be part of the same package that enables me to enjoy the light and colour and shape of flowers in the N-X of now. I detect a big amused smile being directed on me from SOMEONE ! It's a loving smile and also says, 'I like you to be like this, so that we get a really hot game going between us'
IT DOESN'T MATTER WHERE IT GOES SO LONG AS IT'S HOT.
Have you noticed that when we do something that is really fun a great feeling of love arises at the same time? Super fun produces super love.
It's not easy to produce super fun because it's God's extreme delight, but it's a super challenge!
Thursday, 14 February 2019
Philosophy as self-help, or real philosophy
This struck me as I was considering Colin Wilson's discussion of the prevalent pessimism in philosophy - worse in the past 200 years, but always prevalent.
Most philosophy is an act of self-harm, insofar as it devalues life; insofar as it has the view that it would either be better never to have been born, or that life may be pleasant or unpleasant, but ultimately makes no difference to anything...
I have always affirmed Colin Wilson's basic optimism - but in a not-created world and absent a creator who is good and who loves us; I would have to admit that the pessimists are correct!
Because CW avoided metaphysics, his discussion operates at the level of feelings. He argues that our happiest and best, most meaningful feelings are correct about life - yet in the deepest analysis, if these are just feelings, then that basic situation is a pessimistic one.
In contrast is the Nobel prizewinning author Samuel Beckett, whose work is an act of self-harm, directed at harming others - designed to make life pessimistic, to persuade that despair is the rational response to this world. The read Beckett with seriousness is the psychological equivalent of slashing one's own wrists, or drinking poison.
Of course we want to be happy and optimistic (at least, we want this with a part of ourselves) but this happiness must be True. To mean more than just a fleeting emotion, flickering in the mind of a finite being; happiness needs to derive from Good news about Reality. Otherwise the situation would be that Beckett is describing reality correctly; and Wilson's denial of pessimism is merely a way of feeling, and perhaps functioning, better - in what is otherwise an intolerable universe.
So philosophy is only about what we feel unless real-life really-is Good.
For William Arkle his optimism was based on his knowledge (and awareness) of the fact that this is a created reality, and the creator is our loving Father - so reality is designed-around each of us, and what we most need.
Furthermore, Arkle is convinced that we personally chose to be born into our lives. So - with these underpinning convictions - we have an essentially 'optimistic' situation, in which our life is has purpose, meaning, is specifically what we need; and this actual life (its situation) was specifically chosen by our-(pre-mortal)-selves. Therefore William Arkle's philosophy is more than just about feelings.
What 'evidence' does Arkle have? Quite simply: intuitive conviction. Arkle asked basic questions of reality, and knew the answers directly. He asked - is there God, is this reality created - answers came yes. Then, he knew by direct apprehension that this God was Good, and loved him. Looking around at life - he recognised meaning and purpose everywhere and in everything.
Arkle might have been happy merely because he was optimistic by nature - as was Colin Wilson. The two men were indeed good friends, and would have long conversations together, keeping in touch from the 1950s into the 1990s. And on the surface, they were saying similar things.
Implicitly, I suspect that Wilson did have similar beliefs to Arkle - but he was not aware of them, and did not state them explicitly. Therefore, Wilson's work can reduce to self-help - to advice on how to be happier and more optimistic.
But the fact that Arkle stated his fundamental assumptions meant that his happiness and optimism were linked to, and derived-from, ultimate reality by means of stated assumptions. Thus Arkle, unlike most philosophers, broke-through from self-help to metaphysics.
Most philosophy is an act of self-harm, insofar as it devalues life; insofar as it has the view that it would either be better never to have been born, or that life may be pleasant or unpleasant, but ultimately makes no difference to anything...
I have always affirmed Colin Wilson's basic optimism - but in a not-created world and absent a creator who is good and who loves us; I would have to admit that the pessimists are correct!
Because CW avoided metaphysics, his discussion operates at the level of feelings. He argues that our happiest and best, most meaningful feelings are correct about life - yet in the deepest analysis, if these are just feelings, then that basic situation is a pessimistic one.
In contrast is the Nobel prizewinning author Samuel Beckett, whose work is an act of self-harm, directed at harming others - designed to make life pessimistic, to persuade that despair is the rational response to this world. The read Beckett with seriousness is the psychological equivalent of slashing one's own wrists, or drinking poison.
Of course we want to be happy and optimistic (at least, we want this with a part of ourselves) but this happiness must be True. To mean more than just a fleeting emotion, flickering in the mind of a finite being; happiness needs to derive from Good news about Reality. Otherwise the situation would be that Beckett is describing reality correctly; and Wilson's denial of pessimism is merely a way of feeling, and perhaps functioning, better - in what is otherwise an intolerable universe.
So philosophy is only about what we feel unless real-life really-is Good.
For William Arkle his optimism was based on his knowledge (and awareness) of the fact that this is a created reality, and the creator is our loving Father - so reality is designed-around each of us, and what we most need.
Furthermore, Arkle is convinced that we personally chose to be born into our lives. So - with these underpinning convictions - we have an essentially 'optimistic' situation, in which our life is has purpose, meaning, is specifically what we need; and this actual life (its situation) was specifically chosen by our-(pre-mortal)-selves. Therefore William Arkle's philosophy is more than just about feelings.
What 'evidence' does Arkle have? Quite simply: intuitive conviction. Arkle asked basic questions of reality, and knew the answers directly. He asked - is there God, is this reality created - answers came yes. Then, he knew by direct apprehension that this God was Good, and loved him. Looking around at life - he recognised meaning and purpose everywhere and in everything.
Arkle might have been happy merely because he was optimistic by nature - as was Colin Wilson. The two men were indeed good friends, and would have long conversations together, keeping in touch from the 1950s into the 1990s. And on the surface, they were saying similar things.
Implicitly, I suspect that Wilson did have similar beliefs to Arkle - but he was not aware of them, and did not state them explicitly. Therefore, Wilson's work can reduce to self-help - to advice on how to be happier and more optimistic.
But the fact that Arkle stated his fundamental assumptions meant that his happiness and optimism were linked to, and derived-from, ultimate reality by means of stated assumptions. Thus Arkle, unlike most philosophers, broke-through from self-help to metaphysics.
Tuesday, 12 February 2019
An Apology from God - by William Arkle
A friend of mine has been pestering me lately by asking me why I am the way I am, which is, to him, rather ungodlike at times. I have to apologise to him about this and try to explain my position.
Go to larger imageYou see I had to start this great game from the place of great potency which I had come to live in. This place (a position, or attitude) is where the action has to come from, and is thus the place of the power which any action requires. The fun that I envisaged for myself — 'fun' being another word for lovely joyfulness meeting with action and surprise — was to create a playground which could introduce these situations for me and also you, the players, who could play at it all with me. This was to keep the sense of fun cooking and boiling over into new ways of experiencing it — 'it' being the livingness of my being.
It turned out not to be easy, for the conditions required to get it started are those of enormous vitality and perfection, and had a feel about them which clouded the real purpose of it all. These essential preliminary conditions were full of the structures and organising principles that naturally come from the beginning situation I had to build, and into which I could pump 'energy with orders in' so that I could bring the play ground and players into a living situation outside my essential being. When I say outside, I mean in a condition which could enable pure potential to become lots of sorts of bits of this potential — all sorts of bits and pieces broken away from a sort of imprisonment in the oneness of pure being.
Hmmm, I trust I have not lost you in all this; it seems so simple to me and yet I realise it is quite likely to be the opposite for you. Let's try to cut it short.
Angels live and work for Me in these highest realms, and as Teachers will give you the powerful and highly organised feeling of the structures required to build and maintain the playground and players for the great game which is afoot — the playing at living experience game.
My friend has come up from Earth, a place I arranged which would allow him to get to grips with this playing without being aware of, or inhibited by, the stuff that the Angels are dealing with. For the point of it all is to be quite free of the initiating organisation and it's necessary awesome power and energy so that we could all arrive at a naturally friendly, all pals together, way of living out this great fun. You can dig me in the ribs and tell me a joke, and I would love it, but if you get involved with the Organising Angels you will never be able to do this.
See if you are having my sort of lovely fun; if not, try to break away from organisers and their followers. It's all meant to be user friendly to your 'you-ness' and my 'me-ness' together. There's nothing else to do with this everlastingness except to learn how to have the best sort of delightful fun with it.
If you object to this, because you can see and feel the mess and pain that exists among you, just let me say that the freedom to learn what the game is, and how to play it in your own way, is the only way it is ever going to work for us all. When you learn how to do it properly it will make the very best sense, and stop being such a nasty preliminary episode for so many of you.
Sorry if I'm beginning to sound uncaring. I am not uncaring, but I can't help living with my big smile because I can see where it is all leading. I bet there are times when you too get this feeling with you own children. There are, however, no games worth playing which don't have all sorts of 'testing times' within the overall gladness about having something to play at rather than nothing to play at.
Go to larger imageYou see I had to start this great game from the place of great potency which I had come to live in. This place (a position, or attitude) is where the action has to come from, and is thus the place of the power which any action requires. The fun that I envisaged for myself — 'fun' being another word for lovely joyfulness meeting with action and surprise — was to create a playground which could introduce these situations for me and also you, the players, who could play at it all with me. This was to keep the sense of fun cooking and boiling over into new ways of experiencing it — 'it' being the livingness of my being.
It turned out not to be easy, for the conditions required to get it started are those of enormous vitality and perfection, and had a feel about them which clouded the real purpose of it all. These essential preliminary conditions were full of the structures and organising principles that naturally come from the beginning situation I had to build, and into which I could pump 'energy with orders in' so that I could bring the play ground and players into a living situation outside my essential being. When I say outside, I mean in a condition which could enable pure potential to become lots of sorts of bits of this potential — all sorts of bits and pieces broken away from a sort of imprisonment in the oneness of pure being.
Hmmm, I trust I have not lost you in all this; it seems so simple to me and yet I realise it is quite likely to be the opposite for you. Let's try to cut it short.
Angels live and work for Me in these highest realms, and as Teachers will give you the powerful and highly organised feeling of the structures required to build and maintain the playground and players for the great game which is afoot — the playing at living experience game.
My friend has come up from Earth, a place I arranged which would allow him to get to grips with this playing without being aware of, or inhibited by, the stuff that the Angels are dealing with. For the point of it all is to be quite free of the initiating organisation and it's necessary awesome power and energy so that we could all arrive at a naturally friendly, all pals together, way of living out this great fun. You can dig me in the ribs and tell me a joke, and I would love it, but if you get involved with the Organising Angels you will never be able to do this.
See if you are having my sort of lovely fun; if not, try to break away from organisers and their followers. It's all meant to be user friendly to your 'you-ness' and my 'me-ness' together. There's nothing else to do with this everlastingness except to learn how to have the best sort of delightful fun with it.
If you object to this, because you can see and feel the mess and pain that exists among you, just let me say that the freedom to learn what the game is, and how to play it in your own way, is the only way it is ever going to work for us all. When you learn how to do it properly it will make the very best sense, and stop being such a nasty preliminary episode for so many of you.
Sorry if I'm beginning to sound uncaring. I am not uncaring, but I can't help living with my big smile because I can see where it is all leading. I bet there are times when you too get this feeling with you own children. There are, however, no games worth playing which don't have all sorts of 'testing times' within the overall gladness about having something to play at rather than nothing to play at.
Monday, 4 February 2019
Enjoy the Process
ME:
"My cup runneth over" and I am concerned to catch the valuable life experience and not allow it to go to waste doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. There are so many possibilities to choose from in my creative play.
GOD: You simply cannot do everything all of the time. Experiment and waste go together and lead to discovery, so don't become anxious about results. Try to enjoy the process itself which allows for lateral thinking and lateral diversions.
The new things are not found where you expect them to be. We can't live "new beginnings" without letting go of the "old beginnings" and allowing them to slip away. All that is really valuable will come back to you when it is needed. This is part of The Game of life which requires forgetting and letting go with good grace and a sense of non-importance of ones valuable Self. Do not fear to waste your time and energy, you will never run out of them and the "Crisis" in the World is only solved by those who follow the best instincts of their Spiritual Nature. As these work out all together, so each one of you finds yourself holding and demonstrating a bit of the necessary jig-saw puzzle of life coming into a new and better expression of itself, Myself-Ourself.
Be with the big, fearless love which smiles on everything from its sense of Everlastingness and the Completeness that lies behind all Living Reality. For Reality is complete in one sense although it strives to play at Itself in another sense. Life Games are set up for playfulness and not because our being nature is frightened of losing anything. We think we can lose but we can't. There are safety nets around everything since all comes from perfect Love, Joy, Fun, Bliss, Wisdom and Humour!
What you see as misery in the World is what you see in your child as it lives from crisis to crisis each hour of the day with each one being "the end of the world" in severity. Your world is like this child, it is the way young things grow...only the scale is different. They will both grow out of it.
All these words are just to help you to get to grips with the Spirit of life for your Self and in your own way. This leads to a simplicity in the midst of complexity which appears to others to be Wisdom and beyond words. Words point to this and that, here and there, but Wisdom is beyond this and that, it is Being with the essence of the possibility of life.
To allow it to work out as experience we play at putting together "stage sets" or Worlds, each one different, to draw out variety in the nuances of life possibilities. Our Spirit learns to manage this as we grow up, we then visit each others Worlds as we add to our collection of "ways to do life"; rather like a Bee collecting honey from all sorts of flowers.
So don't be surprised when other people visit your World and you start to visit theirs. You can't do this in the contraptions you use to visit the moon. You will do it properly when your idea of yourself becomes more spiritual in nature and much more ethereal in conception. Then you will "allow" yourselves to look at ethereal science and ways of doing things which are in keeping with the graceful efficiency of Spiritual Wisdom. Then you will see the Big Stage of Universal Productions Ltd. as being a very graceful project.
At present, when you approach Wisdom and the Love-Joy of it's nature you go "all funny" about it and go into all sorts of "over the top" forms of reverence, discipline and dogma and throw your common sense out of the window. Your idea of power and importance as your crude, dominant personalities use it on Earth is the cause of this and, of course, is fear based rather than love based. I am not like this. My power and dominance is only there to enable love and joy to please us all, you all and My Self. It is then so natural that My happiness is wrapped up in our collective happiness, and our collective misery too, while you learn to grow up in understanding. I can cope with this misery, but you, being youngsters, often feel that you can't cope because you have not learned to live from your strength which is only found in the nature of your Spirit, the Spirit we all share. Our Selfness and our Oneness are thus so easily linked together in the love play of this Innermost Nature.
And so I sigh and smile and wait.
You are all so silly and stupid and adorable and childish as yet, and I can't hurry this growth without spoiling the virtue of your condition of development from spiritual sleep to self-chosen awareness. I just want you to feel how "nice" it all is, even when it seems to be "all nasty". Tricky, I know!
The best thing to do is to try to experience Me and what goes with Me for your Self. Inner and outer contemplation, meditation and conscious direction of your attention and intention are common sense ways of knowing Me, and thus your own You, and lead to recognising how interwoven we are.
GOD: You simply cannot do everything all of the time. Experiment and waste go together and lead to discovery, so don't become anxious about results. Try to enjoy the process itself which allows for lateral thinking and lateral diversions.
The new things are not found where you expect them to be. We can't live "new beginnings" without letting go of the "old beginnings" and allowing them to slip away. All that is really valuable will come back to you when it is needed. This is part of The Game of life which requires forgetting and letting go with good grace and a sense of non-importance of ones valuable Self. Do not fear to waste your time and energy, you will never run out of them and the "Crisis" in the World is only solved by those who follow the best instincts of their Spiritual Nature. As these work out all together, so each one of you finds yourself holding and demonstrating a bit of the necessary jig-saw puzzle of life coming into a new and better expression of itself, Myself-Ourself.
Be with the big, fearless love which smiles on everything from its sense of Everlastingness and the Completeness that lies behind all Living Reality. For Reality is complete in one sense although it strives to play at Itself in another sense. Life Games are set up for playfulness and not because our being nature is frightened of losing anything. We think we can lose but we can't. There are safety nets around everything since all comes from perfect Love, Joy, Fun, Bliss, Wisdom and Humour!
What you see as misery in the World is what you see in your child as it lives from crisis to crisis each hour of the day with each one being "the end of the world" in severity. Your world is like this child, it is the way young things grow...only the scale is different. They will both grow out of it.
All these words are just to help you to get to grips with the Spirit of life for your Self and in your own way. This leads to a simplicity in the midst of complexity which appears to others to be Wisdom and beyond words. Words point to this and that, here and there, but Wisdom is beyond this and that, it is Being with the essence of the possibility of life.
To allow it to work out as experience we play at putting together "stage sets" or Worlds, each one different, to draw out variety in the nuances of life possibilities. Our Spirit learns to manage this as we grow up, we then visit each others Worlds as we add to our collection of "ways to do life"; rather like a Bee collecting honey from all sorts of flowers.
So don't be surprised when other people visit your World and you start to visit theirs. You can't do this in the contraptions you use to visit the moon. You will do it properly when your idea of yourself becomes more spiritual in nature and much more ethereal in conception. Then you will "allow" yourselves to look at ethereal science and ways of doing things which are in keeping with the graceful efficiency of Spiritual Wisdom. Then you will see the Big Stage of Universal Productions Ltd. as being a very graceful project.
At present, when you approach Wisdom and the Love-Joy of it's nature you go "all funny" about it and go into all sorts of "over the top" forms of reverence, discipline and dogma and throw your common sense out of the window. Your idea of power and importance as your crude, dominant personalities use it on Earth is the cause of this and, of course, is fear based rather than love based. I am not like this. My power and dominance is only there to enable love and joy to please us all, you all and My Self. It is then so natural that My happiness is wrapped up in our collective happiness, and our collective misery too, while you learn to grow up in understanding. I can cope with this misery, but you, being youngsters, often feel that you can't cope because you have not learned to live from your strength which is only found in the nature of your Spirit, the Spirit we all share. Our Selfness and our Oneness are thus so easily linked together in the love play of this Innermost Nature.
And so I sigh and smile and wait.
You are all so silly and stupid and adorable and childish as yet, and I can't hurry this growth without spoiling the virtue of your condition of development from spiritual sleep to self-chosen awareness. I just want you to feel how "nice" it all is, even when it seems to be "all nasty". Tricky, I know!
The best thing to do is to try to experience Me and what goes with Me for your Self. Inner and outer contemplation, meditation and conscious direction of your attention and intention are common sense ways of knowing Me, and thus your own You, and lead to recognising how interwoven we are.
Friday, 1 February 2019
The 'egg' of Self and Consciousness
If we imagine the Real Self as the yolk of an egg, surrounded by the white which is Consciousness - and the egg being immersed-in the World - then the evolutionary development of consciousness can be (crudely!) envisaged as the thickening of the white (Consciousness) until the yolk-Self is absolutely cut-off from the World.
This thickening, and reducing permeability of Consciousness develops through the lifespan, and also through the history of Man - reaching its maximum in The West: first and at the greatest extreme in England. We begin with our Self in direct contact with the World - but this contact diminishes through development.
What happened is that our sense of perspective, our sense of who we are, became located in the white of the egg, in Consciousness - from-which we can look-out at the World; or inward at the Real Self... thus we get the separation of the objective and the subjective; and modern alienation.
The usual solution is to try and weaken Consciousness, to obliterate the white - for example by trances and other altered states, perhaps by taking intoxicating drugs such as alcohol. This creates a simulacrum of the childhood/ early man state of the yolk-self immersed in the World. But it is only partly effective, and at the cost of generalised behavioural impairment, reduced memory etc.
Another idea is to try and strengthen Consciousness by some kind of training in concentration, meditation or the like. This also fails, because we are still alienated; because when Consciousness leads, it will be all about planning, simplified modelling, narrowing and focusing... It is like trying to live by a flow chart, or by protocols.
Such life - located in Consciousness - feels dry and two-dimensional, and is prone to gross error; because it forces its simple systems onto reality - it imposes itself, and Man remains isolated.
What, then, is the proper (divinely destined) future? It strikes me that we need to regard Consciousness as more like a forum, a medium; a place where the Self and the World meet and join-up.
Our real self, our Being, generates thought; and the Beings of the World generate thoughts; and these thoughts both meet in our Consciousness, so that we are no longer cut off.
But Consciousness does Not impose itself; does Not attempt to control either the Self or the World. We need to cease to strive, plan, organise, choose... instead we need to allow the right behaviours to emerge, in full consciousness, from the interaction of Self and World.
This is what intuition ought to be; that 'knowing' when something is true, beautiful and virtuous because we observe it is real; because we observe it is creation. But this happens, consciously, 'in' the egg-white of Consciousness - whereas in childhood, in early Man, it was un-conscious - we then simply were; we were being but did not know it. Now we know it; because the joining of Self and World happens in Consciousness; instead of (in the past) joining directly.
This is to have a creative relationship with the World, it is to participate in divine creation, and to know we participate, and how.
There is no place for our Consciousness to try and impose itself on creation - when we are in the proper mode of Consciousness our original thoughts meet with the thought of the Beings of the World; and naturally these are harmonious and coherent aspects of the totality of creation.
What I get from this, is that the attempt to stand-outside the process is the mistake. We want to be a part of it; which means that our Consciousness ought to be much more like observation than (a failing attempt to) control.
Another mistake is to suppose that Free Will is conscious choice; or that Agency is about consciously inserting our-Selves into reality... 'Agency' ought to be a matter of our real Self Participating-in reality; and this must be a loving co-operation - there is no place for 'will'.
We should neither strive to obliterate Consciousness, nor to pump-up Consciousness into a pseudo-God; instead we acknowledge that the Consciousness can 'watch' as our thinking emerges from the primary source of the Self, but cannot penetrate the Self; can 'watch' as the thoughts from the Self interact with the thoughts flowing in from the World - but ought not to try and distort or compel what happens between these realities.
It can't anyway - but the attempt to do so is what keeps us alienated.
This thickening, and reducing permeability of Consciousness develops through the lifespan, and also through the history of Man - reaching its maximum in The West: first and at the greatest extreme in England. We begin with our Self in direct contact with the World - but this contact diminishes through development.
What happened is that our sense of perspective, our sense of who we are, became located in the white of the egg, in Consciousness - from-which we can look-out at the World; or inward at the Real Self... thus we get the separation of the objective and the subjective; and modern alienation.
The usual solution is to try and weaken Consciousness, to obliterate the white - for example by trances and other altered states, perhaps by taking intoxicating drugs such as alcohol. This creates a simulacrum of the childhood/ early man state of the yolk-self immersed in the World. But it is only partly effective, and at the cost of generalised behavioural impairment, reduced memory etc.
Another idea is to try and strengthen Consciousness by some kind of training in concentration, meditation or the like. This also fails, because we are still alienated; because when Consciousness leads, it will be all about planning, simplified modelling, narrowing and focusing... It is like trying to live by a flow chart, or by protocols.
Such life - located in Consciousness - feels dry and two-dimensional, and is prone to gross error; because it forces its simple systems onto reality - it imposes itself, and Man remains isolated.
What, then, is the proper (divinely destined) future? It strikes me that we need to regard Consciousness as more like a forum, a medium; a place where the Self and the World meet and join-up.
Our real self, our Being, generates thought; and the Beings of the World generate thoughts; and these thoughts both meet in our Consciousness, so that we are no longer cut off.
But Consciousness does Not impose itself; does Not attempt to control either the Self or the World. We need to cease to strive, plan, organise, choose... instead we need to allow the right behaviours to emerge, in full consciousness, from the interaction of Self and World.
This is what intuition ought to be; that 'knowing' when something is true, beautiful and virtuous because we observe it is real; because we observe it is creation. But this happens, consciously, 'in' the egg-white of Consciousness - whereas in childhood, in early Man, it was un-conscious - we then simply were; we were being but did not know it. Now we know it; because the joining of Self and World happens in Consciousness; instead of (in the past) joining directly.
This is to have a creative relationship with the World, it is to participate in divine creation, and to know we participate, and how.
There is no place for our Consciousness to try and impose itself on creation - when we are in the proper mode of Consciousness our original thoughts meet with the thought of the Beings of the World; and naturally these are harmonious and coherent aspects of the totality of creation.
What I get from this, is that the attempt to stand-outside the process is the mistake. We want to be a part of it; which means that our Consciousness ought to be much more like observation than (a failing attempt to) control.
Another mistake is to suppose that Free Will is conscious choice; or that Agency is about consciously inserting our-Selves into reality... 'Agency' ought to be a matter of our real Self Participating-in reality; and this must be a loving co-operation - there is no place for 'will'.
We should neither strive to obliterate Consciousness, nor to pump-up Consciousness into a pseudo-God; instead we acknowledge that the Consciousness can 'watch' as our thinking emerges from the primary source of the Self, but cannot penetrate the Self; can 'watch' as the thoughts from the Self interact with the thoughts flowing in from the World - but ought not to try and distort or compel what happens between these realities.
It can't anyway - but the attempt to do so is what keeps us alienated.
Our proper goal is intuitive knowing of what is best and correct; and not the 'freedom to choose'
We cannot get what is offered [by the Creator] if we try and snatch it for the wrong reason, because the reason is part of it... Mankind's leaders and guides are those who are able to interpret to us the values that our nature needs in order truly to become itself. Only those values are sufficient which our nature is designed to employ; and wrong values must be rejected by our real-self recognising that they are indigestible. How these higher values come to us through certain people can be very complex. Sometimes the process is conscious and sometimes unconscious or mediumistic... To become free-will individuals in this complex world is much harder than we think. In fact, freedom is not really what we want. What we are really in need of is more like fulfilment. 'Freedom of choice' should not exist except in unimportant matters. Real freedom is freedom from the need to choose by being fully aware of what is best and correct.
Edited from the Summary to Chapter 10 'Conditioning Factors', from The Geography of Consciousness by William Arkle (1974).
The above passage, and the relevant parts of the chapter following, have been lodged in my mind for a few years; as I gradually understood them.
Arkle initially focuses on the 'leaders and guides' to whom we turn for understanding (religious leaders, philosophers, poets, composers, scientists, inspiring political figures...). He notes that some combination of the 'great artist, scientist, philosopher, mystic and political leader' could be seen as an approach towards the ideal towards which we unconsciously strive - and towards which we ought consciously to strive.
Arkle then notices that 'leaders and guides' typically claim that their material 'comes to them' by processes that are - to some extent - 'unconscious or mediumistic'. A composer or poet may say that a great work 'came to him' and his job was not in 'inventing' - but accepting it as valid, then communicating it as best he could (which is usually stated to be somewhat incomplete, or unsatisfactory).
In other words, that which most deeply motivates these Great Men is partly external to them, somewhat unconscious, and therefore not wholly (although it is partly) consciously constructed.
The implication is that if free will is being conceptualised as consciously making choices from known alternatives; then this understanding misses-out much of what we would regard as the best and highest of human attainment - therefore there is something wrong with this ideal of free will. 'Free will between choices' does not capture what we most need (and - implicitly - what we most want.)
What then do we most need and want? The last sentence puts it: we want to become 'aware of what is best and correct'. At that point of understanding, there is no 'choice' - because we know what we ought to do, and what we need to do.
Any other choice would be just-plain-wrong. We neither need nor should strive for the 'freedom' to make wrong choices!
Arkle does not use the word intuition; but it is a shorthand for the conclusion of the final words in the chapter (edited): 'The ability we must develop is the ability to sense the whole of the situation in which we are involved, and then to take the best course available. Freedom is not in choosing; it is in seeing the irrelevance of choice.'
In other words, the ability we must develop is intuition of reality, of truth; and when we intuitively comprehend the situation, we will know what to do. Any idea of of 'freely' choosing-between-choices simply does not come into it.
And this is the ideal, the divine state. A god does not wrestle with choices, because a god knows what should be done - and does it.
The 'real' meaning that 'free will' tries to capture is that we are each (primordially) a Being with a self that is a primary (i.e. uncaused) source of motivation, purpose, and thinking. These come 'from within' us, and constitute our unique contribution to God's creation that we inhabit.
This situation is just 'a fact'; or rather we can metaphysically assume it as a primary aspect of reality. And as young children this was the situation - although we were not aware of it.
When we become fully conscious this fact does not change, but we become aware of the situation. As awareness increases we see what we call 'choices', but these choices are merely the consequence of our lack of understanding of reality - because properly understood there is no choice: there is just the right thing.
Our task is to get to the situation when we can intuit the right thing. And that is fulfilment.
Edited from the Summary to Chapter 10 'Conditioning Factors', from The Geography of Consciousness by William Arkle (1974).
The above passage, and the relevant parts of the chapter following, have been lodged in my mind for a few years; as I gradually understood them.
Arkle initially focuses on the 'leaders and guides' to whom we turn for understanding (religious leaders, philosophers, poets, composers, scientists, inspiring political figures...). He notes that some combination of the 'great artist, scientist, philosopher, mystic and political leader' could be seen as an approach towards the ideal towards which we unconsciously strive - and towards which we ought consciously to strive.
Arkle then notices that 'leaders and guides' typically claim that their material 'comes to them' by processes that are - to some extent - 'unconscious or mediumistic'. A composer or poet may say that a great work 'came to him' and his job was not in 'inventing' - but accepting it as valid, then communicating it as best he could (which is usually stated to be somewhat incomplete, or unsatisfactory).
In other words, that which most deeply motivates these Great Men is partly external to them, somewhat unconscious, and therefore not wholly (although it is partly) consciously constructed.
The implication is that if free will is being conceptualised as consciously making choices from known alternatives; then this understanding misses-out much of what we would regard as the best and highest of human attainment - therefore there is something wrong with this ideal of free will. 'Free will between choices' does not capture what we most need (and - implicitly - what we most want.)
What then do we most need and want? The last sentence puts it: we want to become 'aware of what is best and correct'. At that point of understanding, there is no 'choice' - because we know what we ought to do, and what we need to do.
Any other choice would be just-plain-wrong. We neither need nor should strive for the 'freedom' to make wrong choices!
Arkle does not use the word intuition; but it is a shorthand for the conclusion of the final words in the chapter (edited): 'The ability we must develop is the ability to sense the whole of the situation in which we are involved, and then to take the best course available. Freedom is not in choosing; it is in seeing the irrelevance of choice.'
In other words, the ability we must develop is intuition of reality, of truth; and when we intuitively comprehend the situation, we will know what to do. Any idea of of 'freely' choosing-between-choices simply does not come into it.
And this is the ideal, the divine state. A god does not wrestle with choices, because a god knows what should be done - and does it.
The 'real' meaning that 'free will' tries to capture is that we are each (primordially) a Being with a self that is a primary (i.e. uncaused) source of motivation, purpose, and thinking. These come 'from within' us, and constitute our unique contribution to God's creation that we inhabit.
This situation is just 'a fact'; or rather we can metaphysically assume it as a primary aspect of reality. And as young children this was the situation - although we were not aware of it.
When we become fully conscious this fact does not change, but we become aware of the situation. As awareness increases we see what we call 'choices', but these choices are merely the consequence of our lack of understanding of reality - because properly understood there is no choice: there is just the right thing.
Our task is to get to the situation when we can intuit the right thing. And that is fulfilment.
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