Risen Geographies and Dwelling Places

Beau Lotto, of LottoLab Studio, gave a TedTalk that used optical illusions to demonstrate how we perceive the world.  He investigates "how the human mind makes sense from the senseless." Underlying the fact that we can never truly see what's "out there" but only what's in our head, shaped by how our brain has learned to interpret various signals, are these ideas Beau offers:

"No one is an outside observer of nature ...each of us is defined by our ecology ... ecology is necessarily relative, historical and empirical."

These ideas come startlingly close in some ways to how one may begin to imagine how life is experienced as Risen; especially poignant for me is his demonstration as to how sights can be converted to sounds, using the example of a 6 year old's painting, converted to music. On earth, we have the physical body, acting as a filter for the incoming information from the Universe around us; the ego-mind, generally uncontrolled by Authentic Self and given free reign, makes judgmental choices for our emotional and psychological behavior, according to its own hidden agenda. Without the terrestrial body, which (usually) ends the ego-mind's dominance, our world is revealed to us on a very different level of perceived truth, indeed, many different levels.

Tim shares in The Risen:

"... light is also sound and therefore music is light. Each and every single unit of life is a light-filled tone and tone-filled light. Every thing vibrates and all movement produces light and sound. All universes are an ongoing symphony of infinite drama. Your life on earth and beyond it is a melody. This is less apparent on the earth due to its great density and lower vibration, which dulls and deadens the spirit, greatly lessening the connection every thing has with everything. It becomes more obvious on those planes beyond the Earth as we become more refined and of greater vibration.”

"Ecology" is highly resonant to the concept of "geography" which the Risen directed me to use in our book. It means not only our surroundings, but because we are inextricably immersed in it, it also means our worlds: the climate, the weather, the air, the light, the sounds, its history(ies), its feelings. One of my brothers is a wildlife technologiest (a fancy name for a park ranger) and he once explained to me about the ecology — or world – of a tree. We can see the tree, rising out of the ground, spreading its branches and leaves up and into the world around it, touching other trees, and their worlds, merging into a collective of worlds within worlds. Each tree is breathing, taking in elements through its roots and leaves, and then releasing others back into the air. Each tree gives off heat in the form of energy and reflective light. Every cell is alive with non-stop activity. Every tree gives harbor to many other life forms.

Beneath each tree, if one observes with patience, are other plants -- grasses and baby trees, fungi, each with its own ecology exactly like the Mother Tree above them, and all immersed in Mother's world, and merging into one another's. These worlds interpenetrate, interact, teach, learn, implant, extract, love. "Worlds within worlds", as the oft-repeated phrase in our book goes.

In the recent posting "Return to Summerland" I attempt to share what it's like being in a Risen geography while not yet Risen -- not easy! Here are some interesting excerpts from the book that Tim shares in his attempts to share his own ecological experience:

The word ‘live’ is not quite correct in connection with the way dwelling spaces exist here—actually, ‘dwell’ works much better. And the word ‘time’ isn’t exactly right either. I don’t dwell there all the time—hardly ever, actually, for there is far too much beyond it. Infinooty! There are never-ending environments for me to explore or manifest and occupy for as long as I want. 

I see you are wondering what lies beyond this tiny apartment where Bigfoot and I sometimes rest. Nothing and yet everything lies beyond it. When I go for walks through the old neighborhood, it’s the same, yet so much more. Each and every thing is alive, suffused by glowing, pulsating, prismatic lights, filled with life and energy as the sun-filled trees in the parks, effervescent as the fountains which give forth music, their waters welling up and cascading down pieces of sculpture that are never the same. Birds, animals, butterflies, and flowers of exquisite and dramatic beauty populate this geography. It is all a manifestation of my mind, yet infinitely more. 

We are of the same Mind, and so wherever or whenever we are, Mind Is. There is no place or time Mind can’t be. If we move ‘outward,’ that movement can continue without ceasing, manifesting environments within which to dwell. The very movement of Mind is manifestation. If we move in a way that we desire to be ‘inward,’ the result is the same. If I desire to dwell in light or darkness, or seasons and weather, there are no limitations imposed upon my desires except those I place upon them. (1)

Of course I’m speaking of the positive, spiritually inspired powers of the individual use of Mind. To the extent that one’s thoughts, dreams and fantasies are able to manifest in ways that are beautiful and meaningful evidences the degree of spiritual evolution, of the self-love and self-esteem that enable and support the love and esteem of other individuals, and the level of understanding that Mind is a shared experience as well as an individual one. There are those on the earth, who, for whatever reasons unique to their experience, understanding, and individual evolution, are unable to manifest much more than a Risen tar-paper shack—if even that. While they might be able to fantasize about a sumptuous Hollywood mansion, more than likely the nature of that image is of the earth-bound, ego-mind’s desires and so could not in any real way be imaginally expressed in the higher astral realms.

For example, the nature of greed appears to manifest in the earthly realm as an energy that is able to acquire, accumulate, and manifest imagined wealth in all its forms of ego-mind desire. In the Risen Worlds, however, the nature of greed, having been individualized and nurtured through belief and habit on the earth, but now accepted into the infinite capacity of Authentic Self, is no longer a toy in the hands of the limited and now dissolved ego-mind. Instead, through the greater and unlimited power of the Higher Mind, the emptiness of greed is like dry air blowing over a parched landscape. And that is what most likely will manifest—landscapes of vast, empty expanses of dead and dying vegetation, unable to grow or revive from lack of the energy of a loving, serene spirit that is connected to Original Source, whence outpours all sustenance.

I see the greatest gift we have been given by Original Creator Source as the ability to change our mind. Many, many souls, upon coming to a stagnated state of mind, become trapped by their ignorance of their true nature, which is that the Mind of the Highest Self is also their own mind and is shared by all individualized minds. The illusion of ignorance further manifests as an illusion of fear, and thus seems to result in a trap or as ‘hell.’ Many of our spirit rescues here involve the answering of mental and emotional cries for help from souls imprisoned in the illusion of their fears. Others never seem to feel the need to ask for help, and some even knowingly resist it.

It’s greatly comforting and invigorating to know that Nature—that is, flowers, trees, gardens and forests, animals, birds, and people, are awaiting us when we leave this terrestrial experience and transition to the next.



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(1) Tim’s experiences sound very similar to the currently developing theory of biocentrism, which posits that life and biology are central to being, reality, and the cosmos — life creates the universe rather than the other way around.

The Challenges of the Skeptic Materialist

"As for the men in power, they are so anxious to establish
the myth of infallibility that they do their utmost to ignore truth."
— Boris Pasternak

(Special thanks to Dr. Julia Assante who also published the following at her blog, The Last Frontier.)

      As physical mediumship continues to re-emerge into the 21^st century and becomes increasingly more familiar to worldwide spiritual communities, materialist skeptics are also rising to what their ego-minds perceive as a challenge of some kind.

      Who are these resistant and avoidant skeptics, anyway? Do they need any more attention? I recently happened to re-read Soul Force, written by a friend and colleague, Paul Olsen, (1933-2001) a brilliant clinical psychologist, psychotherapist and successfully published novelist. I found what he had to say about skeptics quite stimulating and share it here:

“Skepticism is one of the most prevalent and damaging counterforces to recognizing the power of the soul, a short-circuit par excellence of inner energy. It prevents a living connection, and so it keeps us deadened, inert, checks our every movement.

“The problem with skepticism is that it has become an accepted position. It is even supposed to label a person ‘smart.’ But skepticism is total passivity: you don’t have to do, feel, or think anything at all to be a skeptic. All you have to do is say No. You just have to be negative. It’s an uncharged position, like a dead battery; it has no life to it. It’s a wall trying to dam up a flow.

“The ‘position’ is accepted because it comes from the misuse and misunderstanding of the scientific viewpoint which for decades has had us by the throats. It’s a show-me position that takes the place of imagination with as deadly an effect as a surgical brain transplant.

“Skepticism is a position of arrogance—and it is utterly devoid of imagination and creativity. No spontaneity at all. Yet how can such total passivity be so arrogant? Precisely because anything so passive, so inert, so without curiosity and a sense of wonder, finds itself cut off from its own energy—and so it lives in a world of being acted upon by forces outside itself, and in its helplessness it becomes arrogant. Helplessness—then it feels fear and becomes a dictator that persecutes anything new and different. In psychology this is called ‘overcompensation.’ But kids peg it in a different way: inside every bully is a coward. The skeptic hurts himself far more than he can ever hurt you.

“Maybe at this point you might be asking: what about the ‘healthy’ skeptic? The person who isn’t in the habit of buying the Brooklyn Bridge or getting set up by con men? The ‘healthy’ skeptic hangs loose. The healthy skeptic doesn’t believe everything he hears—but what he does is investigate. Not with the idea of disproving something, but with the idea of finding something that may enrich him. Implicit in the healthy skeptic is that he might find something, and so he sets off actively. He seeks experience. Openly. And so he is not really a skeptic at all. He just wants to do it himself.

“The true skeptic will ... avoid exploration, the main reason being that someone has suggested it to him. He will call it all nonsense. But how can he know it is anything at all unless he tries? Obviously he won’t try, so therefore he knows nothing. Or he will try only to defeat the purpose.

“It is important for the skeptic that nothing ever happens.

“So we can say, with pretty good assurance, that the skeptic keeps himself deliberately in ignorance, in his dark trap. This idea is crucial for almost all that follows. Skepticism is a position of inert, self-willed ignorance. It is soulless.

“The ‘healthy’ skeptic, if you want to use that term, will try—with the idea of experiencing something. And that is a position of self-willed knowledge.” ⁽¹⁾

      The Italian mystic, Massimo Scaligero (1906-1980) reveals many hidden ideas in his exploratory offerings about materialism:

“Materialism is our faith in matter. We do not know how to experience matter by means of the concrete forces of thinking. Materialism is the most obscure mysticism, for it purports to be the opposite of mysticism simply because it is nourished by mathematical calculation and dialectical abstractions. It feeds our inner weaknesses with the dead products of thinking. By failing to penetrate matter, such thinking elevates it to a mystical reality without any awareness that it does so. No bigot devotes him or herself more faithfully to the object of this or her opiated faith than does the materialist.

“Materialism ... signifies the actual situation of present-day humanity. Materialism is the uncognized and, therefore, the unelaborated basis of all the doctrines and spiritualisms, traditional or not, which ignore the underlying process that gives rise to material appearances. It shuns the task of confronting the problem of the physical objectivity of nature: sensory perceptions and its coming into being as representation. This is a problem that cannot be solved theoretically, but only through the active penetration of reality.

“ A corresponding ... error, which leaves the authority of matter over us unchanged, is to accept the physical world as it is, and matter as it appears. With this error, we engage in abstracted experiments or calculations with the physical world and material appearances, or we seek to transcend them theoretically or mystically.” ⁽²⁾

      Some people are Skeptics with a capital S. These Professional Skeptics feel it’s their job to remain closed in their minds and hearts while retaining the right to question anything. Many of them include scientists, who represent a very small minority of humanity on earth, but have been placed on pedestals that raise them above the majority. This misapprehension disempowers the majority, disabling them from assessing their own valid experiences of personal reality. Science has given us brilliant advances in many aspects of human living, but not without a lot of trials and errors. The facets of truth that science presents as dogma are often successful in creating distractions from those with alternate viewpoints. Yet scientific history consistently reveals the inevitable result of radical exchanges of such dogma. Former universally accepted and supposedly proven axioms are continually replaced by new discoveries, which are then made formal by a collective agreement of this minority. Such has been the course of mainly Western science as it has evolved on earth. This is finally changing as science rediscovers the idea of the energy we call spirit. Science is wonderful, amazing, and necessary, and can provide a certain amount of insight into our existence, but not all. Given the amazing changes in our scientific world-views over the past one hundred years, can we truly think we can now put a cap on what is to come in the next hundred?

      Earthly, western scientific methods are not derived from Nature, but from human minds that see themselves as separate from it. But it’s not the only way of thinking about things. If something can be seen, held, heard, smelled and felt, then scientific measurement can be applied. If they’re too subtle to be detected beyond the senses, then they’re beyond known scientific methods.

      The materialistic reductionist models of Western science have attempted to govern humankind’s world-mind for the past two centuries. This is particularly exemplified in the dominant Darwinian life-models. These reified theories have been less concerned with subjective value issues, focusing primarily on objective experiences manifested by those human senses that can be used to physically see, hear, touch, smell, taste, and measure. Traditionally, materialistic science has sought to gather, weigh, measure, compare, and ultimately predict and control aspects of our existence, even if no under-standing of the phenomenon is ever gained. Value is seen in terms of who can predict with the greatest accuracy, and thus who will have the most control. The Global Madison Avenue, or the world of advertising, uses materialistic science to assign value to whatever market they wish to control, including their primary target, the mental market of the masses—the collective ego-mind. One does not have to look too deeply to reach the conclusion that most of our modern societal beliefs—and worldly ones as well—are created, maintained, and controlled by the collaborative efforts of the media and the Global Madison Avenue. Imagine what might happen if the same energy from the efforts placed into creating and selling fossil fuel-burning cars was channeled into communication with the Risen.

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(1) From the chapter “Freeing Your Emotion” in Soul Force: A Step-by-Step Guide to Inner Strength, by Paul Olsen, Ph.D, 1978, New York: M. Evans & Company. Quoted with kind permission by the author's family. This book is freely accessible at an online archive at: http://archive.org/details/soulforcereleasi00olse

(2) From the chapter “Forces of Opposition: Mediumship” in The Light: An Introduction to Creative Imagination by Massimo Scaligero, 2001 (translated by Eric L. Bisbocci, Lindisfarne Books,) SteinerBooks/Anthroposophic Press/Lindisfarne Books, 610 Main Street, Gt. Barrington, MA 01230. Quoted with kind permission by the publisher.

The Need for Attention and the Creation of Now

" ... because we are plunged in appearances we are not separate as regards the sense of ourselves from the external world. This is partly due to personal psychological obstacles, such as the craving for attention.  But in part it is due to the work of the senses which put us in contact with the given world and given conditions of life which we take for granted. I will put side by side this taking of three-dimensional reality for granted and the desire for attention. They constitute one problem in my mind. The desire for attention, for the duplication of ourselves in others, the need for audience, etc., spring out of the lack of any true eternal feeling of self-existence.  At the same time taking the world for granted keeps us on a level of consciousness that cannot give us any true feeling of self-existence. We need the evidence of things unseen. Only through another sense of 'reality' can another sense of ourselves arise, which ins turn will modify the desire for attention."

Maurice Nicoll, Living Time and the Integration of the Life.

The Cosmic Serpent

"Cosmic Serpent" by Pablo Ameringo

"The most developed science remains a continual becoming." 
Jean Piaget

Currently I'm greatly enjoying re-readin Jeremy Narby's book, The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge (1999). It only furthers my realization that when we speak of "the complexity of life," it's an understatement to the Nth degree. As we say in The Risen, "worlds within worlds." The further in you go, the bigger it gets. Do we really expect to find final, definitive answers? It's almost as if Creator Source, or Something, seeks to distract us by providing never-ending puzzles and mazes. Perhaps they eventually lead back to where we started - our Self. But wouldn't it be fun, as our Self, to then do it all over again, with a brand new perspective and awareness as Authentic Self?

Jeremy, who's an anthropologist and also a very fine writer, speaks of the visionary art of Pablo Ameringo, a Peruvian shaman-artist, (he transitioned in 2009) who was able to capture his shamanic journey visions in paintings. Shamans all over the world have the same visions of the double-headed serpent - even in Siberia, where there are no snakes - and Jeremy has determined that they are accessing knowledge at the bio-molecular level of DNA, and then bringing it back, primarily for healing purposes. His hypothesis suggest that what scientists call DNA corresponds to the animate essences that shamans say communicate with them and animate all life forms. However, modern biology, he adds, is founded on the notion that nature is not animated by an intelligence and therefore cannot communicate. (p. 132)

Some shamans use plant-substance induced trances, while others use chanting, drumming, and other techniques. It is clear that the double-headed snake is DNA. Such images of sacred serpents are found in all ancient cultures, including Egypt and the Aborigines of Australia.

Pablo's paintings clearly show, at the submicroscopic level, clearly detailed images of DNA, including its spread-out form, chromosomes at a specific phase, and triple helixes of collagen. See the book of his art, Ayahuasca Visions, for nearly unbelievable images.

Ask Me!

Metamorphosis

[The following is an excerpt from August's new book-in-progress on grief.]

He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. (Matthew 28:6)

 

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.

~ Buckminster Fuller

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.

~  Rabindranath Tagore

      The biological process of metamorphosis continues to be a mysterious, baffling event to scientists. Somehow, when a caterpillar builds and enters its chrysalis, it quickly dissolves into a “soup” where great changes occur—including cellular death—but then reassembles into an entirely new form. It emerges from its sarcophagus as a breathtakingly beautiful butterfly— arising alive, anew, and with completely different and dramatic behaviors, often including movement to a new geography. It generally survives for only a few more months. 

One wonders, is the butterfly in a better place than it was before as a caterpillar?

      This description sounds relatively simple, but the actual complexity of metamorphosis is mind-boggling, and would take more than one book to describe from beginning to end. Although the term is used here for a physical event, the dictionary also clearly indicates that people can undergo metamorphosis, dramatically changing in mental and psychological ways where they could be said to no longer be the same person. 

      Genetic change, or mutation, is the means of continuance for material expression on our planet. The butterfly’s process is also referred to as transmutation, because its genetic structure becomes completely rearranged. Its state of being is something entirely new. From a particular spiritual viewpoint of human death, transmutation is a mutation to a Risen state, or “geography.”[1]

      All this gives rise to many questions, including one that asks: are our transitioned loved ones still the same person we knew, or have they changed in form and behavior beyond belief, beyond recognition? And what about those of us left behind—have we been changed in baffling, mysterious ways? Are we now in some kind of different geography?

---

[1] Here, “geography” indicates a placement or residence of consciousness.

The Lightening of Internal Gravity

"Vast emptiness, nothing holy!" ~ Bodhidharma (1)

       Unaware of the ego-mind’s back-door technique, we may assume that the only way to deal with it is to attack and destroy it, as well as the simulate selves and their thoughts, as if rooting out unwanted, persistent weeds from the garden of the mind. But the ego-mind, an integral part of our materialized existence, is here to stay, and there are gentle, creative, aware responses that bring the situation to the infinite openness of compassion. Because we are essentially spirit, all matters of the heart and mind are first addressed in some spiritual way, beginning with directing the will. For most individuals, free will does not yet exist, and much effort will have to be made to gain psychological freedom while seeking the spiritual clarity for which they yearn. (2)   One cannot regain free will on one’s own; assistance must be requested. Communing with one’s Authentic Self while requesting spiritual assistance can be done in solitude or with The Risen, through formal or informal prayers and meditation.
       Although seemingly counterintuitive, sensing spiritual being as an embodied human actually begins with first bringing the attention to the body. The body has its own inherent wisdom to direct us, if we can get to an internal place of quiet so we can hear and listen. Non-competitive exercise, journaling, psychotherapy, chanting, listening to music, guided imagery recordings, singing, dancing, drumming, painting—all may lift the focus from that which is dark and heavy toward a finer vibration that lightens internal gravity. As inner gravity is lightened, muscles and tendons release and relax and begin to smile. Done on a regular basis, these things will maintain a healthy mind-body system.
       We each must find our own ways—which often cycle and change—to get quiet within. After connecting with the body, talking and listening to it, a course of inner direction will make itself known. There are usually no direct instructions, only feelings that emerge and flow with the spontaneity of a new mountain stream. We aim our conscious awareness inwardly by directing our attention away from the world assumed to be outside our body. We declare to the Universe/Higher Power/God/Deepest Loved One that we honestly don’t know what we’re doing or what to do next, but that we are willing to receive help. Asking for help needs no special skills, no holiness or advanced spirituality—we come just as we are. If we don’t know how to ask for help then we can say so and ask for guidance on how to ask, and then be at least willing to trust that some kind of answer will come.
       Be willing to be willing without ceasing, especially whenever feeling the slightest hesitation of doubt, and ignore the ego-mind’s insistence that you don’t need help. You may have to find this inner quiet literally thousands of times a day. The ego-mind will be just as persistent in interrupting the silence with the voice of a negative simulate self, because it knows what’s at stake.


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(1)  When one "empties one's self", there are those who believe that Higher Self or, perhaps, God, can then fill the emptiness. This idea mistakenly approaches the situation from a viewpoint of limitation. Subjectively, from the level of ego-mind, negativity can be removed, and replaced with its polar opposite of positivity. However, the absolute realization, when ego-mind is stilled, is that what was perceived as empty is actually fullness of Self.
(2) Here, “psychological freedom” means freedom from psychological time—that is, freedom from memories. – AG

[Excerpted from the chapter "Ego-mind &The Simulate Selves.] 

From The Archives: Playing Pinball in The Mind

[First Posted 4/14/06 - this is more privately detailed info from Tim about his transition that did not make it into the book, which readers may find insightful.]


Tim shares about some of his initial experience after awakening from the healing transitional sleep:

"Every person experiences an individualized transition, in-formed — or manifested — by their unique 'fingerprint' of vibration. This vibration is both qualitative and quantitative in continually varying amounts. In the Risen geographies, vibration is tantamount to aware consciousness — which is significantly different than that which August has called 'conscious awareness.' Rather than try to explain this in terrestrial terms, I ask that you just contemplate the different feelings that come with the different arrangement of these two words. Thinking — which is another way to say 'wording'— can get one into all kinds of interesting situations in the etheric-astral spaces of Risen being. Even more succinctly, the inability to control wording after being unable to control the rising of thoughts can really put one on a monster roller coaster!

"Beneath the unique vibrational aspects of a transition lies a basic principle of spirit. These basic principles are rules of thumb, directly set by the Creator Source and cannot be altered — at least by a native. (By native, I mean someone Risen who was 'born' in the Risen lands, as opposed to an entity of group souls who directly channel True Creative Source Intention.) The Creator Source has left its thumbprints all over the ground-fabric, or matrix, of any universe, realized or potential — rather like an artist leaving his prints within and on the surface of his painting, or sometimes, more formally pressed into sealing wax, which is much easier to see, as is intended.

"This particular basic principle is that feelings and words manifest as material reality. This same principle is also imprinted on the fabric of your terrestrial universe, although the peculiar nature of time there considerably slows down its active elements, so it's difficult to wait around and watch to see it happening. Here, however, it's experienced as instantaneous. If you have little control over your feelings and thoughts before you Rise, then you will have the same lack of control after you Rise. Like me.

"The instant I began to think, something manifested. The instant that something manifested, I reacted with another feeling-thought — many of them — and so something else manifested — to which I reacted and which produced yet another manifestation. The basic manifestations that occur usually first and foremost are environmental. So in one instant I found myself in a different place, to be immediately replaced by another geography — and on and on and on. I can liken the experience to being a ball in a pinball machine -- whoa! bam! wham! zip! ouch! eek! yikes! whoa! zowie! jesus christ! duck! Instant TILT!!

"It was also like being each and every card in a deck of cards being flipped by a Las Vegas pro's legerdemain while the pro was being juggled by a family troupe of chinese gymnasts and they were being tossed out of a jet plane with no parachutes. Believe me, you don't want to see what heavenly puke looks like.

"I don't know how long this went on until I stumbled on another basic thumbprint, which was activated by my asking for help. Actually, I didn't ask, I screamed help!

"In that instant, everything stopped and I was let gently down into a very quiet, very non-moving meadow of soft yellow flowers (yellow is the tone of stilled mentality. . . hmmmm.....I remember that valium was yellow . . . coincidence?

"Of course, in my case, 'monkey mind' started chattering to itself about what had just happened, which had the effect of another quarter being inserted into the pinball machine.

"Eventually, I learned to just lie still in the flowers, but not after learning that their wonderful scent and other sensual elements also stimulated more feeling-thinking, and hence more manifestations.

"I could have cut down on the astral nausea considerably if I had learned to be mentally still while on Earth. I had started practicing meditation within a certain Eastern school of thought, but I guess I didn't get very far.

"The kind of feeling that arises will give the whole feeling tone and appearance to the manifested environment. It grows the manifestation, the environment, the entire world. A main feeling that arises here, unfortunately, is fear — and its monkey-on-the-back companion, worry. Just like on Earth, I got the two mixed up, which made for all kinds of fun. I now know that fear is present-oriented, while worry is future-oriented. It's like this: if you're in a burning building, that's reality and in the present — you have fear and so leave the building. If you're in a building that's not burning, but worry that it might catch on fire, that's the future, and not reality. But there's a belief as if something's burning, and it is — in your mind. So here, the thought kindles the event, and the building suddenly bursts into flames, because you're in your mind. Even if you're 'out of your mind', you're still in your mind. There, on Earth, something would burst into flames as well — but not right away, but eventually, due to the delay aspects of time there. And just like here, being out of your mind is still in your mind. There's no getting away from it, other than short-circuiting and shutting down. Which is a frequent response within the first few cosmic seconds upon awakening as Risen. Most experience it as a kind of blackout, and others, on the other end of the scale, as a coma. Apparently, some of us can only arrive at mental stillness as a vegetable. I wholly recommend that people on Earth study some kind of mental control — your life will not only become easier and more serene while embodied, but upon transition to the Risen state as well.

"One last thing — fear, like worry, is an illusion; neither are necessary."

Of course, as I'm very fond of saying, it sounds and looks great on paper. I happen to know that Tim had some very challenging and intense periods of learning to undergo in order to gain control of his mental processes. One of the psychological tests I sometimes give to therapy patients who suffer from acute general anxiety disorder is called the White Bear Suppression Inventory, because the clinical researcher who developed it found that if he asked people to not think of a white bear, and then to ring a bell every time they thought of one, a lot of bell ringing happened. What's more, they continued to be unable to stop thinking of a white bear even after the testing period was over, for hours or even days.

This approach to looking at worry, or non-present awareness, is precisely the goal of 'negation' that was discussed in an earlier posting. In my own research of the scientific literature around memory studies, I've yet to find any that have arrived in a significant way at this concept — which is a spiritual rule of thumb — in order to get off the seemingly unending traffic circle of the mind. Tim learned it as a Risen person. I've been learning it as a terrestrial-embodied person, and while it doesn't appear that many people have arrived at this principle of the multi-layered experience of what Tim calls aware consciousness, it seems as if there's beginning to be a kind of "experiential bleed-through" from the higher astral-etheric realms into our lower, less spiritually organized one.

[The negation I discussed in an earlier post was about my ability, as taught from the Risen, to negate a chronic disabling physical condition, achieved by not having any thinking about it whatsoever, which also meant negating thoughts about the condition ever having existed to begin with. Because I referred to it in this post, there was thinking and words about it, which conferred reality upon it and so it returned in the night. I was able to negate it again in order to get sleep, and of course, realize that the same situation is arising here as I write about it. This time, however, I'll tend to it before bed!]

From the Archives: Love Erases All Paths

[First posted July 9, 2010.]

~ Image of The King of Cups from the Tarot of the Hidden Folk ~

"mystic retiree" writes:

"Hi Tim and August,
I am on my second read of "The Risen".
I like your non-dogmatic views and the fact you give credit to whatever method a different individual may find comfortable or that works for him or her.
You and your Risen friends offer a wide variety of ideas many of which are easy to use.I particularly have taken to the use of "creative imagination"-not your words but it is for me an apt description of "Mundus Imaginalis".
I give you both credit for having the courage to bring your relationship into this book.It was not easy for me to read about it and it could not have been easy for you writing about it.
It would be of great interest if the risen personalities are aware of the affect of reading the book on an individual basis.
I decided to approach reading your book as an act of faith and far as I am concerned it has been more than justified
Thank you both and all the risen folk."

Thank you, mystic retiree, for your simply kind and supportive words, and the sharing of your reading experience. As you note, we offer, as best as we can, "views" - in the way that truth looks different from different places.

A second reading is an awesome thing to hear about, for many have shared with us that they find the book "slow going," "rough going," even "difficult going". Some report they keep it on their bedside stand, but have yet to open it - perhaps they are waiting for it to levitate into their hands. "Going" is vibration, which means movement, which means change, which means transition. We do not have to wait for transition to occur when the body ceases all function. Transition can begin long before that. The new vibrations brought about by the material is such movement towards beginning a living transition. Our friend Ken, who is a highly skilled and experienced medium of many years, shared that he surrendered to the material and has discovered that "it's to be savored." As such, he is only a little way through it.

Even though August has read this material from the inside and outside of his body possibly thousands of times over the course of its manifestation, he continues to read The Risen, for it is an "infosphere" and thus contains ever-unexplored levels and areas of information (or "between the lines") and sparks new and even strange ideas with each reading. Being an infosphere, it is living - which is what vibration evidences. Vibration is also imagination, and all manifestation arises from the shapes we are able to imagine.

The Risen who are involved with this book sense the vibrations of those who read it, and so are aware of you - they are all willing and able to assist you, if you but ask. When you feel a certain passage stimulating you, raising your vibration, pause and see if you can sense someone in spirit there with you. Your raised vibration is visible and audible to them, and attracts them as a signal.

"We ourselves can assist this process by finding our own sense of calm presence and then directing this heightened, expanded, and receptive sense toward the Risen. Like a child waiting for fireflies to appear in the twilight, the naturally heightened state of a Risen mind can perceive our mind reaching out—and then move forward and reach out to touch us, while stepping into our space of expanded receptivity. Depending upon our openness and persistence, we may be able to feel their thoughts and their presence. We might even connect and touch, remaining together for a few brief but unforgettable timeless moments." (p. 5)

So this is a way to use your imagination to spark this sense towards the experience, should the particular spiritual sense be inert or as yet inactivated. This reminds us of your mention of your faith, about which in The Risen is said, quite early in the text:

"Spiritual awareness, like science, requires diligent questioning and participation. Simply accepting something because one is told to believe it is not equal to experiencing it. But once we experience something, we have begun to know it. Upon greater and fuller experiences of experiential knowing, we begin to have faith. From there, wisdom arises from the event and this faith becomes an integral part of our present awareness." (p. 34)

And thank you for your consideration of what you call our "courage" - although we would not call it that, for courage is not a comfortable feeling - which is why many people avoid it until they feel forced. Courage seems to be what you felt in venturing to read the book. Rather, we felt encouraged, enriched, enhanced, empowered - and it was very easy. Love eases all paths. Eventually, love erases all paths. It allowed August to find Tim, and Tim to find August, in their very different realities. We draw attention to this easing of paths with the quote heading Chapter 14, "Breakthroughs" - which tells of Tim's initial physical entry into my world:

“My existence is from you and your appearance is through me.
Yet if I had not appeared, you would not have been.”
~ Ibn al-’Arabi

We encourage everyone to continue to share with us about their experiences, for they are of great value.