Backward, Moving Forward

Recently it was suggested by August and Tim that a studious reader of The Risen have another go at the challenging chapters on the ego-mind and simulate selves, and delve even deeper into the complex material presented by Spirit there. But — to try re-reading it backwards. This was not meant in any light, humorous way, but as a quite serious idea.

This idea is based on an very ancient model of the structure of the unknown universe, consisting of complex ideas about light, including reflection, and refraction, and so on. In some of the models that serve to help the student gain increasing conscious awareness of the "I AM" sense, this method is employed to first remember dreams. Upon waking, one lies quietly and then attempts to recall the very last thing that happened just before awakening, and then the thing before that, and then before that, and so on.

This also illustrates that (usually) we cannot recall an ego-mind generated dream from its beginning, but only from the last thing back to the start. However, intense astral and other spiritual events of Authentic Self can be recalled from the beginning, but only from fields of higher, non-ego-mental states of authentic self-awareness. The Risen book goes into much detail about such states.

After gaining some ability in this, one moves on to doing the same thing at the end of a waking day just before sleeping: what was the last thing I did just before getting into bed, and then before that, and then before that, and so on, as far back as possible. Total mindful recall of the entire day won't take the same amount of time that the day originally took to physically experience, as one begins to experience and then understand that the mind can use time without the additional factor of thought. Using thought requires memory, which is also psychological time. Recalling without thought is a very different thing.

While one is practicing the above techniques, one can also begin to see how to use this approach in other ways — such as reading the written word.  Certain spiritual writings are built in a specific way, to lead the reader to an eventual understanding of the underlying agenda. It's often hard going, in spite of the careful laying of ideas before the reader, like pieces of bread on the ground through a dark forest. But what would it be like to start at the end of a particularly difficult chapter, or even paragraph, and read the last sentence first, and then the one before that, then the one before that, and so on? We'd be very interested to hear about anyone's experience in trying this.

A particular and peculiar, perhaps even advanced method, is to read each sentence backwards word by word, or rather phrase by phrase, where two or more words are combined in a phrase to collectively convey a certain meaning. One will then notice that the way meanings are placed next to each other will be different, in the way stress on one word's syllable will convey a different meaning of the word, than when placed on another syllable of the same word.

"As above, so below."  So starting at the "above" level reached at the end of a chapter or paragraph, and working one's way to the "below" or the beginning, can raise some profound energies.