The Nowing of The Awakening Stone

Victoria writes us:

 I just finished listening to your interview with Roberta Grimes and am currently reading your book. I am also writing a book which is an afterlife love story about a man that I met in 1980, and had a very short affair with. He graduated (i.e. transitioned) in 2003, but I only became aware of his presence in my life in 2014, the first time I spoke with a medium.
 In your chapter on reincarnation and past lives, I became quite confused. I have done past life regression many times under hypnosis and I would like to know if you are of the opinion that I am experiencing a disincarnate spirit's life? And if that is true, would my ex-lover in Spirit be experiencing another disincarnate spirit's life along with me?
 Unlike Tim, he has told me we've had countless lives together. All of them, including what I am now experiencing, have been tragic. I am questioning my own writing, my own experience, my relationship with Jerry, and my head is spinning after reading this chapter.
 Jerry is urging me to move forward with this book. He has advised me our purpose is to share this love story with those in grief, who need healing. Would you mind sharing your thoughts on this? I would truly appreciate it. Thank you so much!˜ ™˜ ™˜ ™˜ ™˜ ™˜ ™˜ ™˜ ™˜ ™˜ 

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To read the entire chapter in question, 
go here. 
To read Tim's shorter synopsis, go here.

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There is far too much depth to your questions, Victoria, to answer here easily and completely—and, in fact, any conclusive answers will really have to fully be yours and Jerry’s. More exploration is called for, into areas that were previously hidden or unimagined, but are now being unveiled in the strange and mysterious ways of Spirit. Although we can't promise definitive answers, we would still like to offer some energy toward the expansion of your questions—which Tim and I recognize less as questions and more as doorways or portals, beckoning you toward something more, which initially will be more questions. And perhaps you do, too. Do we always need to replace all the question marks of our lives with periods? We gently hand your questions back into your safekeeping, as you and Jerry venture forth into the portals certain ones in Spirit have opened. Can the both of you continue on forward together—open, curious, fearless of the mysteries?

Here are some initial and maybe pesky questions that come from Tim and me, as well as others in Spirit. (You don’t have to provide answers, they’re open-ended and very likely can’t be answered easily with words, if at all.) Notice that they are “what” rather than “why” questions. This is because why leads to more questions, and what can quickly bring us to a settled point that is the feeling of a fact, which we may or may not be able to observe externally—yet. It’s more the feeling and its encoded information that is wanted for our purpose.

• What is it about your questions (or parts of them) that feel important to you and Jerry right now?
• What are the feelings that come with the questions? What information do these feelings bring you?
• What is the role that worry or other fear-based feelings are playing, including any doubt, that appear to be part of your questions?
• What are the benefits that you are expecting from the answers to your questions?
• What are the benefits that you expect will result from writing and sharing such a book?
• What is meant by “tragic”? What about that specific word offers the best idea of the experiences? Is the drama of tragedy once and forever finished, to be no more? Are tragedies acceptable memories for either or both of  you right now? If benefit for others is part of what you seek to offer, do such stories benefit others? Are we annoying you yet?
• At what point is healthy skepticism no longer needed, or is it always needed?  Tim and I rigorously practice healthy skepticism toward one another—not as if to say “I don’t believe you” when one of us says something that sounds like nonsense—but to stimulate further expansive exploration by implying, “I sense there might be more that neither of us are aware of  yet; let’s keep asking until we feel some kind of alignment.” This is our playful way of being with one another, rather than a way that feels like over-serious work.

What you're both ultimately wanting is clarity. You might not even yet realize that this is the ultimate wanting, especially if the current awakening realization is that confusion is temporarily blocking the way to fuller awakening to what the reality of your relationship really is and really is not.  Confusion arises from two or more feelings that are trying to occupy the same space, and cannot find resonance with one another, which would create a new or different feeling. Thus, confusion slows or halts the forward movement of creative self-evolution. Because we do not remember the fullness of our authentic power of divine self-presence, most of us utilize the inherited human race habit of instead going backwards instead of forward, which is what the Risen were talking about when referring to our trying to swim back upstream.

It has been clarified for me as a psychotherapist over the years that most of us don’t find the unsettling of our beliefs to be a welcome feeling, especially when it comes to something like the subject of reincarnation, which has so many definitions to begin with. Which definition are we even talking about here?

Tim and I notice that the primary thread that runs throughout this subject, millennia upon millennia, is one of fear. When fear is removed, the attention is now free—we are free—to let go of any thoughts that were running on the program of fear. What arises from this sense of release, which is an actual release, is what those such as The Risen ask us to focus on. The best word I can find for the interpretation of their idea of “focus” is “now”—not as a noun, but more as a “verb of non-doing.” So maybe, “nowing.” Which looks and even sounds rather like “knowing,” doesn’t it? This echoes a Risen directive that I will only mention very briefly here, as it is also weird and complex, which is “Do not.” This notion is explored and utilized in great detail and authority in the next book they are helping to manifest. But,  for nowing, and simply, at the very heart of this notion, is the idea of surrender.

And so at some point, quite long ago, I soon and simply stopped engaging in extended dialogues about the subject—I surrendered—which is why I let Tim organize and produce that chapter. It was not written quickly or easily, as you most likely can tell from the kinds of questions I asked Tim about what he and other Risen were suggesting. The book itself took almost 8 years of intensive interaction with thousands of Risen people, and quite literally every sentence, word and punctuation was placed precisely by them, picky beings that they are. Nothing was written in haste, but in the slowest and highest reverential consideration as possible by those in Spirit. It’s not surprising that many people have had their beliefs rattled and shaken up by the material in the chapter about reincarnation, including past-life regressionists and hypnotherapists—it’s potentially strong potential stuff. It’s caused a few rifts here and there in certain communities. The Risen interpretation of reincarnation in our book is “the pastime of reincarnation” which implies less heavy seriousness and much more lightness and fun. The “lightening up” is another form of surrendering to what’s going on now between us, and say, a disincarnate friend. When we get too serious about our immortality, we lose the feeling of it and then become disconnected from the ever-streaming knowledge flowing forth into our personal experiences.

But it seems that everyone eventually forgets about any apples we upset from their cart, and quickly return to the previously known that’s most comfortable. We believe what we prefer to believe. This is where the complexity of memory in grief events, as mismanaged by an undisciplined ego-mind, becomes involved. Our new book, (in press) which is already well into its 5^th year of unfolding, is specifically about grief and goes into much more deep detail about the ego-mind’s complex doings and undoings.

How thrilling it must have been for Jerry to awaken in his new geography, and then for the two of you to awaken even further into the surprise of such an extraordinary new relationship! You and Jerry are together awakening in the midst of an incredible, experiential, awakening journey, most likely contained within another incredible journey, and that one within another one, and so on, and so on … infinooty, as Tim says, and worlds within worlds, as is said in our book. Are these worlds all real or imaginal, or a mixture of both? Yes, is the simplest and yet paradoxical answer for now.

At some point, we may begin to realize that we have been swimming about in too many worlds for too long and would rather now rise and return to the surface to The One World. We will not attempt to define the meaning of "The One World" here because we know that you already know, so we can rest in this knowing, this nowing, for now. This "return" usually involves what seems like an experience of swimming back, back, back to the primal origins of the dramas we believe we lived, and then re-experiencing them with a new mind, and with new thought. What we thought the memories are showing us then turn out to be something very different. Some of us will make such journeys, but most of us won’t for a very long time, instead believing what the ego-mind tells us from its own fear-based agenda of the belief in death.

And, so, you’ve read the chapter. What is called for next is to allow yourself to sit for a while and let the dust settle before trying to solve what might seem like a terribly big problem. If it seems like a problem that needs solving, this is most likely the undisciplined ego-mind trying use the brain’s talents as a problem-solving organ. Brains are not what is needed here, but rather heart. Your head is spinning, as you say. Disengage from the brain’s incessant thinking attempts to spin more solution-stories, and engage with the shared infinite heartspace between you and Jerry—as you each are now, and as you both together are, now—not then. We know that it can seem difficult because of all the well-meaning books, teachers, philosophies, traditions, and so on, that have given us too much past-life stuff to over-think about over many millennia. At some point—if we should be so blessed—some tiny bit of a higher reality will give us a tiny little pinch, which at first becomes irritating because it won’t go away. Instead of swatting it away or trying to change or correct it, give it enough quiet space that you can begin to focus on the possibly very new feelings they want to bring you—some stunning news from Spirit. I've found over the years that Spirit needs a lot of stunning quiet.

Feelings are energy which bring us specific messages through the instrument of our physical body. Since the messages aren’t in English or in any other human language, we have to learn how to bypass the left-brain’s attempts to decipher emotional messages and instead let our intuition lead the expedition down the rabbit hole. Often the ones giving us the tiny, gentle but irritating tweak are our Spirit Guides. If the undisciplined ego-mind is used to having its own way, and is always filling up our headspace with loudness, it can be quite difficult to find the quiet space needed to hear the gentle suggestions of our Spirit Guides.  It is our responsibility to find, claim and expand such space for ourselves. You and Jerry have such a space.

Early on after his transition, Tim’s attempts to mentally and emotionally interact with me were often interfered with by my ego-mind, which is clever enough to know how to imitate anyone and anything, convincing me of certain things which were later adjusted and resolved, once I learned how to “enter the stillness” as some mediums put it, where the ego-mind cannot go, and Tim and I could commune in uninterrupted peace. Then the higher aspects of our personal truths and our relationship began to reveal themselves.

It may be presumptuous to assume that all hypnotherapists are working from the same set of ethical modalities, but I would hope that they have some grounded understanding in the primary clinical modalities that have evolved from shared and personal human psychodynamic and psychoanalytical exploration. It is not uncommon for guide-like figures to arise from within the depths of our underconscious, which includes the collective underconscious of the human race-mind. (I use here my discernment of the Risen idea of “underconscious” rather than the classical “unconscious” because They posit that since every thing is conscious, there is no such thing as “unconsciousness”—rather there is lack of awareness of consciousness.)

Connecting with our feelings may give rise to such figures presenting as symbolized by a person, a figure who may manifest as a well-known icon, or perhaps a friend, or even someone we've never seen before—including animals. They may tell us that they are from our past lives—or that is what we think we hear them saying. These figures may not even be actual Spirit Guides, or other such living beings, but repressed or isolated aspects of our inner self that are seeking to integrate into our whole sense of self by communicating to us. First they have to get our attention, and will be very creative about it. Once we begin communicating with them, information then begins to be shared; insights arise and learning and transformation can then occur. Sometimes these personal or global archetypal figures will lead us to our actual Spirit Guides and other interdimensional beings, and for this reason it is important to not dismiss such mysterious and perplexing manifestations as mere fantasies, but to give them space and our open, inquiring attention.

The specific part about the personal archetypal energies that we are intending for you is that each of us might be engaging with and not realizing that they are who we are, and not separate personalities of other people, times and dimensions. This bit of information might be useful to you and Jerry as you work to arrive at your own conclusions.

Tim and I know, from experience, that as people read and re-read our book, and especially that particular chapter, that previously hidden or invisible material on the page suddenly becomes visible—countless readers have shared about this over the years. The material may look like plain old words typed on a plain old page, but apparently, they’re much more. They have been specifically encoded to awaken us by changing our vibrations in some higher way, giving us a nudge or even a pinch here and there. So allow yourself time if you re-read the chapter, and take only what you need and leave the rest. We also hope you read Tim’s synopsis in the link provided above.

As you wisely have noted in an earlier message to us, nothing’s written in stone—even the awakening stone is always moving forward in its process of change and evolution. It is the awakening that becomes the realized desire, for awakening is all that can happen in an eternal, never-ending Universe for immortal beings. Moving forward with your book is perhaps just the thing that’s needed as the vehicle that will carry the you and Jerry into yet more adventures!

Love & Light,

August & Tim