Spirit Pages (continued)
K1) Time is anticipation.
This is based on the understanding that all experiences are metaphoric and symbolic in nature. If we look at any event in our life, we can ask ourselves what that event represents. It is created to elicit a particular feeling.
Time itself represents the feeling of dread, waiting or anticipation. It is the feeling given a form. When the desire is matured and comes into physical manifestation, that metaphorically represents the feeling of fulfillment. When fulfillment is stronger than the feeling of waiting, anticipation or dread, then the event comes into being.
When time is a weight on you, a burden, it is because you are burdened by waiting for fulfillment or out of fear or frustration in not getting what you want, not knowing what you want, etc. The freedom and elasticity of time in Spirit is a metaphor for how desire is fulfilled so readily in Spirit, how there are no psychological obstacles to our having what we want and no reasons to put off our fulfillment.
Exercise: Waiting vs. Having
In this exercise we will demonstrate to ourselves the emotional correlation between emotions and the passage of time.
In our first exercise, we imagine ourselves in South America in a dirty prison cell, awaiting our execution on a trumped up charge. We have a feeling of dread about our immanent demise.
Imagine that you have a bird�s-eye view on yourself as you experience this. You can control what happens by changing the feeling that is being symbolically represented to you as this set of circumstances. In doing so you will change the circumstances themselves. This feeling is only partially conscious and is largely unconscious.
The feeling of dread is being expressed symbolically as a dreadful situation. Now, let�s change the feeling that is being expressed symbolically to love. As you do this, see how the situation changes suddenly.
Now, we imagine ourselves trying to find our car keys that we have somehow misplaced. We have turned our home upside down looking and can�t find them. Change the feeling that is being symbolically expressed as this situation to fulfillment and see how that changes the situation.
K2) Topography: The limits of our experience are defined by the kind of experience we have.
If we have a physical experience we can only experience a very limited stream of experiences, whereas if we are Spirit we have access to a vastly larger palette of experiences, including all �physical� experiences.
Physical experience is, first of all, not physical in any way. Physicality is a quality that is imposed on a perceived environment that is projected within that state of mind. So, when one is in the physical experience, one sees a physical world, a body and situations that all come together to form a coherent physical �reality.� The quality of unbreakable evenness with which the experience expresses physicality as being real is totally convincing, but it is also completely mind-generated and unreal.
Any state of consciousness within Spirit can be �Closed�. By Closed I mean that the state of consciousness is like a bubble, a defined inner space where the qualities of the experiences there are established and the rules are always followed. There is a cohesive, consistent quality to the experience of being in this state of consciousness. The state of consciousness may express itself as a place, a plane of being, etc. or it could be wholly internal. But whatever the state may be, it can always be consistent to the degree it wishes to be.
For example, in Plane X1, all life-forms have mechanical bodies, the environment is an idealized kind of physicality and there is a kind of mental magic that allows beings to effect the environment around them at will. These qualities of Plane X1 are all consistent and continuous throughout the lifetime of the plane, if the Spirit being who is experiencing it wishes them to be. So, the physical experience is just one of many ideas that happens to be consistent. Both the physical plane and Plane X1 are not planes at all, but internal experiences had by Spirit beings who are imagining them.
The Closed idea of the physical experience creates the illusion of a hardened �real� world that has to be contended with. However, there is nothing real about it. We may be limited in how we can interact and effect this �world� when we are in it, but this only because we have desired to be part of this world and limited by its rules. As I said before, there is not really a world going on here, but a collection of interacting individual experiences that paint a picture of a world. Everyone who enters this world plays by the rules (mostly).
The Spirit world in general is open and includes a vast array of possible experiences that seem to go on forever. There is no pain, physical or psychological in nature, and so every experience is perfect for the person experiencing it. If the person in Spirit wishes to temporarily engage in a �reality� that contains suffering, they may do so. This overrides Spirits rule against suffering. This is what happened when we entered into the physical world for the first time, in this life or a previous one. But, to clarify, when we return to Spirit from this experience, we carry no painful memories with us.
To explain this more precisely; we generate from our stance as a Spirit being an identity that is not imagined to be in Spirit, but to be physical. We engage in that identity and suffer. However, when we withdraw our consciousness from the physical back into Spirit, we remember all our experiences as they happened in Spirit, not in the physical, so the suffering element is gone. It is not that we have forgotten anything, rather, we have remembered information that we should have experienced but didn�t because of the shape and form of our consciousness at the time. So, in short, we remember everything and thereby remember no suffering, so in effect, we never suffered.
We came into this physical experience with a precise desire, and that desire is being precisely fulfilled. However, since this �world� defies the laws of Spirit, it does not look or act like Spirit in many ways. However, we can shift our mindset to Spirit by degrees until we can finally disengage from the physical experience by realizing that it is not what we want.
From the Spirit standpoint, the physical experience has only one purpose, to rid us of the desire to be �physical.� And by doing this, our experiences here convince us to not return. This frees us up to pursue more abstract mental experiences without being tied down by an unfulfilled desire to be material beings. We get that desire out of our system here.
Physical experiences are vastly limiting, but if we take a moment to catalogue how limiting they are, we are likely to get a clearer idea of how severe this problem is. First of all, being in a physical body is limiting. We cannot go immediately to any place we want to be, and it costs us money and time, effort and sometimes our nerves to travel.
Secondly, our bodies get sick or injured and if they suffer, we cannot escape that suffering. Also, our bodies have to be fed and clothed, bathed and maintained with expensive vitamins and health foods, in some cases. The cost and time involved in doing all this is a terrific burden. Our bodies also age, eventually looking less and less ideal as we lose our looks. We may choose to spend large amounts of time and money keeping fit and trying to defy our age, but we can only do so much before it becomes futile. Eventually our bodies die and we cannot do anything about this.
In Spirit, our body is whatever we want it to be. We can even have no particular body at all. Our body can go anywhere and do anything. If we wish to feed or pleasure it we may do so instantly. It is never a burden to us. It ultimately costs us nothing and gives us everything it is capable of giving.
In the physical, we are limited to our own personality and identity. We cannot suddenly change into someone else with a different body, life, etc. We are limited by our own personality and wealth or lack thereof, as well as our responsibilities and burdens, our physical circumstances and our relationships with others.
I can go on and on here but you get the general gist of this. The physical experience is tremendously limiting and the Spirit experience is vast, unbounded by time and space limitations, always enjoyable and fulfilling and does not place burdens on us.
Every possible world within Spirit, from the physical experience upwards, always confines us in some manner. Some planes have vast lines of limitation, being very freeing, while some are very restrictive and confining. Each plane is a thought and a desire made of consciousness that is working out its own desire.
There are many level of �after death� planes that are in some way or another defined and limited. Because existence is less physical there than here, there is a greater possibility for the mind to enter into internal states of awareness that are different from just being in this or that particular place. In other words, you could be here or there and have the type of experience that is typical for that place or you can enter into a �native� experience, where you not only see the externals of a place but place your mind in that particular state.
Or, alternatively, you can enter into a completely mind-created world internally and ignore the outside world as long as you wish. This kind of world would be as pleasurable as you could possibly want.
All this being said, it should be noted that there are ways to break through the restrictions of places like the physical plane. For example, you can use meditation over long periods of years, or other repetitive activities to generate what would be considered to be �supernormal� powers.
It is also possible to overcome physical limits through miracles, which are simply ways in which we send our prayers to God, which are really answered by Spirit as the version of God that operates in perceptual reality, (God doesn�t operate in perceptual reality), and then returned to us to be manifest at the rate we can comfortably receive it.
If we want to get really technical, we can say that there are no �real� limits to what we can do in the physical or any other plane, as we are entirely Spirit beings in reality and this is our birthright. Actually making this power a reality is a whole other issue.
Exercise: Playing God
In this exercise we will play God with an imaginary version of ourselves. Begin by getting relaxed and having a pen and a journal handy.
Imagine yourself as being in your current situation, which is to say that you are generally where you are in life now, but not engaged in this specific activity. See yourself from a free-floating third person perspective. You are going to be �God� to yourself in this situation, deciding what happens to you and what doesn�t.
Now, begin by having yourself pray to God or Spirit for something he or she wants. Ask yourself, as God, whether you will grant the request, when you will grant it and why you will delay your receiving the manifestation if you do delay giving it. Write all these observations down in your journal.
Now imagine that you have a real, rather serious need that is not being met in your life. You can use a real need you are facing if one exists, or make one up for you fictional self to suffer. As �God,� ask yourself the following questions: why am I creating this problem in my life, will my prayers be answered if my self prays for the need to met and if not, why? Be faithful to your role as �God� and be sure to not think like yourself. Write these observations down.
Now, change the script a bit by assuming that the need will be prayed for by yourself but you (as �God�) will not allow the manifestation of the answer to occur. Now, as �God,� ask yourself what it would take, what action or state of mind exactly would have to happen in your non-God self in order for this need to be met. Be very specific and write down all scenarios that would elicit this response.
Now, add one more change. You as �God� have suddenly decided to grant what is needed immediately. Also assume that your self has not done anything in terms of activity except to in some way mentally reposition themselves, in other words, they have prayed to you, had a thought or idea or a shift in belief that has had the effect of changing your willingness to meet the need. Write all of your observations on this down.
Finally, have yourself suffer from a problem such as a serious illness that can only be cured by a miracle. Have yourself ask for that miracle and then see under exactly what conditions you would be willing to grant that miracle. Additionally, have yourself make some mental change and successfully ask for that miracle and see what that change was from the perspective of having granted the miracle. Write all of this down.
As you can see, our relationship with ourselves as the creator of our own life is very complicated. Our conscious mind is just a small part of the equation. But, we have to also acknowledge the tremendous power in our conscious identity, in that it can simply have a simple thought or change of mental position and change how needs are manifested.
K3) Self-definition is like a balloon, it�s content is nothing and its exterior is a two-dimensional material.
Identity is completely flexible and pliable, and that pliability goes well beyond normal human experience. It is only in that state of flexibility that pure creativity arises.
Self-definition is much more artificial and unreal than people can grasp readily, in most cases. The ego tends to be built on what it sees as the rock-solid foundations of societal values, norms and traditions as well as on the solid foundation of the physical world and its necessities.
It is one thing to try to define a person based on their treatment of others, but when the freedoms allowed by society cause a person to head off in this or that direction, other people can actually be offended by their choices and try to stop or oppress them. They see the choices that the person is making as being �against society� or against what is �right,� according to them.
For example, a person may be very cultured. They believe culture is a �good� and must be sustained. Another person equates culture with the oppression of the poor and feels that culture is simply a tool of societal oppression and fascism. They are both right to a certain extent. On the one hand, a cultureless society is pretty much devoid of beauty and meaning, reducing everyone to the lowest common denominator. Alternatively, culture alone can be an oppressive and classist force that relegates freedom of choice, inventiveness and the pursuit of individual happiness to the dumpster.
However, people become hardened in their beliefs and then spend a great deal of time trying to prove that they are right. The fragility of the ego in the physical world is underscored by the sometimes brutal and horrible things people are forced to do to keep their jobs. In making choices against what feels right for the sake of survival, the individual survives but becomes filled with a kind of despair and self-loathing. If those feelings increase beyond their interest in survival, they may give up trying to make it in their job, their field or even in the physical experience altogether.
And yet the heavy guilt and pain of �responsibility� hangs over the person�s head, even if they give up on all of it. This guilt stems from being told that they have a responsibility to live, no matter how much it hurts them or the people around them. They are told that they will be responsible for the hurt feelings of others who are left behind, or that they were brought into the world with a responsibility, and if they don�t complete it they have to be punished for not fulfilling their duty and they will be punished and forced to return to do the same thing all over again.
These feelings come from being told these kinds of things throughout our lives and then believing them. Believing that we do not own our own self, or soul, and that other people can walk up to us and force us to be or do things and we will be punished if we don�t, all stem from the vague fears of our childhood. It is not remorse but fear that drives these feelings. Also, we unfairly judge ourselves and demand that we find the strength to live and succeed, even though for our particular mind that may not be an option. On the other hand, we can give up on our life unnecessarily when we see no hope or feel disempowered by our circumstances.
Original Sin, being born into slavery or debt, is the most fundamental idea of Western culture. We can work and strive our whole lives and never feel that we can ever pay off our cultural debts. We can work ourselves to the bone, only to make one simple mistake and end up losing everything that we have worked for. We have nothing to show for a lifetime of effort except that we are full of regret for our one mistake.
The fundamental underlying mindset of guilt is established on a vague, childhood level and then various levels of complexity are added to that as the person grows up. From the culture�s viewpoint, a society runs on slaves and the individual is a slave in the making. If they are successfully indoctrinated they follow the rules that are laid out in common knowledge and traditions and have children that will also be slaves.
Society will punish an individual, even to the point of killing them, in order to get them to conform. It does this through the individuals who are the most heavily indoctrinated in shame-based culture, law enforcement, the Church and the wealthy.
The enslaved individual has a self-concept that is based on guilt. When they fail, they are filled with guilt and remorse, fear and also resentment at the unfairness of the whole system against them. Society bolsters guilt with lies and false logic meant to bend the mind of the individual to subservience.
The enslaved individual is then driven above all things to obey and conform, and more importantly, to not self-actualize. By self-actualize I mean that they must at all costs avoid becoming a self-enlightened individual who takes upon themselves the cause of reading, educating themselves and independently finding their own path. This is because such a person would ultimately question the societal beliefs and come to no longer hold them.
The enslaved individual senses that truth and logic are the enemy to his enslavement and so he must cast them off in all forms. Anti-intellectualism is the best way to do this. Hatred of intellectuals in general keeps both intellectual arguments as well as intellectual thoughts at bay. By hating knowledge, the individual shores up the walls of their ignorance.
However, the flip side of guilt is entitlement. Entitlement has to be built on a strong basis of guilt and fear. Hazing practices, such as military boot camp, serve to cause fear and pain in the individual. After surviving the experience, they are stripped of their rank as a human being and given a lower, sub-human level of function. They can then through obedience and success in the group move up in rank.
Once rank increases, the individual becomes filled with smugness, which is the feeling of entitlement. For a person who has, for example, survived the incredibly harsh and rigorous trials of elite military training, there has to be a psychological counterbalance to this. Entitlement is the natural outgrowth of such rigorous self-sacrifice.
The person has essentially forced themselves to suffer so that they can be better than �normal� people. They are then entitled to better treatment than normals, more rights and power, as well as power over the lives of normals. If such rewards do not materialize, a deep indignant rage has to surface, demanding the expected reward. However, to a certain extent, the guilt and fear instilled in that person will still act against their feelings of entitlement to some degree.
Entitlement first puts itself above thought. It�s reign is intellectual, in that it is better by means of what it has done and therefore no longer needs to reason, to entertain reason or be reasonable with others. One simply deserves and then one goes out and gets. The trials of the past have built the self-concept that is both self-hating, fearful and entitled. This mix tends to create tremendous resentment against those who oppose the person on intellectual grounds.
However, no actual entitlement exists. The person made the sacrifices as part of a societal-magical ritual to cause themselves to become engaged in entitlement. But, when they attempt to engage in the public at large and are treated like everyone else, in other words as garbage, they fail to get the promised results. Furthermore, they are not aware that they have been used since birth by a system that fundamentally doesn�t care about them in any unconditional way. They are easily swept under the rug.
Let�s break down all these attitudes and beliefs and show them to be empty. First of all, a person approaching a child and telling them that they were born guilty is utterly false. This guilt is supposedly established in the eyes of God, but it splays out into society in a more vague manner. For society, children are �bad� and need to be molded in their beliefs and behaviors until they are enslaved.
Their badness is in that they are not enslaved yet and so they pose a potential threat to society, as well as draining important resources without giving much of anything of value back. Referencing how God sees the child is immaterial as the person telling them that hasn�t met God and doesn�t really know what God thinks or what God is. But the threat and the fear of that statement, as well as its ability to create shame in the child as a side-function of fear, is what is counted on to mold the child�s behavior.
The value of self-sacrifice, of giving up one�s own self-interest for the societal self-interest is taught later on. This starts simply with obedience and then expands into more complex beliefs. The individual is told that they must guard society from non-slaves by means of violence and threats, bullying and so forth. They must choose goals that serve society and that will also not bring them very much happiness. So, they must learn to function out of fear and not hope.
There is no basis in reality for removing a person�s right to do what they want, as long as it does not actively or as a byproduct harm others. And, removing a person�s hope is also not based in any reality. Rather, it is a violent tactic meant to serve the social order. There is no real justification for doing these things. Harming others based on their lack of conformity with society is also baseless in reality. It is not justified in any way.
Finally, entitlement is meaningless. Just because a person chose to go through hardship does not entitle them to anything in reality. They may feel entitled, but there is no such thing as entitlement in reality. Nor is there such a thing a debt or credit. These are all intellectual creations that have no basis in reality. Everything that happens to a person (in Spirit, and thus in the physical) happens inside of them, not outside of them, so debt to others is meaningless. Likewise, entitlement is meaningless because you are entitled to have everything you want. But as long as you engage in a �physical� mind-frame you will think that you have to get what you want at an expense to others, and thus you will feel guilt. But there is no real crime because our experiences are entirely internal.
Likewise, there is no such thing as ownership in reality. Objects and land, homes and �nations� do not belong to anyone. Rather, people lay claim to such things by use of violence, money, the law, etc. Whatever claim a person has over a piece of land or property is spurious, and has no basis in reality. You can only own something in the imaginary world of the law. The law only becomes real to the degree that everyone involved in society agrees in the existence, reasonableness and fairness of the law. It is a fiction given flesh by a (mostly) willing society. The fact that the law constantly changes is a good indication of how liquid it really is, and how it lacks any validity as a �reality.�
The person�s self-like or self-loathing, body image and other self-concepts are also really illusory in nature. They hold no real weight except when they are simple physical facts, such as being short, or when groups of people get together and agree on their reality.
So the self-concept is basically a concatenation of illusions meant to create a pseudo-reality that convinces a person that they are right in what they do and justified in behaving in a certain way. In Spirit, the self-concept is not fixed but in constant flux. It expands to encompass vastness, then shrinks back to encompass something smaller, and so forth. An overall self-concept that is a zero-point baseline for all the other temporary self-concepts is formed through this process of exploration and it is a sort of home base that keeps the whole thing coherent and maintains the �you� in all this complexity.
Ironically, it is truly stable and safe in a way the physical self-concept never is. That is because it is based on wholly positive ideas in a purely stable environment. And, no matter how long or hard you stretch yourself into an new experimental identity, you always snap back to that identity as your baseline with no danger of it ever being lost.
Furthermore, you can base your self-concept on positive truths rather than negative untruths, which gives you happiness, peace of mind and power over reality. In other words, it is a self-concept based on fulfillment rather than on denial.
K4) In Spirit, all time experiences are available to you to relive to some degree, but you retain some aspect of your Spirit identity.
No matter what realm or identity you imagine, you can always snap back to your Spirit identity, unless you have pre-programmed the experience so that all the events are laid out for your imagined identity. In that case you will have exactly the experience you have planned for yourself, you can�t escape from it and when it is over you will return to your Spirit identity.
These fluid experiences in different times can be brought together, melded, bridged or contrasted. In other words, you can bring together different imagined realms and identities so that they intersect and interact. For example your imagined identity A in a higher realm can come in and give help and guidance to imagined self B in a lower realm. In this way all desire is harvested from all possible past experiences, altered versions of previous experiences and the full meaning of things is revealed by blending experiences, comparing and contrasting them. This fluid time is a new, different kind of time.
In a sense, it is always �now� in Spirit, because the moment of the present experience is where everything is happening. Unlike in the physical world where multiple series of events somehow come together to create the illusion of a �world� of physicality and a life in that place, the Spirit experience is not tied down in that way. Spirit is less a place than an infinite state of mind to be explored, and one�s own mind is the canvas for that exploration.
One�s desires are fulfilled in Spirit, as there is no time wasted on the illusion of pain or suffering, and there is no frustration of one�s desires. So, you are simply discovering yourself through the manifestation of your desires.
Time is just the subjective passage of events, but because there is no timeline in Spirit, it is never earlier or later, nor is it too early or too late to do anything.
As far as this being a new kind of time (compared to the physical sense of time), it is easiest to think of time in Spirit as one more thing that frees you and facilitates you rather than oppressing and hurting you, as it does in the physical experience.
Time in Spirit only exists to serve you and others, and it is a mind-created phenomenon. It can be seen as a fourth directional dimension of possible motion. But you are the architect of your own reality and experiences in Spirit, and if you pursue an experience and have it, it is because you want to rather than because you were forced into it in any way. There is no force that bullies and pushes you there. Your own mind is sealed and everything that happens comes from your own mind, including your interactions with others, because their reality is entirely internal to you.
God and other beings in Spirit are all internal to you as a Spirit being. This is a strange way of looking at things, but it is very literal. They exist in your mind and you exist in theirs. All that they are exists inside of you there, forever. In the next exercise we will look at how to negotiate the concept of Spirit Time.
Exercise: From Physical Time to Spirit Time
This exercise allows you to push an item on your to-do list from the physical timeframe to the Spirit timeframe, to see and feel the resulting change in how getting it done is affected. Begin by choosing a to-do item that will you don�t have to finish for at least three days or so. Now, imagine that you are turning this item into an actual item, an object of some sort. Choose the form of the object that will represent this task.
Now, understand that normally you would complete this task in the physical experiential realm. This means that time would be one of the aspects of the suffering you would face in the physical experience of performing this task. But, in the Spirit version of this experience, time will work for your benefit; easing your pain and helping you get the task accomplished.
Imagine that there is a fluid-like curtain of force separating the physical experience from the Spirit experience. Count from one to forty and have the intention that by the time you reach forty you will be on the Spirit side of the curtain.
Reach from the Spirit side of the curtain through to the physical experience side of the curtain and grab the object, pulling it through the curtain. Now this object exists in the Spirit realm of time. Now, remind yourself that this object represents the particular task you need to perform. Knowing that you need to perform it and that it will be heavily influenced by a Spirit idea of time, you can be sure that time will be on your side much more than usual.
On a sheet of paper list some ways that this task could have time elements that work against you. For example, say you need to get out and get a job after an extended period of unemployment. Time might ordinarily work against you by: limiting how long you have to look, placing emotional and financial pressure on you, creating stress and hurry, forcing you to take a job you don�t really want, forcing you to act before you are mentally and emotionally ready, not setting you up with the time-related opportunities of being in the right place at the right time to find the perfect job or the perfect source of income, causing you to miss interviews and appointments, etc.
Conversely, write down the opposite of the above for what Spirit time will do for you. It will expand how long you have to look, thus removing emotional and financial pressure on you, negating stress and hurry, allowing the time you need to find a job you really want, causing you to act exactly when you are mentally and emotionally ready as well as setting you up with the time-related opportunity of being in the right place at the right time to find the perfect job or the perfect source of income, causing you to make your interviews and appointments, and allowing you to get the right job that will best sustain you.
The reason that Spirit time is positive to your goals is that all your desires and goals are the means by which Spirit fulfills itself. Others benefit from your experiences, regardless of what form they take. All experiences within Spirit, including �physical� experiences, augment Spirit.
When you are willing to place a task outside of physical time, you are in essence giving up a fraction of your materiality and physicality of self-conception. That space is then filled with some degree of a Spirit self-conception. In other words, this event is a platform by which you are able to replace some aspect of your physicality of self-conception with a Spirit self-conception.
PS: please note that for long-range tasks, repeating this exercise weekly is recommended to achieve the maximum effect.
