Session 800

Nature of the Psyche, Session 800

You form your own reality.  That reality contributes to the experience of others, but each of you possesses a unique, original stance in space and time that is yours alone in quite practical terms, regardless of time’s relative existence.

Only when you operate from your own stance can you help others to the best of your ability.  To anticipate danger, or to imaginatively take on the troubles of others robs you of the very energy with which you could help them.  I am not saying, therefore, to turn your eyes from the unfortunate conditions of the world.  Practical help is needed in all areas of the human life.  Yet it is far better, and more practical ultimately, to concentrate upon the beneficial elements of civilization – far better to organize your thoughts in areas of accomplishment than to make mental lists of man’s deficiencies and lacks.

Such a practice leads to feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, in which effective action seems impossible.  Life possesses an exuberance.  If this is cherished, nurtured, encouraged, then additional energy is generated that is not needed for the purposes of daily private life – a superabundance, that can be effectively directed in those areas of the world where helps is most needed.

The strength, vitality, and effectiveness of thought is seldom considered.  Thought, you may say, will not stop a war – yet what do you think started such a war?  Throughout history the downtrodden have often risen into power, using force, rebelling against their oppressors; and yet, learning little from the experience, they turn and become the new elite, the new power-holders.  Their physical conditions may be completely changed.  Now theirs, the offices of government, the wealth.  Gone are the conditions that, it would seem, caused the uprising.  Yet in retaliation they strike out, forming a new class of downtrodden who must in their turn rise and retaliate.

Despite all appearances, conditions of an exterior nature do not cause wars, or poverty, or disease, or any of the unfortunate circumstances apparent in the world.  Your beliefs form your reality.  Your thoughts generate practical experience.  When these change, conditions will change.  To add your own energy, focus, and concentration to dire circumstances in other portions of the world does not help, but adds to such situations.

To close your eyes to them in an ignorant fashion, to wash your hands of them, so to speak, is equally shortsighted.  To pretend such situations do not exist, out of fear of them, will only bring the feared reality closer.  It is far better to situate yourself firmly in your own reality, acknowledge it as your own, encourage your strength and creativity, and from that vantage point view those areas of the world or of your own society that need constructive help.  Purposefully in your own life, in your daily dialogues with others, in your relationships through your groups or clubs, reinforce as well as you can the strength and abilities of others.

That reinforcement will add to the personal power of all other individuals with whom those people come in contact.  Find the beliefs responsible for the unfortunate conditions.  If the ideas in this book were thoroughly understood, then each individual would be able to assess his or her own reality realistically.  There would be no need to arm a nation in advance against another nation’s anticipated – but imaginary – attack.

Personal grudges would not build up, so that men or women so fear further hurts that they attempt to hide from life or relationships, or shy away from contact with others.  It is not virtuous to count your failings.  Self-conscious righteousness can be a very narrow road.  If each of you understood and perceived the graceful integrity of your own individuality, just as you try to perceive the beauty of all other natural creatures, then you would allow your own creativity greater reign.  There is order in all elements of nature, and you are a part of it.

The greater sweep of the seasons represents the reaches of your soul.  You will not attain spirituality by turning your eyes away from nature, or by trying to disentangle yourself from it.  You will not “glimpse eternal life” by attempting to deny the life that you have now – for that life is your own unique path, and provides its own clues for you to follow.

All That Is vibrates with desire.  The denial of desire will bring you only listlessness.  Those who deny desire are the most smitten by it.  Each of your lives are miniature and yet gigantic episodes, mortal and immortal at once, providing experiences that you form meaningfully, opening up dimensions of reality available to no one else, for no one can view existence from your standpoint.  No one can be you but you.  There are communications at other levels, but your experience of existence is completely original, to be treasured.

No one from any psychological threshold, however vast, can write a book that defines the psyche, but only presents hints and clues, words and symbols.  The words and ideas in this book all stand for other inner realities – that is, they are like piano keys striking other chords; chords that, hopefully, will be activated within the psyche of each reader.

Each of you is couched now in the natural world, and that world is couched in a reality from which nature emerges.  The psyche’s roots are secure, nourishing it like a tree from the ground of being.  The source of the psyche’s strength is within each individual, the invisible fabric of the person’s existence.

Nature is luxurious and abundant in its expressions.  The greater reality from which nature springs is even more abundant, and within that multidimensional experience no individual is ignored, forgotten, dismissed, lost, or forsaken.  A tree does not have to ask for nourishment from the ground or the sun, and so everything that you need is available to you in your practical experience.  If you believe you are not worthy of nourishment, if you believe that life itself is dangerous, then your own beliefs make it impossible for you to fully utilize that available help.  In large measure, since you are still alive, you are of course nourished.  You cannot close out the vitality of your own being that easily, and the vitality “squandered” on deeper bouts of depression is often greater than the energy used in creative pursuits.  You are a portion of All That Is; therefore, the universe leans in your direction.  It gives.  It rings with vitality.  Then forsake beliefs that tell you otherwise.  Seek within yourself – each of you – those feelings of exuberance that you have, even if they are only occasional, and encourage those events or thoughts that bring them about.

You cannot find your psyche by thinking of it as a separate thing, like a fine jewel in an eternal closet.  You can only experience its strength and vitality by exploring the subjective reality that is your own, for it will lead you unerringly to that greater source of being that transcends both space and time.

POSTSCRIPT

The overall stance of the species is largely maintained by the waking-sleeping patterns mentioned recently.  In such a fashion, one large portion of the species focuses in physical reality while the other large portion holds a secure foothold in inner reality working on the interior patterns that will form the next day’s realities, and providing probable previews of future events.  Waking and sleeping reality is therefore balanced in the world mind – not the world brain.

However, the sleeping portion of the species represents the brain’s unconscious activities in the body – particularly when you think of the motion of all of the species’ actions en masse in a given day.  Those conscious motions have an unconscious basis.  If you think of a mass world brain – one entity – then it must wake and sleep in patterns.  If you think of mass daily action as performed by one gigantic being, then all of those conscious actions have unconscious counterparts, and a great intercommunication of an inner nervous system must take place.

Part of such a brain would have to be awake all of the time, and part engaged in unconscious activity.  This is what happens.

Diverse cultures are thus able to communicate as the cultural knowledge of various parts of the world is given to the sleeping portion of the entire organism.  When they sleep, the waking nations add the day’s events to the world memory, and work out future probabilities.