Session 821

Mass Events, Session 821

You are, of course, a part of nature, and a part of nature’s source.

Growing from an infant to a full adult was probably one of the most difficult, and yet the most easy feats that you will ever accomplish in a life.  As a child you identified with your own nature.  You intuitively realized that your being was immersed in and a part of the process of growth.

No amount of intellectual information, no accumulation of facts however vast, could give you the inner knowledge necessary to accomplish the physical events involved in that growth process.  You learn to read, but the seeing itself is an accomplishment of far greater magnitude – one that seemingly happens all by itself.  It happens because each of you is, again, indeed a part of nature and of nature’s source.

In various ways your religions have always implied your relationship with nature’s source, even though they often divorced nature herself from any place of prime importance.  For religions have often hinged themselves upon one or another quite valid perception, but then distorted it, excluding anything else that did not seem to fit.  “You are children of the universe.”  This is an often-heard sentence – and yet the main point of the Christ story was not Christ’s death but his birth, and the often-stated proposition that each person was indeed “a child of the father”.

There are many later-appended references in the Bible, such as the fig tree story, in which nature is played down.  Christ’s “father” was, however, the God who was indeed aware of every sparrow that fell, who knew of every creature’s existence, whatever its species or kind.  The story of the shepherds and flocks comes much closer to Christ’s intent, where each creature looked out for the others.

The officials of the Roman Catholic Church altered many records – cleansing them, in their terms, of anything that might suggest pagan practices, or nature worship as they thought of it.  In terms of your civilization, nature and spirit became divided so that you encounter the events of your lives largely in that context.  To some degree or another, then, you must feel divorced from your bodies and from the events of nature.  The great sweeps of emotional identification with nature itself do not sustain you, therefore.  You study those processes as if you somehow stood apart from them.

To some extent your society’s beliefs allow you enough freedom so that most of you trust your bodies while they are growing toward adulthood.  Then, however, many of you no longer rely upon the processes of life within you.  Certain scientific treatises often make you believe that the attainment of your adulthood has little purpose, except to insure the further existence of the species through parenthood – when nature is then quite willing to dispense with your services.  You are quite simply told that you have no other purpose.  The species itself must then appear to have no reason except a mindless determination to exist.  The religions do insist that man has a purpose, yet in their own confusion they often speak as if that purpose must be achieved by denying the physical body in which man has his life’s existence, or by “rising above” “gross, blunted,” earthly characteristics.  In both cases man’s nature, and nature in general, take short shrift.

Such tales are myths.  They do indeed have power and strength.  In those terms they represent the darker side of myths, however – yet through their casts you presently view your world.  You will interpret the private events of your lives, and the spectacular range of history, in the light of those assumptions about reality.  They not only color your experience, but you create those events that more or less conform to those assumptions.

Those who “lose” their lives in natural disasters become victims of nature.  You see in such stories examples of meaningless deaths, and further proof of nature’s indifference to man.  You may, on the other hand, see the vengeful hand of an angry God in such instances, where the deity once again uses nature to bring man to his knees.  Man’s nature is to live and to die.  Death is not an affront to life, but means its continuation – not only inside the framework of nature as you understand it, but in terms of nature’s source.  It is, of course, natural then to die.

The natural contours of your psyche are quite aware of the inner sweep and flow of your life, and its relationship with every other creature alive.  Intuitively, each person is born with the knowledge that he or she is not only worthwhile, but fits into the context of the universe in the most precise and beautiful of fashions.  The most elegant timing is involved in each individual’s birth and death.  The exquisite play of your own inner nature in general – and that identification leads you into the deeper knowledge of your own part of nature’s source.

The myths upon which you base your lives so program your existence that often you verbally deny what you inwardly know.  When people are hurt in a natural disaster, for example, they will often profess to have no idea at all for such involvement.  They will ignore or deny the inner feelings that alone would give the event any meaning in their lives.  The reasons for such involvement would be endless, of course – all valid, yet in each and every case, man and nature in those terms would meet in an encounter that had meaning, from the largest global effects to the smallest, most private aspects of the individuals involved.  You have made certain divisions because of your myths, of course, that make this kind of explanation extremely important and difficult.  You think of rain or earthquakes as natural events, for example, while you do not consider thoughts or emotions as natural events in the same terms.  Therefore, it is difficult for you to see how there can be any valid interactions between, say, emotional states and physical ones.

You might say: “Of course, I realize that the weather affects my mood”, yet it will occur to very few of you that your moods have any effect upon the weather.  You have so concentrated upon the categorization, delineation, and exploration of the objective world that it surely seems to be “the only real one”.  It seems to exert force or pressure against you, or to impinge upon you, or at least almost to happen by itself, so that you sometimes feel powerless against it.  Your myths have given great energy to the outsideness of things.

In exasperation some of you see nature as good and enduring, filled with an innocence and joy, while on the other hand you envision man as a bastard species, a blight upon the face of the earth, a creature bound to do everything wrong regardless of any strong good intent.  Therefore, you do not trust man’s nature either.

This myth finds great value in the larger processes of nature in general, and yet sees man alone as the villain of an otherwise edifying tale.  A true identification with nature, however, would show glimpses of man’s place in the context of his physical planet, and would bring to the forefront accomplishments that he has achieved almost without his knowing.

I will return to those accomplishments somewhat later.  For now, I would like to mention some other issues, involving the individual’s connection either with natural disasters or with epidemics of one kind or another, that by definition concern large groups of people.

You form your own reality.  If you are tired of having me stress that point, I can only say that I hope the repetition will serve to make you understand that the statement applies to the most minute and the most important of the events that you experience.

Some people believe that they must be punished, and so they seek [out] unfortunate circumstances.  They [go] to one event after another in which they meet retribution.  They may seek out areas of the country in which natural disasters are frequent, or their behavior may be such that they attract from other people reactions of an explosive kind.  Often, however, individuals use disasters quite for their own purposes, as an exteriorized force that brings their lives into clear focus.  Some may be flirting with the idea of death, and choose a dramatic encounter with nature in the final act.  Others change their minds at the last moment.

Those involved in such disasters – the survivors – often use such “larger-than-life” circumstances in order to participate in affairs that seem to have greater import than those possessed by previous humdrum existences.  They seek the excitement, whatever its consequences.  They become a part of history to whatever extent.  For once their private lives are identified with a greater source – and from it many derive new strength and vitality.  Social barriers are dropped, economic positions forgotten.  The range of private emotions is given greater, fuller, sweep.

To some extent or another man’s desires and emotions merge with the physical aspects of nature as you understand it, so that such storms or disasters are as much the result of psychological activity as they are of weather conditions.

Objectively – whatever the appearances – storms, earthquakes, floods, et cetera, are quite necessary to the well-being of the earth.  Both man’s and nature’s purposes are served, then, though generally speaking man’s myths make him blind to those interactions.  People’s thoughts and emotions always give clear clues whenever illness is involved, yet most people ignore such information.  They censor their own thoughts.  Many therefore “fall prey” to epidemics of one kind or another because they want to, though they might deny this quite vigorously.

I am speaking particularly of epidemics that are less than deadly, though danger is involved.  In your times, hospitals, you must realize, are important parts of the community.  They provide a social as well as a medical service.  Many people are simply lonely, or overworked.  Some are rebelling against commonly held ideas of competition.  Flu epidemics become social excuses for much needed rest, therefore, and serve as face-saving devices so that the individuals can hide from themselves their inner difficulties.  In a way, such epidemics provide their own kind of fellowship – giving common meeting grounds for those of disparate circumstances.  The [epidemics] serve as accepted states of illness, in which people are given an excuse for the rest or quiet self-examination they desperately need but do not feel entitled to otherwise.

I do not mean to assign any hint of accusation against those so involved, but mainly to state some of the reasons for such behavior.  If you do not trust your nature, then any illness or indisposition will be interpreted as an onslaught against health.  Your body faithfully reflects your inner psychological reality.  The nature of your emotions means that in the course of a lifetime you will experience the full range of feelings.  Your subjective state has variety.  Sometimes sad or depressing thoughts provide a refreshing change of pace, leading to periods of quiet reflection, and to a quieting of the body so that it rests.

Fears, sometimes even seeming irrational ones, can serve to rouse the body if you have been too lethargic, or have been in a rut psychologically or physically.  If you trusted your nature you would be able to trust such feelings, and following their own rhythms and routes they would change into others.  Ideally even illnesses are a part of the body’s health, representing needed adjustments, and also following the needs of the subjective person at any given time.  They are a part of the interplay between the body and mind, or spirit.

The majority of my readers have come down with one or another disease usually considered very dangerous, and without ever knowing it, because the body healed itself normally and naturally.  The disease was not labeled.  It was not given recognition as a condition.  Worries or fears were not aroused, yet the disease came and vanished.

In such instances natural healing processes occurred, for which the body is seldom given credit.  Such healings do not just involve changes in the body, for example, for a physical healing can take place because of events that seem utterly disconnected.

Some portion of each individual is in direct contact with the very source of its own existence.  Each individual is innately aware that help is available in every situation, and that information does not need to come through the physical senses alone.  Many illnesses are cured, then, through quite natural methods that not only involve physical healings, but bring into play other events – events that have great bearing on the psychological elements that may be involved behind the scenes.  For those interactions we will have to look to Framework 2.