Refinement is what characterizes our intellectual philosophies. They exquisitely satisfy that craving for a refined object of contemplation, which is so powerful an appetite of the mind. But I ask you in all seriousness to look abroad on this colossal universe of concrete facts, on their awful bewilderments, their surprises and cruelties, on the wildness, which they show, and then tell me whether refined is the one inevitable descriptive adjective that springs to your lips.

 A philosophy that breathes out nothing but refinement will never satisfy the empiricist temper of mind. It will seem rather a monument of artificiality. So we find men of science preferring to turn their backs on metaphysics as on something altogether cloistered and spectral, and practical men shaking philosophy's dust off their feet and following the call of the wild.

William James born in 1842 was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher trained as a medical doctor. His statement above came from a lecture he gave at Columbia University in 1906. It's rather amazing to see that after one hundred years science for the most part, still considers refinement as the sole road to awareness and fact. It discards knowledge that is prevalent through self-discovery and inner guidance. Scientific principles take precedence over practical experiences of individuals and groups of people who live the act of being human now.

Certainly I would be foolish to discard the refined approach completely in observing the world I find myself experiencing. I believe the time has come to integrate as many probabilities as possible to define what physical life consists of naturally; my nature is more than scientific refinement, it is spiritual manifestation.

Science describes who I am in limited terms. Those terms create a system that treats a portion of the self, which is not my complete system of expression. I find my self in a world of separation and I live filled with fear and anxiety. They follow me then capture me. I put my self in the cell called ego, where a fragment of me accepts refinement as gospel truth.

The collective consciousness is under construction. There are road signs posted to direct me to the now age of awareness. James talked about it and experienced it in his life by believing it was the path to unity. Metaphysics is no longer the stepchild of refinement. It is a link to another aspect of my humanity. Accepting the wild as well as the refined, I can sense other parts of me. I allow my self, through my choices, to experience life in human form, and also express my self as consciousness without form.

Philosophical pragmatism is changing in theory. There is truth in all thoughts perceived by the thinker. The unity of consciousness is expressed in diversity. The source of refinement is ego-motivated separation. The essence of humanity is metaphysical awareness and physical experience united in a web of consciousness that is the foundation for all three-dimensional manifestations.

As James points out I am dusting off my thoughts and the call of the wild is not that wild anymore.

No one, I am sure, denies the existence of air because ordinarily you do not see it. No one denies the existence of air because they do not understand the method by which their own lungs breathe. Yet they know that they breathe, and they know that without breath death is inevitable. To deny the existence of air would seem ridiculous. It is just as ridiculous to deny the universal vitality because it is usually unseen or because you do not understand how to use it.

Jane Roberts is explaining the self generating and limitless vitality that is available and is constantly giving shape and form to every object that I see or imagine. Through the centuries this vitality has been given many names and most of us today would call it our creator and ultimate life-giver. Whatever name I use to describe this energy it's like the air in the sense that I know it's there, but it's hard to explain by just using my five senses. I may have a perception about it and that becomes the reality I experience, but that perception is usually based on an association with something I remember.

There is a part of me that does know this vitality, just like there is a part of me that knows air and the particles of oxygen and other components that enter my lungs. My thinking brain does not know, but my inner self does know.

Jane continues:

You do not know the all important self and therein lies your difficulty. It's fashionable in your time to consider man or man's self as a product of the brain and isolated bits of sub consciousness, with a few odds and ends thrown in for good measure.

What she is saying is that I really don't know my self any better than I know the air or the universal vitality that flows through me. I breathe but who is breathing since consciously I can't tell my self to breathe or not to breathe? I say I dream, but who is dreaming, I can't tell myself consciously to dream or not to dream? It seems I have cut my self in half or in thirds perhaps and I wonder why I never feel whole. I consistently confirm the evidence of those things that I can see, touch, smell and hear and because of this I only appreciate half of my self. The fact is I'm am only aware of one third of my self because two-thirds of my self exists in that realm that I refuse to admit exist.

It appears that I live physical life like a person who finds himself in a completely dark room where there is no sound or any signs of life. When I look down I don't see my body and I cannot hear my voice and I then come to the conclusion that I have no body or voice even though I knew I had both of them before I entered the room. I say to my self I will only believe what I can see and though I'm sure I saw more at one time, now I have no body or voice because I can't see or hear my self. I use only part of my self to define me and believe that is all there is.

The simple fact is I form a type of camouflage around my self and believe only what I choose to believe about me, and the vitality that flows through me. If I don't know who breathes within me and who dreams within me, it's because I have buried part of my self and have thrown the shovel away. I have been conditioned to only accept the camouflage patterns I have created and the other parts of my self wait for me to find the shovel to release them. When I find the shovel I allow those aspects of my consciousness to guide me through the camouflage.

I know that I breathe; I know that I dream without consciously being aware of the mechanics behind these actions, so I'm forced despite my inclinations to admit that I am the one performing these events. When I cross a room I'm forced to admit that I am the one crossing it although I have no idea that I am willing and stimulating my muscles to perform the crossing. The simple fact is I'm not consciously aware of the important vital parts of me and that I am much more than I perceive my self to be.

Now in this shift of consciousness, I am remembering these other aspects of my self. I am realizing that I create the camouflage world I see around me. I am beginning to understand and use my inner senses to guide and assist my outer senses. I am feeling that I am much more that a body that thinks. By understanding that my whole self forms the camouflage patterns, I am able to connect with the part of me that breathes and dreams. When I remember my other selves, I realize that my physical life is just like me breathing on a pane of glass and seeing my breathe for the first time. It's a breathe of fresh air.

Trippers and askers surround me.

People I meet... the effect upon me of my early life...of the ward and city I live in...of the nation.

The latest news...discoveries, inventions, societies...authors old and new,

My dinner, dress, associates, looks, business, compliments, dues,

The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,

The sickness of one of my folks or of myself...or ill doing...or loss or lack of money...or depressions or exaltations, they come to me days and nights and go from

me again, but they are not the Me myself.

Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,

Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary, Looks down, is erect, bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest, Looks with its side curved head curious what will come next,

Both in and out of the game, and watching and wondering at it.

Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders,

I have no mockings or arguments...I witness and wait.

I believe in you my soul...the other I am must no abase itself to you,

And you must not be abased to the other.

Walt Whitman wrote those words in his 1855 work: Leaves of Grass. He is describing life as he experiences it in the 19^th century. I can relate to his description of physical life, I experience the same sort of things he talks about and I form my thoughts based on these external happenings. I have been trained to act and react to the events that surround me and my life becomes a product of my thoughts about them. I rarely take a moment and analyze why I am immersed in the news or business or the loss or lack of money. It's all part of a master plan I'm told, and I must sign off on the notion that this is the way it is.

As I Sweat through the fog of conversations and contenders who value a fight more than agreement, there is a portion of me that experiences the abasement of selflessness. It seems natural to adhere to the thoughts of others and to judge my self based on their opinions and beliefs. I base my self worth on this game I play with myself and then watch and wonder about it.

Whitman's idea of my other self that is not part of this ego self created drama, is watching and waiting for me to not only remember it, but to unite with it, so I can understand the nature of my reality. Whitman explains it as a separate part of me, but there is no separation between these selves of mine, there is only the thought that there is. It plays the major role in creating what I experience externally and then waits for me, the ego, to learn from each moment of my own creation. I am innately able to live in harmony with the reality that I call life.

Ester Hicks explains part of this inner consciousness this way:

You have more harmony points with every person on the planet than you have disharmony points, because there is much more of you that is in harmony with your Core than you realize or that most of you allow. The closer you come to being in harmony with your Source Energy, the more in harmony you are with each other. When you think about other people and what they think of you, do you understand that what they think of you has very little to do with what you are? It has mostly to do with the habits of thought that they have developed. It has more to do with them as thinkers than it does with you as the subject of their thought. If nothing is more important to you than that you feel good, you can form a fantasy about someone who is in your life and they will begin to modify to meet your fantasy.

Ester calls it a fantasy, this world of thoughts and dreams that define me externally. The thoughts of others are thoughts about themselves that are manifested in order for them to learn the lesson that this fantasy delivers. My core is good and my energy is pure. There is no reason to abuse that core unless I do abase my ego self. The pain and drama comes and goes and I still remain the self I have always been; the self that always feels good and appreciates the opportunity to expand in the contrast I create my self.

Whitman goes on and explains how to reconnect to my other self this way:

Loafe with me on the grass... loose the stop from your throat, not words, not music or rhyme I want...not custom or lecture, not even the best,

Only the lull I like, the hum of your valued voice.

The hum of my valued voice is always vibrating in harmony. When I stop and listen to it my thoughts change, choices from those thoughts change and new probabilities are born and I experience them. I stand amused, complacent, compassionate, idle and united within my inner reality and all I express externally is a product of that awareness. Trippers and askers still surround me, but now I accept them as gifts and open them and find the unity I seek.

www.shortsleeves.net

http://halmanogue.blogspot.com/

The Cat and the Meat

There once was a sneering wife

Who ate all her husband brought home

And lied about it.

One day it was some lamb for a guest

Who was to come. He had worked two hundred days

in order to buy that meat.

When he was away his wife cooked a kabob

And ate it all, with wine.

The husband returned with his guest.

"The cat has eaten the meat,"she said.

"Buy more, if you have any money left!"

He asks a servant to bring the scales,

and the cat. That cat weighs three pounds.

"The meat was three pounds, one ounce.

If this is the cat, where is the meat?

If this is the meat where is the cat?

Start looking for one or the other!"

If you have a body, where is the spirit?

If you are a spirit where is the body?

This is not our problem to worry about.

Both are both. Corn is corn grain and cornstalk.

The divine butcher cuts a piece from the thigh,

and a piece from the neck.

Invisible, visible, the world

Does not work without both.

If you throw dust at someone's head,

Nothing will happen.

If you throw water, nothing.

But combine them into a lump

That marriage of water and dirt

Cracks open the head,

And afterward there are other marriages.

Rumi ‘s story, like most of his thoughts are all about unity; it does seem like I need to be hit over the head to understand what unity means. I'm selective when it comes to unity; it must fit into my belief system in order to for me to accept a person, place or thing and then bond and unite as one consciousness. This process of selective unity is the method that I choose in order to remember the unity of consciousness that is not selective or fragmented. In physical life I forget that I am united in birth and death. In between those two events a united mass of water and dust come together and becomes a self. That self creates the lessons that allow it to experience the contrast of disassociation with other aspects of consciousness.

 In that process I find reason and live a story, just like Rumi's story about the cat and the meat. I do it in order to hit my self over the head with the water and dust of physical life, so I remember I am always united within my self. Unity of consciousness in body and spirit is a choice that has already been made and is being fulfilled in between the physical events of birth and death. Every story has a beginning and an end and between those physical illusions countless events reconstruct a structure that already exists. Just like Rumi's cat, meat, wife, husband and guest everything is significant in remembering that I am always united in body and spirit, and am married to my self in the vastness of consciousness. The stories never stop and the moral of those stories are the same: Feeling and appreciating the joy of being, is the union that I know and want to remember.

http://www.shortsleeves.net/

http://halmanogue.blogspot.com/