Limits of an Infinite Self

In the course of my unrelenting journey through this time we share, I've been at a place where there's all too much to say, and nothing at all. Time is an exacting mistress; mine has given me other things to do. But now, for a moment, I'm here, grateful for the opportunity to say a few words, if they'll be given.

I don't know much about what's going on in the world these days. I hear things, but not enough to get more than a vague picture. Apocalypse is still picking up steam, showing clearer signs of its effects, but it still seems to be holding out for the right time to let loose. Which is fine with me. I've got all I can handle right here, and then some.

Interesting times. Last night, I seemed to get some kind of ajna upgrade. First I heard a tone in my right ear that was different from any I'd gotten earlier: more musical and alive. I relaxed into a flow of mental imagery which took on an immersive quality that I hadn't experienced before. The detail and resolution were cranked up to about the maximum I've been able to see, but now it was all in three dimensions, extending above, below, and to the sides. I had no visible body to occlude the view. I was on some kind of waking trip inside my mind's eye, exploring spaces that didn't all seem entirely of my own making.

Some element of guidance or transmission seemed involved in one case. I saw a temple, shaped like a Christian cross. It was some level of myself, symbolically. It was like a computer-generated schematic, very layered and complex, with different layers and elements alternately coming into view and disappearing. There were three gates, one at each of the short ends of the cross. One for love, one for power, and one for wisdom. It seemed that I was meant to enter all three simultaneously. Each was guarded by an adversary that could only be made to dissolve into base nothingness by completely embodying and rightly applying the one of these three divine qualities.

At the center of the temple, embedded within many subtle layers of structure, was an egg-shaped cocoon of light. This contained a human form in fetal position, head facing downwards to the long passage. It was the home of absolute peace and calm and stillness, from whence all else is a passing deviation. This peace is the treasure for which I yearn, and which gives one the strength to endure any trial. It is absolute and unshakeable.

I can only speculate as to what meaning this all has. Perhaps it was only a fanciful creation based on my intuitive, partial understanding of certain principles. It would seem logical to assume that the long portion of the temple represents a sort of root or anchor to source, as well as a passageway into something beyond the anthropic stage of being.


(A Google image search turned up the drawing above. The web page it comes from seems potentially of interest. Not having read it through, I make no claims regarding any of the content.)

That's all I have time for at the moment. I hope to return here with more to share before the year is out. Peace out to you, my brothers and sisters. Godspeed, and may your journey home be swift and true. Love, William

I am an idealist. I generally believe in the ideal, for better or for worse, as an actual thing, somewhere out there, existing, even attainable, given enough time. Faith and endurance, if anything, are what will bring the ideal into actuality. But, if absolute perfection is the ideal, then we can approach it forever and never actually get there. To what degree, then, must a thing be perfect, if it is to be ideal?  (And if we can't get there, is it still worth trying? I'd say, regardless of whether you're a realist or an idealist, the answer ought to be yes.)

I suppose the problem with idealism stems from the fact that each of us has a different idea(l) in mind when we speak of ideals. Ergo, conflict arises between those with contradictory ideals. But this is only a problem if we take the relativist view, the subjective view of individual humans. Two problems: the realist either denies the existence of the ideal (due to lack of evidence for it in perceived reality), or, allowing its existence in hypothesis, claims that we cannot conceive of it ourselves, because it is beyond our (believed, and thus perceived) nature.



The one who perceives only the appearances of the conditions of this world will insist that the ideal is not a realistic goal, given how far it is from reality. But for one who believes in it, it can be the only goal. Where the two may reach balance is if the idealist takes each realistic goal as a temporary, short-term goal, as a step, on the way to the final goal.




Human fallibility – of course! is what gums it all up in practice. As you can imagine. Look at the world. See? But wait, now, if you look closer, if you give it time, if you listen, if you're open – you will see signs that the better nature in the human spirit lives on. The desire for harmony, peace, mutual prosperity (our ideals?). For learning and growth as well. (The process!) The realist and the idealist can come together and help make progress, if they choose. And the more so according to the degree to which their realism or their idealism is pure – that is to say, true.




Good so far. But what about life in the moment? What about life as an evolving, individual soul? What is the ideal for ourselves? And how can we deal with the pitfalls of idealism in the personal arena, in how we relate to self and others?

Idealism and realism, both like pits full of shit until the light of awakening consciousness does its work on them. Each has its “pitfalls.”

Somnambulant (spiritually asleep) realists may believe that what they see and sense, and that alone, is real. They often overestimate their own objectivity. They disdain imagination (the greatest tool we have) and the sense of wonder (our bringer of miracles), and so bring upon themselves a restricted field of possibilities, and much drudgery. The solutions to these are implicit in their presentation.

The undeveloped idealist is the worst sort of daydreamer. Never achieves anything, never satisfied with anything – and if they're satisfied, it's only because they're so indifferent, because they're either living in their own world of ideals and daydreams, or they've given up hope of ever achieving it. The lack of hope, of the desire to improve, of the will to serve, are equally stifling as they would be in the realist. These are signs of a faithless idealist, one who has not the courage of their convictions or the spine enough to act on them.

Here's an imagined dialogue between two somewhat more evolved individuals.

Realist: What are you doing?
Idealist: I'm meditating on my vision of perfection.
R: While doing... what... for real?
I: Well, uh... I could tell you about this vision, for real.
R: Oh. OK. And, when you're done, I can tell you about some suggestions I have, based on my own observations, about how to improve things around here in the present moment.

So the true, positive, conscious realist does have an ideal toward which they strive – it's just... a direction, more than any particular idea. An increment of perfection. Reaching in time for whatever betterness is within reach. There is no thought of a final perfection, or an absolute. The existence of either is debatable, and hardly relevant anyway. It's a very practical way to see and live. And, at its best, open-ended. Trust in the process leads to good destinations.

The mature idealist is realistic enough to know just how far they are from being able to imagine a perfect ideal. Realistic enough to set their practical ideals within practical reach. But yet faithful enough to believe, still, that perfection exists in the Heart of All, and, subjectively at least, in the Realm of Pure Ideas. The Heart of All, of course, is no-where and no-when. It is beyond manifestation, it is the source of the manifest. All manifest beings and manifest realities reflect degrees and variations of the Heart, n-dimensional bytes and slices of an infinite-dimensional matrix of possibility, all rooted in the zero point of perfection where all is equally possible, if not equally distant.

It is that discouraging distance from perfection, the wide gap and heavy contrast between the observed and the imagined, that trouble this young idealist so often. I speak of myself. I am troubled when I look upon the content of my character as observed by the consciously observing, neutral part of me, outside the box of ego.



And I compare it to what I imagine I could be and should be. What I want to be. The differences would fill volumes.

But... my instrument of observation is not neutral; it produces distortions. It contains judgments and is subject to strict limitations. So what I think I observe is not even necessarily close to objective reality..!

 Accuracy, precision, frequency bandwidth, field of view, focus, lens: the variables in forming a picture of what is, or what appears to be.

Accuracy suffers from judgment; judgment is relative to perspective; only the whole perspective gives whole accuracy. So when I judge myself, and I do so harshly, I see myself in a distorted light.

Precision comes with a more refined degree of complexity (higher resolution) of the consciousness doing the observing. Frequency bandwidth, I won't discuss, because the dynamics are too involved beyond the scope of this article... but “scope” is indeed the next variable, aka. field of view. Which is what gives us a context to understand and comprehend the relative nature, the function, the necessity, the genius, the beauty, and the purpose of a part within the greater whole.

Focus: the area into which consciousness concentrates its energies. How well you can focus determines the intensity of your picture. What you focus on, grows. First inside you, then around you appear the results.

Lens: your state of being. Dirty and dark, or clear and bright? Fearful... or loving? Chaotic, conflicted, confined... or harmonious, unified, expansive? Divided by judgment, or reconciled by understanding and acceptance? Connected or cut off? Strong or weak? You can choose your state of being, if you remember the part of you that chooses it – become the part of you that is it.


Let your most beautiful ideal inspire you to act within the real. Let your innermost knowing of who you are guide you. Create your experience of yourself by choosing what to be. Imagine yourself as God, and know that the form you take here is just a little piece of that. It doesn't matter how imperfect we seem to be; we are part of a grander perfection in a grander scheme than we can dream of. You, the far-from-ideal, pathetic little human with all your faults and weaknesses, can no more sully the perfection that is God than you can erase your own eternal existence as God.

We lament when our dreams fall by the wayside, or shatter painfully, or torture us, or turn out to be hollow, or morph into nightmares. But where would we be without the Dream? We are the Dream: these characters we play and the stories we make. We each express our own Ideal,


on its long journey to self-discovery and self-realization. That is what this is about. We're works in progress. Maybe there is no destination, no beginning and no ending. Maybe this is just an ever-changing Dream of Who We Are, Who We Think We Are, Who We Are Becoming, and Who We Wish To Be.

I'm not a fan of the vampire genre. It's one of those things that exists to show us something behind the scenes of mundane reality, as metaphor. Watching movies and TV shows that revel in the thirst for blood probably won't be healthy for a person's consciousness over time, since we do tend to become like that with which we occupy our minds. Entrainment.

A friend noted, when this topic came up yesterday, that there seems to be a heavily sexual connotation with vampirism. I agree, and it goes beyond just Hollywood's artificial glaze of oversexed glamour. Blood is synonymous with the life-force, and sex is the power to create new life. The sexual force is the most intoxicating, intense form of the vital force. It is, I dare say, its very source. That same energy flows in our blood as long as we live, feeding us, and to those who have developed a taste for it, it is delicious beyond compare.

A true vampire is one who survives by stealing the energy of others. A vampiric personality is one that feeds upon the emotional energetic investment (attention, adulation, anger, fear, devotion) of others, in order to fuel itself. Why? Because the being has lost (or forgotten) its own inner connection to the Source of life. Its inner Sun has gone dark, becoming a black hole instead of a fountain of light.

The lesson of the vampire genre, for me, has been, “don't go there, don't be that, don't play that game, ever, if you can see it.” We all have the potential for vampiric behaviour. What it is, is a natural process unbalanced to the point of being turned upside down. Souls in their natural state act in reciprocity: joyfully giving, gladly receiving. When fear and insecurity enter the picture, this process goes into disharmony. And at the extreme end are rape and pillage, slaughter and slavery, with the predators taking what they can by force and deception, and the prey being totally subjugated. This is an image of Hell. And as we know, it has been with us on this planet for so long that some of us don't even question it, let alone challenge it. This resignation to “the way things are” is basically a personal vote for more of the same, that, I suspect, universe will oblige. Unless, of course, there is something radically different about these times that I'm not aware of. The divine is all-powerful... but it acts through individual souls... and the Earth is a planetary soul....



Steal not the energies of thy neighbour, but help her to free her inner Sun from its bonds, and strive to do the same for thyself, that you may both be happy and live forever.

Turns out my laptop was only temporarily dead. (shock.gif, dismay.jpg) Well, it was only a matter of time before my new-found peace in the home was disturbed once more by the renewed presence of this piece of technology and the world that it brings with it. The real challenge begins now: how to coexist with this most perfectly adapted waster of time and energy, this portal into cyberspace. Being without it for only a couple of days has been a wonderful experience. It was a chance to see life very differently: as it is all around me, full of potential for so much more than sitting in front of a glowing screen trying to live without living, without really being present, connections only virtual. I've been freed from all that to do the things I really want and need to do. To live consciously moment to moment, responding to the immediacy of life with integrity.

In these days, I have repeatedly heard the phrase “Know what you're doing.” Being conscious of what one is doing, how it's done, and why, is so important.

Listen.......
to nature.
Listen.......
to yourself.
Listen.

A time to sow, and a time to reap.
A time to wake, and a time to sleep.

Looking in the mirror...
Now is a time to step up and BE who you are. No more compromises and half-truths, no more going along with anything that's not in line with soul purpose. Your life is yours to live. If it's worth living, then it's worth living well. Hold yourself to your standards, and let go the failures of the past. BE HONEST.

Spring and a new beginning. A new beginning every day, as often as it's needed.

Mother Nature, Gaia-Sophia, calls her child to renew his remembrance of her in all that he does. To call upon her in every need, to give thanks for all that she so abundantly provides. She is now in full possession of her faculties, and offers to her child the opportunity to grow with her in this end-time of great upheaval, completion and transformation. There is still time to sow, there is no better time to invest one's labour in the things that truly matter. The harvest will come, and it will reap the fruits of all that has been sown, for joy and for suffering, for destruction and for new beginnings.

..love and peace..