WILDERISM DOCTRINE---5. EXPAND CONSCIOUSNESS

Version 4.01.02               11/04/2022

5.  EXPAND CONSCIOUSNESS

Why do we need another tenet?  What is missing in the others?

What about “love”, “purpose”, “meaning”?

Worlds of Consciousness

There are 2 worlds of consciousness, the inside and the outside.  Generally, we accept that the boundary is our skin.  Our brains spend a lot of time taking care of the organs within our bodies, keeping them fed and healthy.  That is the world of “separation”, where we view other people and things as separate from ourselves.   Then there is the world of “union”, where we see the connections between ourselves and everyone and everything, inside and outside of our bodies.

The world of union is pretty important because almost everyone pays attention to it in some way.  Even the existentialists who don’t believe that there is any externally derived meaning, have to deal with it, albeit in a negative way.  That is what religion is all about, giving meaning to our lives.  Whether we believe that what we worship is within or without doesn’t matter so much.  What we worship gives us a purpose, a moral compass of some form.

What is wrong with being an existentialist?  Is it necessary to believe that there is something beyond ourselves?  I personally don’t think there is anything wrong with it.  There is no proof that there is anything beyond, so why create a belief system which may not exist?  Just deal with life as centered within and our decisions are all free-will.  Actually, that is a belief system too.

As stated in the first tenet, “Reality IS”.  It is possible to go to higher consciousness, but it doesn’t change reality, the physical.  I see the search for “meaning” as the reason to spend time with a belief in the world of connections.  Does it change anything?  No, not in the physical.  But what it does do is reveal the world of connections which can give us a sense of peace, even in tough times.

Sustainability

What percentage of our time can we spend in the world of union?  That’s where we have to be careful, because while in the higher consciousness, we can lose track of the world of separation which is necessary to continue to exist. 

There are “masters” in India who live in higher consciousness most of the time.  The one I heard about owns only a blanket, and travels around from town to town, sitting and sleeping under trees and does nothing toward survival.  But when he talks, or just exists, others gain enlightenment through him, and consequently feed him and take care of his physical needs.

Think vs. Know

It seems that there are 2 types of knowledge from the world of separation and the world of union:  “thinking” and “knowing”.  In astrology, the key mottoes for a Gemini are “I Think” and for an Aquarian, “I Know”.  I wondered what the difference was between “thinking” and “knowing”.  Then I realized that I already understood:  “thinking” comes from logic, if some ideas are true, then this other idea must also be true---inference.  While “knowing” is an idea that is experienced on a different deeper level and becomes more than an inferred result---it is a certainty, but without the logic to back it up.

Methods to Higher Consciousness

How to experience the world of union:

1.       Epiphany

2.       Meditation

3.       Near Death

4.       Sensory Deprivation

5.       Psychedelics

6.       Soul Gazing

Epiphany

An epiphany usually happens out of the clear blue sky.  It isn’t asked for, but arrives unannounced.  I suppose it could be requested, and if your Spirit Guide (SG) agrees that the time is right, it could be delivered. 

I have had several such moments this lifetime.  I remember once driving down the highway into Jacksonville on the way to work.  And there it was.  Just a view of the sky ahead of me and the feeling that everything was right, a feeling of joy and peace.  It didn’t last long, but it was memorable.

For some people it is even stronger, with a definite message.  Maybe the message is in the interpretation, because there are usually no words to go with it.  We already know that words divide---just the act of categorizing a word divides this from that.  While there are no words for the feeling of union, there is a knowing.  Knowing what?  Again, to answer that, words come into play and that’s not what IT is.

“IT”.  A powerful word!  Can you explain what “it” is?  Existence?  Alan Watts wrote an entire essay on the subject in a book entitled “This Is It”.  If you want to come closer to the understanding of the world of union, contemplate the word “it”---a meta-subject.

Many people have a religious experience for their epiphany.  I don’t have a problem with the experience, but I do object to their “realization” that they know what the one TRUE God or religion is.  That is not the world of union---that is the world of separation.

Meditation

I personally have never entered the world of union during meditation, but I understand that some have.  Meditation certainly helps to learn how to control the brain by stopping thinking.  The brain is said to be “a useful tool, but a terrible master”.

Going to higher consciousness involves passing through the lower levels where fear lies, so being able to control the brain is essential.

Near Death

There are many stories of people having out of the body experiences when they are near death, and or course, returning to tell us about it.  They relate visions of tunnels of light, of meeting a dead relative, of angels, of peace and beauty.  Many books have been written about those visions.  I don’t recommend doing it on purpose.  Pretty risky.

Sensory Deprivation

 It is possible to be catapulted into the world of union by shutting off all the senses.  Floating in a pool of water with a mask on to omit light, smell, taste, and hearing allows the brain to explore possibilities without logic.  Fasting can also work.

Psychedelics

LSD, psylocibin, mescaline---the 3 main chemicals which can take us out of the world of separation into the world of union.  They can boost us through the levels of practical thinking into the world where there are no words.  The “trips” usually last only a few hours and are safe, we always come back no matter how much we take.

Why is it called “tripping”?  Because that is what it feels like---going somewhere foreign and then coming back---leaving what is familiar to pass through a region where the rules are different.

There are some evolutionists who theorize that the combinations of having opposable thumbs, walking upright, and ingesting magic mushrooms were what propelled our brains into what they are today.  Although, it is also possible that animals spend most of their time in the world of union.  We should ask them.

I once did ask a friend how to know when I am successfully tripping, having taken enough.  He said I would know because I was “there”.  I love that.  Another meta-word, “there”.  No words to describe it.

I have also tried to communicate with a tripping buddy what we were experiencing during the trip and the only thing we could both come up with was “Wow!”---not much of a description. 

Soul Gazing

This is described in the book “The Spiritual Practices of Rumi” who was a Sufi mystic and poet.  This book recommends the practice of staring into another’s eyes for a long time in order for both to enter the world of union.  I have never tried this method---it sounds really deeply personal, almost scary.

But I have had some unusual experiences the last couple years.  It isn’t something I have desired or attempted, but comes on suddenly and surprisingly.  It usually occurs when I am high on alcohol or marijuana.  I can be looking at a friend and all of a sudden their face transformed into a gorgeous male or female face, still them, but different and more like a god or goddess.  In the beginning I didn’t know what I was seeing, but was so stunned by the appearance that I had to comment to them how beautiful they were.  I think now that what I am seeing is the face of their soul.  Evidently incarnating changes the perfect face into something not quite as perfect, probably for good reasons---most lives can be led more effectively without the face of a movie-star.

Another experience was had while hiking in the Catskills of New York with a friend.  We had pitched our tent at the bottom of the trail for the night and got up early to begin the daylong hike over the spine of the hills.  Before we started the ascent, we dropped a tab of acid.  When we got to the top of the climb, we came across a man coming toward us on the trail with his dog.  He reminded me of Ichabod Crane, skinny and gaunt.  But what was really strange was that one side of his face was caved in dramatically, and even more strangely, his hound had the same disfigurement.  I figured it was just the acid distorting my vision and behaved normally as we said hello and passed by.  When we got aways away, I remarked to my friend that the man looked strange, and he replied that his face was caved in just like his dog.  So evidently we both saw the same thing.  We doubt that the man would have looked like that had we been straight, but we definitely saw something about the man’s soul, or at least the incarnation.  The other strange thing was that there were no dwellings up on that mountain and the closest other access to that trail was several hours along, so how did he get there coming toward us at that early hour---he didn’t have a backpack.

Union

While in the world of union, there is a connection to something larger, an awe which inspires worship.  There is the direct experience of being one with God or Allah, or in many religions, gods.  There is always a human component also, the one who helps us, but has a direct connection to the god(s).  That one is called Jesus or Mohammed or in many religions, ancestors.  Of course, Wilderism would claim that they are actually Spirit Guides, but it doesn’t matter.

We have the need to respect and revere something larger, and from that need, “worship” and “love” are born.  It doesn’t matter which god or gods or which intermediary being.  We need to find something which is ultimately good somewhere, something larger than ourselves.  And since people are constantly disappointing us, the thing to worship must be out there, or within, not to mention, “perfect”, and also reflecting our love back to us.

Spending time with whatever belief system leads to a feeling of being connected to everything, to love everyone.  On the other hand, those who follow the path to “hate”, go more into the world of separation.  “Separation/Union” are the two opposites directions in which a person can choose to go.

“Expanding Consciousness” is the path of union.

Native Americans

The Native Americans had their spirit guides and ancestors.  I am not an expert on Indian religion or culture, but it seems to me that they worshipped at least the ancestors.  They even had the nicest places set aside where the ancestors lived.  These places were flowing with spiritual energy where they held rituals and went for retreats and had close contact with their spirit guides.  And they worshipped those places so much that everyone knew that they were special and to be respected.

They had their “vision quests” where a young man would go out into nature alone and spend a few days looking for their SG and the “knowing” that accompanies it, and coming back changed.

The connection to nature is important---every animal embodies a human power or attribute, and studying the animals sheds light on human nature. 

This in itself is an interesting study.  How is it that each animal seems to emphasize a single human trait?  It sounds like there is an overreaching intelligence somewhere in the creation of animals.  This gets into the metaphysical 7 levels of consciousness where the top level is the Source Consciousness and the next level defines the characteristics of each type of entity.

There are many more indigenous cultures that share the ancestors worship.

Worship

So who or what can we worship?

There’s God of course, or Allah, or Vishnu, or whoever---some entity so powerful that he/she is behind everything and everyone.  I guess that perfection is not really required.  It is about the power.  God wants something to get done, it gets done.  It’s a power dimension.  The weakest thing all the way up to the strongest. 

Worship POWER! 

Well, there’s a need for it---some even claim that there is a section of the brain devoted to it.

And who can say it is wrong?  What we worship is a belief-system.  Not provable, but not unproven either.

Laws of Nature

I think for me it would be the laws of nature:  physics, chemistry, biology.  How it all works on the physical level.  Now there is real power!  And I am not talking about the power of those who know the rules, I am talking about the rules themselves.

How the rules all fit into each other, once understood.  No contradictions, lots of extensions, but you don’t find one physics rule which works sometimes and not other times, which sometimes has to give way for another rule which contradicts it, as long as we are talking about a “closed” system, in other words, where no external influences intervene.

And it is so interesting, the boundaries of the known.  What is the meaning behind quantum mechanics?  What is this dark matter stuff?  Why is most of the universe made of dark matter and dark energy?  So many questions, but also so much which has been discovered and proven and used, not to mention all that will be discovered.

Source of Rules

Then I ask, “where did these rules come from?”  Don’t know.  I believe it is one of those things that is unknowable.  Maybe.  There are a lot of the numbers in physics and chemistry formulas, the formulas for what IS, those numbers being just the right value.  A little less or a little more, and reality couldn’t exist, at least not our universe. 

That brings up an interesting question.  How is it that the rules of physics are so finely tuned?  The answer for some is “anthropomorphism”, in other words, we are the creative beings and we created it, so of course it has to work.  Others say that there are multiple universes and our existence is because we happen to be in one of the universes where life is possible.  This gets into the “original” questions, which may never be answered.  I mean even if you find out who or what has made the laws of nature, you never know if there isn’t someone behind them, waiting to be discovered.

Religions

What to worship then?  Pick your religion.  I guess even science could be called a religion. 

The real problem with religion is that there are interpreters who are no doubt inspired by Spirit Guides, imperfect beings with their own styles and viewpoints.  The original idea is usually pure, but the morality which emanates from the interpreters is against nature sometimes---a lot of the time.

That’s why I like science.  The interpretation of any new theory has to be published, peer-reviewed, and capable of making predictions.  It isn’t either negative or positive, just what is, neutral.   That’s why it is so easy to not need a god with science, because there isn’t a need for any “personality”.

So what to worship?  Comes down to: 1) you want it to be an intelligent entity, or 2) the laws of nature.

The second choice is interesting.  It ignores the magical numbers in the laws which makes it possible to wonder where we come from.  Don’t know, yet.  And that’s ok.  We keep learning more.

So that’s it then.  If you need a personality, you need an intelligence to worship.  Doesn’t seem wrong to me.  What is it?  Can’t say.  Most religions have personalities on top.  That’s what a specific religion is, the particular interpretation of this supreme entity, or entities.  I guess you are born into it, or convert to it.

Science

That’s why I like science.  The rules of science work.  There is no alternate interpretation---except for quantum mechanics, of course.  But even without understanding the questionable cause of a rule, it can be used in practical ways.  It’s not idealistic, it is pragmatic.  “I Don’t know where it comes from, don’t need to know, I just want to make use of it.”  The scientists’ creed.  Science versus religion. 

Speaking of quantum mechanics, these are formulas which actually agree with physical measurements to incredible accuracy.  There are also several interpretations about what the formulas mean, but no meaning has been found to be satisfactory, and certainly none of them is intuitive.  A quantum physicist says it doesn’t really matter---the formulas work even if we can’t figure out why.

I agree with those who are into both science and religion.  The science is known and respected and used, but the origination of the laws of nature can be questioned and explained too, and hopefully there is some entity to worship. 

Morality

Does the morality of the science come in?  Of course.  Are you making people happy or aiding in the destruction of people?  Most things that are created do both, in a sliding-scale, from the most loving to the most hating.  And most peoples’ morality is on another sliding-scale, from “denigrating it” to “worshipping it”, with “don’t care” somewhere in between.  Poor Oppenheimer, the creator of the atomic bomb, what a dilemma between science and morality!

Soul Face

How about this?  You could worship the person you are with.  It’s not new, but it does seem to be a logical choice. 

View the person as an imperfect embodiment of a sacred being---the Soul to me.  Try to see how the Soul decided to incarnate this time, the problems, the challenges, the successes. 

Purpose

What is the purpose of the lifetime, or the period in the lifetime?

Could be learning, could be practicing, could be just experiencing---nothing to learn, just to experience having a body with all the adventures along the way.  Could be working off karma.

Who’s karma.  If you are an incarnation only, then it must be the soul’s karma.  A Soul can have karma?  The Soul is supposed to be the “accumulator of experience”.  Of course that is where karma would reside.  It is believed that a “bad” human can delay the payment of their karma until the next lifetime.  That indicates the Soul as being the maintainer of the karma, since that is where the incarnations come from.

Imagine discovering that the sole purpose of your existence is to work off a lot of your Soul’s karma!  We’ve got Scottish SGs on this one, the best slave masters!  Isn’t that the Story of Job?

Spiritual Experience

Let’s change the subject now.

Let’s talk about the spiritual experience itself, the mental state where the world of union is overlaid on the world of separation.

There are plenty of stories from those who have experienced near-death, of entering a world of love and warmness where harmony reigns.  It changes them.  They are no longer afraid of death.  And they swear it was a real experience, not a brain hallucination.

I personally have experienced this world of connections many times using LSD.  Used to do a bit, not a lot by some peoples’ comparisons, and not much anymore.  I could actually see the lines connecting things. 

One of my favorite images during a trip was the feeling of rising above the clouds of my world of separation, actual clouds.  And I felt like my head and shoulders were now above the clouds.  And I looked out, and there I was, same head and shoulders, but a ways away, like different times and places.  My feeling was “Ah, there I am during other trips”, a good feeling.

I wonder if I could transmit lottery numbers to me in the past.  Then I could be like the woman who played the same numbers for years, until she won big.  She knew the right numbers, just not when.

Trips

I am certainly no expert on tripping, but I did do a bunch, maybe 50 my whole lifetime.  Again that isn’t many compared to some other people I have known.  So all I can do is relate what my trips were like.

First of all, I am very cautious.  I used to visit friends in a different city for a weekend and watch them trip, for at least a year.  They didn’t seem to go crazy or get sick, so eventually I agreed to join them.  I remember sitting on the couch wondering what was going to happen, waiting, and then looking at my outstretched hand and seeing 10 fingers wavering on the one hand.  It wasn’t scary, but interesting.  “Here I go”, I thought. 

A deeper trepidation for me was the fear of finding the “bottom” of my brain, to understand everything about my mind.  It turns out that I discovered a depth that went on and on, way beyond what I could imagine.  And not only mental, but physical as well---there was the feeling that my body extended beyond my skin and merged with the energies around me.

Coming on may take an hour, but it is a feeling of power for me.  LSD produces a surging of my mind, an actual power buzz.  And then things begin to dissolve, first my body, then my desires, and finally my mind.  It could have been quite scary, but I knew enough to relax and just go with it.

This is why some people shouldn’t do tripping.  If they can’t relax and just let go, the reaction can be dangerous to them because they may try to fix it---and that is the worst thing one can do while high.  The “rule” is, while high, just observe and if you don’t like something, make a mental note and try to fix it after the trip is over.  That is an important rule which can save a lot of trouble.  Experience with marijuana is important before tripping because it trains in the process of letting go---very different from alcohol.

I think it was a book by Timothy Leary I read.  He was travelling with his dog and rented a room in a hotel in Paris, but he had to sneak the dog into his room because it wasn’t allowed.  While there, he dropped a tab of acid and waited for the trip to begin.  But the dog indicated that it needed some outdoors.  Tim knew he couldn’t get the dog out and back while tripping, so decided to get the dog to go on a newspaper, which it did.  Disposing of the poop was easy in the toilet, but what to do with the newspaper?  If he put it in the trash it could be discovered, not least from its smell.  His story in the book  is much more interesting because he is explaining his whole thought process including the paranoias.  Eventually he decided to just throw the paper out the back window, which he hated to do, but not much choice.  And of course it fluttered open and became looped over a wire directly beneath his window, dirty side exposed.  It is pretty funny, but the point is, don’t try to fix anything while tripping.

To continue, getting “there” at the beginning of a trip involves the dissolution of everything.  It seems that the body merges, so not so important anymore, then I couldn’t remember my name, after that I lost my maleness, then my humanness, and became just pure thought energy.  It is a glorious state of being, not alone, but a part of everything.  It is hard to focus, difficult to do logic.  When with someone else, both of us in this state, and I tried to communicate with them, words were totally inadequate.  The only thing we could say was “Wow!”.

Several trips I remember seeing my brain gone and thinking, “They are going to say that he used to be a programmer.”  A terrifying thought to me, but I just let it go and thought that if that is my future, so be it.  Fortunately, I always got my programming skills back the next day.

What’s also very interesting to me is that with my brain in such an unfocused state, I was still there analyzing what was going on with myself.  Brain gone, but still watching.  Who is that?

After another hour, the process of reconstruction begins, slowly.  I get my logic back, then I become human, then male, then “Chris”.  And the next phase is really interesting.  I start putting personality traits back on, one trait at a time.  That’s when I discovered that I could reject some traits, not needed anymore.  That’s why I called tripping “The Brain Vacuuming”, clearing out useless junk and reintegrating the parts I needed or liked.  It gave me the feeling that this process should be done on a regular basis, at least yearly, to clean out the garbage accumulated in my brain.

One of my good tripping buddies, we would sit on the grass and get beyond the “Wow” phase.  One of the things LSD does is speed up the brain and remove the filters, to the point where I could see “idealets” forming and coming together into an idea which would eventually work its way out into a spoken sentence.  It seemed to take minutes to say something, but actually it is in normal-time seen from the outside.  Anyway, this friend and I would talk about a subject sparsely, then leap to the subject about the subject, and then do it again, getting more and more general with each “leap”.  For example, talking about the French language, then leaping to languages in general, and then the concepts of communication.  We called it “metashifting” and we would love doing it with each other while tripping.  That’s where I got the name for my website, www.metashifting.com. 

I tend to do that a lot, watching human behavior and realizing that it doesn’t have to be like that---there are other possibilities for behavior.  It is one of my failings---I laugh from delight when I see people behaving like a human so easily, and it upsets people because they think I am laughing at them.  I laugh at the wrong times.

Then there are the “bad trips”.  My bad trips come from self-analysis, looking at my failings as a human.  This happens to me on most trips, on the way back up, and it can last for hours during which I wish I could just fall asleep and be done with it.  Usually the trip itself lasts 8 hours, and then another 4 before sleep.  Again, my solution to these bad times is to just watch them and accept them and let them go.

Right after the first sleep comes the “loving stage”.  I wake up and appreciate all the people around me and want to tell them how great they are and how lucky I am to know them.  This is not my normal behavior.  This can last a few hours also.

One time in Florida I was living alone on my sailboat at a dock.  My parents were working on their boat a couple of slips down.  I was in the mood for a trip that evening and dropped a nice tab of acid I had.  So to be further alone I went out into nature next to the marina, which was a bunch of tall weeds down by the water.  Not a good setting, swampy, so I went back to the dock.  Then I got the idea to sail my little Sunfish.  I got into it and sailed out into the middle of the river.  There wasn’t much wind and the water was quite flat.  The amazing thing I remember were the stars in the sky above me and their reflections in the water below me.  It felt like I was in outer space completely surrounded by stars.  It was wonderful! 

After a while I decided to go back to my boat.  I sailed to the dock, climbed up, and proceeded to tie the Sunfish to a piling, but I couldn’t remember how to make a knot.  I was still quite high.  So I just wrapped the painter around the piling several times, which was sufficient for the night.

Passing by my parents’ boat, I got the “brilliant” idea of inviting them to my boat for tea.  They agreed to be over in a while, and I went down.  I looked in the mirror and my face was changing colors and shapes.  I thought that I had made a big mistake---how was I going to get through this while tripping my brain out without them knowing?  I got the water on and the cups and tea bags out, but each thing I did was experienced as a gigantic project with beginnings, middles, ends---analysis, algorithms, dangers---brain going very fast.

I thought of another tripping rule, and that is that from the inside everything appears in slow motion, but from the outside, others see things I am doing in normal time.

They came aboard and were seated.  I poured the tea and we began talking.  This is where I first experienced watching “idealets” form.  It would take me 15 minutes to formulate a simple answer to a question, and they didn’t seem to notice.  So I just played it straight.  Years later I asked if they remembered that night, and did they notice anything strange.  “Yes, and No”. 

After a couple years tripping just for fun or the novelty or the heaviness, I realized that it was deeper than that for me.  Every trip I experienced something of eternity.  So I decided that my new reason for tripping was to contact the universal consciousness.  It always happened in some way, a realization of how connected I was with the universe.  I found that to be very satisfying and rewarding.

Another rule:  “set and setting”.  Mind “set” means getting to a mental/emotional state where I am peaceful.  It is guaranteed that whatever is on my mind when I “come on”, will be expanded and analyzed and made into the total reality, so I try to make it something happy and peaceful.  “Setting” refers to the physical location for the trip, a place where negative events will not impinge---someplace with beauty and ease of use.  I never know ahead of time exactly I am going to want during a trip, so I try to anticipate my wants and needs and set myself up with the best music (Pink Floyd, Grateful Dead, and some Van Morrison) and some easy to eat snacks and drinks. 

Next I like to have 3 days set aside:  the first to set things up and get into a peaceful happy state of mind, some meditation, second to do the trip itself which could take all day or all night depending, and third the come down with extra rest and sleep.

That brings up another aspect of tripping---that it is impossible to remember one state of consciousness when in another state.  Events can be remembered, but not the state of consciousness.  For example, when I am in pain from being sick, and then get well, I can’t remember the pain.  I can remember that I didn’t like it and don’t want to do it again, but not the actual pain itself.  Same with getting high, even with marijuana---while high it is not possible to remember being straight, and vice versa.

I have learned to control the paranoia that goes with these drugs by thinking about what I would think if I was straight.  I can’t experience being straight, but I can logically figure out how my thinking would be if I was.  And surprisingly, that usually works.  It doesn’t get rid of the paranoia, but turns it to an “out-there” instead of an “in-here”.  Paranoia is what turns a lot of people off about getting high.

Hope

Most religions are designed so that if you believe, you will be “saved”.  It may not be this lifetime, but later after death.  This is important for those in misery, to believe in a “heaven” after death. 

Humans have strong imaginations.  I can imagine my own future.  When the future is looking bleak, I can have “hope” that it will all work out alright. 

What is the purpose of hope?  To keep us going.  Otherwise it would be easier sometimes to just give up and die.  But one can always hope that it will get better.

I recently saw a temple in Bali where people were lined up to immerse their heads in a spigot with holy spring water.  They had to dress up first, pray for awhile, then get in line.  It was an involved procedure and then the water was cold.  But it was supposed to be worth it because the “wish” made while getting splashed would surely come true.  I wondered what all those people could be wishing for.  Of course, it is the usual:  money, love, power, enlightenment.

Then I wondered what the difference was between a “wish” and a “hope”.  My conclusion was that a “hope” was within your own belief system, totally possible, but a “wish” could be anything, no matter how unrealistic.

Wilderism says that a wish can come true, if it fits into your life plan, and your SG will make sure of that.  Even if agreed to, it may not be immediately.  But it is a partnership, so it doesn’t hurt to ask.

Fate

The biggest question I have is this:  how much of my life is fate and how much my own free-will?  My belief-system is that the soul lives forever and needs to experience everything a human can experience.  So, it incarnates humans into the world of time and space, thousands of them, all with different personalities and abilities, in different times and places.  There is no “doing it to us”, we are doing it to ourselves. 

Therefore, there are events in each life that are decided on ahead of time.  Those are what I would call “fate” or “destiny”.  In between those few major events, there is a lot of life which can be led using free-will.  What can be achieved during the non-fate times is style.  Our lives are a canvas on which we paint our existence, utilizing our powers to develop a picture of what?  Beauty?  Power?  Love?

Visualizing a life, we could say that the fate-events are like mountain peaks, not open for modification.  But in between are all these valleys and hills where we have the free-will to design our own lives.  But underneath that, there is the need to setup the fate-events.

This is where I believe that Spirit-Guides come in.  They help with all aspects of our lives.  We have some SG which are assigned to us for the entire life and other specialists that come in just when needed.  Since they know our future, they can shepherd us gently to get the abilities which will be needed later on.

But if we don’t like the way things are going, we can modify our lives and our SGs will help with that also.  Of course, they have their own proclivities and styles.  I think of it as a cooperation, my own free-will and style matched with my SGs’ styles and their knowledge of the coming fate-events.   In other words, there are some things I can change and some I can’t. 

The trick is knowing the difference.  I like to think of events in terms of quantum mechanics, where the Schrodinger wave equation stretches to infinity very flat, but has peaks and valleys before and after the main event.  There are hills before the big event that can indicate what is coming, and these can be seen if I am watching for them.  But again, sometimes I don’t like the direction the hills are indicating.  So, I try my free-will, asking my SGs to help me modify the future, and if that works, great.  But other times, it doesn’t work.  That’s “fate”.   In that case I just have to “go with it”, like while tripping.  Not much choice anyway.  Maybe my SGs and I can add some style to the event.

Don’t forget that it is not just about us.  What we do impacts other peoples’ lives also, some directly and some just by hearsay.  Thinking about that, it gets very complicated---begins to look magical.  But it is just the world of union which we don’t normally see.  Those may be some of the “hills” in our lives, the ones necessary to get someone else where they are going.

To me, thinking about my life like that gives it “meaning”.  Will it “save” me?  Maybe not.  But it does give me the belief that it all isn’t just pointless, which makes it easier to handle the negative fate events.

Of course, there are the positive fate-events also.  I try not to avoid them.

Spirit Guide Times

I have recently come to the conclusion that a lot of the urges which our SGs give us, are designed so that we do what the SG knows we will do in the future.

I like the Woody Allen movie “Midnight in Paris”.  Our hero, Gil, goes to the past and meets many famous people, one of whom is Luis Bunuel.  He is famous for the film, which doesn’t exist at the time, “The Exterminating Angel” about a dinner party where no one can leave.  Gil tells him that he should consider writing a movie about a dinner party where no one can leave.  Luis asks, “Why can’t they leave?”  Answer: “They just can’t”.  In the Woody Allen movie, it didn’t make sense to Luis at the time, but later on he did write “The Exterminating Angel”.

Paul McCartney claimed that his songs came from his dreams.  In his movie, “Get Back”, about the Beatles developing the songs, he starts with a vague notion of the song and then you can hear them enhance it into the great music we know, it evolves over the space of hours or days.  As the creator of that song, he knows somehow what is right and what is wrong, and with the aid of his partners, makes it happen.  Did his SG know the final product and urge its creation and then supply the “rights and wrongs”?

Do SGs only urge creations which are notable?  Or is every major event in a person’s life, somehow important?  What about negative events like a murder?  Urged?  Or a mistake?

An interesting philosophical question.  It is described beautifully in a scene in the movie “The Witches of Eastwick”.  As Daryl, the devil, is being attacked by the witches, he asks the church congregation, “God isn’t perfect, everybody makes mistakes.  But women!  Did God do it to us on purpose?  Or is it a mistake?  Because if it is a mistake, maybe we can invent a vaccine.”

I am sure women have the same thoughts about men.