Theos-Talk Archives (August 2001 Message tt00092)

At 09:55 AM 8/9/01 -0400, you wrote:

> I am currently studying The Voice of Silence and I am puzzled.
> Please give my your thoughts on verses 14-16.
>
> My confusion lies in this, I live in a world of created illusion,
> yet should I not be joyful that I have this physical life to
> learn about the portion of truth that my mind can understand.
I would say that the world is real. Illusion comes from
misperception, from seeing things falsely. Reality comes when we
know things for what they are, seeing them freshly, in the moment,
rather than judging them in advance and surrounding ourselves with
those prejudices.

Life can be joyous. Pleasure and pain come at different times, but
we don't have to suffer and add mental misery to our unpleasant
experiences. We can operate from a inner center of peace, with a
calm enjoyment of life, as the wind blows this way and that, as
external life cycles through happy and sad times, through gain and
loss, through success and failure in life.

We escape the illusion when we give up forcing, in our minds, the
world to look a particular way, according to what we've already
decided that it should be like.

Reality is not achieved should we acquire rebirth on a higher
plane, in some higher sphere where things are loftier, more
spiritual, more holy. It's achieved in the clearness of our vision
of life, in our openness to things. We can be as deluded on other
planes as on this one. The delusion comes from how we incorrectly
experience life, not from where we happen to live.

> Also, to truely form a Brotherhood, must we not lend an ear to
> her turmoil? How can we understand the nature of others, if we do
> not hear her joys and sorrows? We should not get pulled in.
> Shouldn't an aspirant learn of whom one day he hopes to help?
Our goal is to dispel the cloud of selfishness and to live
openly, freely expressing the divine life within us. We each learn
to be a light to others in the world. We're also responsible, as
in the process of self-discovery, to cultivate those activities in
life that we do the best. We discover our unique ways to make a
contribution to the All.

Understanding other people and working to help them, as friend,
priest, social worker, musician, cook, shoe maker, etc., we can do
one kind of work. Not everyone is going to be an ultimate guru to
people working to awaken them. No path in life is greater than
another. The value of a path is measured in the sense of
genuineness, the sense of living true to one's inner nature, one's
spiritual heart.

> Finally, When spreading oneself in space so that the bodies
> become the moving molecules of space, for now, in my
> comprehension, is this not just a step on Who I am? It is not
> Truth, yet for now, it is a step in my education and all that I
> know? Of course one would seek to go beyond this point, yet, for
> now "This is I."
There are different modes to consciousness. In a particular mode,
life appears to work a certain way. In one mode, we have a
distinct personal self, and learn its boundaries, and tend to its
needs. In another mode, we've lost ourselves in the thing that we
do, and have forgotten ourselves. In the highest mode, we've lost
all notion of the particular situation, and operate with a feeling
of universality and timelessness. All the modes are true and real
and happening at the same time. We pick which one we will
experience at any moment. In the West, we're stuck mostly in the
first mode, and so need training in the other two. That's why they
are stressed as "higher". But no mode is really higher that the
others, and we should ideally be free to shift from one to another
mode at will.

-- Eldon Tucker