Step 2: Separating into Unity

Never mind the staircase, just mind the stairs. - Martin Luther

Have you heard the one about the centipede that knows not which foot goes first and so never goes anywhere?  Don't let the staircase intimidate you and don't be that centipede. We have much ground to cover in order to uncover the Conditioned State that keeps Meaning inexplicably entwined with Reason, amongst other things.

The blistering state of Conditioning affected all who came in contact with it, though it no longer actually exists. Like a dead star that nonetheless lights up in our sky, evidence that it once existed can still be seen far and wide, still guide us even, for its sticky residues have over-populated the mind. But already you have gleaned that it is possible to understand more than you have seen. In the words of S.N. Goenka, carrier of the Vipassana tradition, “if the roots of conditioning themselves can be removed from the mind, there will be no danger of indulgence in unwholesome actions, no necessity of self-repression, because the very impulse (reason) for performing these will be gone.”  Now the thing is, being Human is a condition.  So we best undertake a good understanding of Conditions.  Having a mind, is however not confined to being human.

To start simply, we can accept and love someone or something unconditionally in saying, “I don’t want to meet you in the conditioned state.” And so we say this to you. For one can only really see a thing as it is when they have stepped out of the Conditioned State, even for a moment. And where you step out into is called the Good.

There is a Sundance Teaching, It is All Good. This is very different from the new-age twisted version. The Sundance Teaching conveys, do good and good will come, but in the Good, you have no choice (control) over the results, only the action. The saboteur on the other hand is completely invested in taking over the action and cares not about the results or consequences, never allowing itself to be liable. A prime technique of the saboteur is to draw upon Fear mixed up with the past, in which it can only bring chaos whereas in its spiritual state, Fear is aligned with order and the present moment, which is eternal.

So no kidding the centipede doesn’t know where to begin to move out of the Conditioned State. As it is, even Time will not be of service here. Not even the mere repetition of “practices”. Yes, one must do the work but too one can never know when enlightenment will wash it all clean. And in this absence of control does the Unconditional stretch itself out, its flexibility improved with Compassion between us, regardless of the result. We have all been taken in by the Conditioned State at some level. At first the language in this ritual education feels awkward or offensive, and this is good for the awkward and offensive are two key movers and shakers out of the Conditional. But the more you stay with it, the more fluent the movements becomes. And it is best if one snaps out of Conditioning on ones own.

Already you may be aware that the experience of the these readings is as equally substantive as the content, perhaps even greater for in the experience you are accessing what is not only behind the words, but what is behind your behaviours. One participant stated after reading thus far, “Its almost as if you are talking to different parts of me and trying to keep them all engaged at the same time.” A’han.

Already we have applied several subtle practical uses of the Art of Differentiation. Those who have not yet come to this good Art of spiritual midwifery into Diversity are said to have one foot on the gas and one on the brake, one on unity and one independence, and wonder why they never get anywhere except the overloaded, isolating state of Confusion. Most often a result of your unconscious words uttered storm-trooping back at you, Confusion fills the brain with a gooey, gummy substance that can form into calcified plaque called beta amyloid protein, in later years showing up as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or at any age, as night terrors, panic and anxiety - the overexcited tensions come of overthinking that thrive in the conditioned mind in which Fear is reduced to being psychological. The dark art of Overthinking centres on the constant demand to experience the same psychological state over and again, regardless of how miserable, which can seduce one deeper into the arms of Overload, which uses Trauma and its storehouse of misunderstanding for fortification. Overthinking is also referred to as a negative thought loop, not because the content of the thoughts is necessarily “negative” but because you are trapped in their inexhaustible competition for a reigning place in Consciousness. It is the nature of the phenomena that is Thought to constantly vie for superiority over other thoughts, using the “thinker” as slave.

It is possible to experience this truth subtly, without calling upon the gross of Overload, through Conscious word use. This is not to select specific words necessarily but to listen closely to what you are saying rather than expecting others to do so. Here Confusion finds a good place, setting like clear glue to highlight the difference between what you really see and what you have been told was possible and permissible to see. In this way, Confusion can actually be preventative medicine for relapse into Conditioning. Used cautiously Confusion can also insulate one from the Terror of being overloaded by the Unknown, of being "too much".

The "multiple" personality has been around since the beginning of time and is highly regarded by indigenous peoples, particularly those that have managed to stay outside of the Conditioned State. What might be termed schizophrenia is the wearing of ones intellectual diversity on the outside, which can be perceived by society as madness. In many cultures a shaman or master is one who has gone through great madness. Two words in english that share the same etymology of “to be out of place; inclined to depart from, out of one's senses, causing mental derangement,” are Existence and Ecstasy.

Two, more common words, that have arisen from within the Conditioned State, that reflect being out of place are Depression and Mania, experienced mildly or in full-blown psychosis, are symptoms of our exasperation with seclusion and enslavement that has one dig too deeply into either Soul or Ego as possible escape routes from Conditioning. Simply put, Mania is too much Soul and Depression too much Ego. These imbalances are having a highly negative influence on our true Adolescents compounded with the fact that the masses of over-aged adolescents makes reaching Adulthood appear hopeless. Under such torment one actually learns to live in the dark of the Unconscious without ability to see, hear or communicate with what is really there and so Confusion, having nothing to work with, gives way to ignoring What Is completely and rely solely on the material of an uncommunicable Unconscious. Confusion then turns to Ignorance which generates reactions of craving and aversion as silent, desperate cries from the dark, which develop into attachment which leads to all types unhappiness. Is this clear?

Another dark call of ignorance is note by Kurt Vonnegut in his novel in Cat’s Cradle, in which it is noted that in the string game of same name, there is no cat and no cradle. He then goes on to make this point within the imaginary landscape of the writer: “"Beware the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way."

Here now, we can speak of Meaning not as a thing that can exist on its own in the form of words but that which exists within all phenomena. And one can experience the uniqueness and vividness of this very ordinary Meaning in all things by following the Middle Path or Red Road, two of the direct ways out of the Conditioned State that offer not escape, for there is none, but demand one looks right at it. The teachings will be given upon this Course yet the distance you travel depends on how well you understand what is being pointed to, not if it has been “learned”. You learned all kinds of things in school but retained perhaps 5% of it. Not because you may have deemed it useless, but as a part of Conditioning itself you learned to purge what you learned for the sake of a good grade, parental acceptance, or other desired result which could also include failure/rebellion. As such, learning has become a hungry ghost. It is not surprising then that your lessons must come over and again. Teachings are not lessons; teachings must be fully absorbed by your Understanding, which has yet to be developed to do so. And in exercising and expanding your bandwidth of Understanding in this ritual education comes the multi-world communication of Transmission, inspired by the quest for Truth, which like meaning, exists in everything.

When one tugs on the thread of truth all loose ends unravel.

As the ends unravel is the smorgasbord of Truth unfurls right before your eyes upon the table of your Enlightenment, for better or for worse. One can never possibly expect what will come of Truth, nor know where its thread might lead yet it may become clear that your purpose as a human, at this stage, is to build your Enlightenment, to capitalize on the human experience itself as opportunity to discover that you are the Divine eternal principle, commonly referred to as healing or as I like to say, heeling to your Self, a primary step. Part of the process of Healing, or heeling, is to touch with love what was previously only touched by fear.

Let us wiggle a leg free now with the help of Differentiation, the preparatory stage of the Alchemical process of Separation that separates the gross from the subtle, necessary to dislodge one stuck in the self-conscious West and its distorted versions of truth and enlightenment, eternity, manifestation and abundance, living your truth, being authentic and even what thinking is. Many such “big” words have been misappropriated in the new-age language of the old regime, often spoken with a dogmatic passive aggression necessary where one is frightened of what such words might truly represent. Unconscious use can buffer the great power they possess that is beyond your current ability to comprehend yet that buffer can keep one stuck in the bandwidth limited to the 5% spectrum of the light of consciousness, known relatively as the “dark”.

Let us now expand upon the phrase, Live my Truth. On its own it sounds good but what is one to really make of it? Much pain and misunderstanding can come of one applying their own truth before fully understanding it themselves. There is no “key” in this phrase and so I suggest seeing it this way: using our pal punctuation, insert a comma and make your own commandment: “Live, my Truth”. Here we are commanding Truth to come to the forefront to guide us to our inner guides: the Witness, the Dharma, the Buddha within. Then sit back as it happens, doing nothing yet taking your daily bread, the Rest that our ancestors have gifted us for getting out of our own way, and in doing so, the straightening begins to give end to our struggle with What Is. Indeed, this daily bread is the vigilance required to squeeze Consciousness out of the constricted brain. As said, this Changing of Mind is not to guide you to yet another platform for the ego to conquer. With the fluid tensions of these readings, eventually the Mind will return to its natural Emptiness, and your dormant sense of Nothingness come back into the full spectrum of your Precious Sensitivity.

One way to see this process is the “back end”, that invisible not-doing which runs the computer, trading places with the “front end”, the doing which appears on the screen. Eventually upon this course, we will clear the screen that you may experience the Tabula Rasa. But your nervous system is not ready for that just yet and we wouldn’t want to fry the current circuitry for it has gotten you thus far.

Whatever happens has already happened; it could not be happening any other way. And in this lives Happiness. Perhaps you have noticed here the happenstance play of happen and happiness. Both contain an experience that can never be anything other than what it is. For instance, we perceive that Life is flowing around us but the truth is we are Life flowing and each movement moves or “influences” every cell and quark in the Universe, most notable in the Butterfly effect, the simultaneously expanding and contracting of Paradoxical Unity inherent in what we call Nature - the one word the English language can never communicate, consciously or unconsciously.

Entrained with Nature - that which happens by itself, spontaneously - the heart is highly disciplined in this simultaneous rhythm. And so comes the teaching follow your heart, not as recommendation or advice but as one of the Laws of Existence. The heart pumps blood in and out as for fresh, oxygenated information from Nature to continuously come into the flow of Consciousness as Intelligence. And as we share the breathe will all of Life, this Intelligence is not limited to the human experience. Indeed, accessing Pure Intelligence is the “off ramp” to feeling trapped in the human experience, of which death is a part.

Nested in the Heart, Intelligence differentiates itself from Intellect. The unhurried Intelligence can watch thoughts with no judgement, that is to say, not get caught or stuck in their competitions for supremacy in Consciousness, which is actually futile for Consciousness is in constant motion. Intellect is a combination of the physical and mental still in the grips of Reason and ever impatient to rush ahead, the result of which is that one may often feel “beside oneself”, out of Right Place. Yet with Intellect you will indeed come to know that you can learn without making mistakes. You can then come to know without learning or mistakes, and eventually realize who you are without knowing anything at all, all filtered through the watershed sense of Understanding. Reason too is useful yet leaned on too heavily taxes the sense of Thinking as for Logic to take over, which leads to heart disease. Rather than rely heavily or be dependent on a faculty, one must exercise all their faculties regularly, cultivating each to be called upon in Right Use. Or as the saying goes, not putting all your eggs in one basket.

One such greatly overlooked faculty is Imagination. In the self-conscious adolescent Imagination can fly no further than it’s last experience. The conscious task of Imagination is to read Nature, its symbolic language saying, “everything is as it is and can be”, sure that everything in the Universe is completely right and so no reason for explanation or justification beyond what it simply is. The symbols of nature, all of them, convey, in one form or another, the wholeness of the spirit. This is also the nature of true Ecstasy – that all is perfect, good and right, just as it is. Which will certainly put ego “out of place”.

Where knowledge must meet with experience to fertilize itself must understanding meet with feelings to produce heart-field “knowing”. This Knowing is a two-way communication that reestablishes the lines of Language between peoples – that is plants, animals, humans and all life forms including the inanimate. This universal language combines and compares your living (actual) experience of the thing and the initial description you have of it. Any differences in the two fields of perception are then separated out and any discrepancies focused upon until the error is perceived and corrected as for Pure Insight to occur. These insights will not be lost and need not be held in the brain for they are naturally encoded and released as needed by the need-to-know system that improves your ability to perceive with the Heart and so move towards complete understanding with what you are in relation with. This complete understanding is known as Seeing, standing by as phenomena shows itself in its own light, which has little to do with the eyes, or with memory, and involves neither thinking or feeling for in Seeing, the perceiver and perceived are one, Self and World as one. Here it is quite impossible for a person not to acknowledge the world we live in as relative to us. All My Relations.

Already we are aware that all “matter” is our psychic landscape. Whether you can comprehend this yet or not is another thing. Here one might trip on Egological Awareness - that we can not be truly Aware of our environment, nor adequately care for it, without fully Understanding what you are the world is. It may at times seem better to get rid of the habits that got us into trouble rather than stew in them. But spirituality is not about escape, it is the stuff of transformation. Alchemists always taught that the material at hand should be returned again and again to the glass vessel for further processing. All bits of life should be “iterated” the complicated journey of refinement, which may at times feel like going through hell in a hand basket.

Indeed Truth may well give your life a good shaking up for in Truth everything is how we relate to it. This is how the maharishis of India could take 64 hits of LSD without harm, also referred to as being in Right Relation. Even the statement “we are all connected” acknowledges that you are connected, related, to the loudmouth next door, to the one who cut in front of you on the highway, to the one who mercilessly dumped you last week, to the Tree, the wind, the stone, the winged ones, the four-leggeds, all of whom once spoke the same language before we broke the Sacred Agreement. So does the Spirit behind these words give you a good going over, purifying the stagnant water of old beliefs based in false knowledge that you did not even realize you were swimming, or sinking, in; perhaps now becoming as waves crashing upon the rocky shores of your Identity, that which is identified with the conditioned mind, as to reshape it to resemble that of the Divine. What is familiar is comfortable, yet some of these comforts too begin to float away as Unity wrestles that which is inappropriate for growing to the ground. To shelter the nakedness come of Unity, we have been given Connectivity, which can be felt as your favourite blanket, yet woven of all that is different. And given to us, we must take care of it

It is said that if the trees were not rooted, they would fall upwards into the Void.

Working at a Lighthouse station on the West Coast of B.C., I came upon a small stone with a perfect little circle in it, made by the great tumultuous ocean. It looked like an ancient face and I put it in my pocket. One the same day my eyes rested upon a variety of trees growing up out of the roots of a large upturned Fir, as though the living trees were no different from the roots of the fallen one, which when overturned, look rather like stars.

It is said that we are born of Spirit into a 3D world to heal ourselves of misperception, misconception, misinformation and all other distortions of the “misses” before returning to the pure Source of Divine Power. And this is completed via the human experience. Believe it or not, to Know Thy Self is a preliminary step and if one does not do so willingly, they will be forced by a loving Universe to come into direct contact with Consciousness through the Personality, which is the culmination of how we learned to love conditionally. Conditional love is based in Control and Conditions fed by old knowledge calcified rather than transformed. People who want power will always try to control those who truly possess it, a subtle form of Conquest that predominates one who does not shed old knowledge/conditions collected, give them to the glass vessel for further iteration. We say “further” for all knowledge has already gone through iteration. And who are you to stop the buck?

The first diagnostic signs of shedding old knowledge are feelings of Shame, Injustice, Anger, Guilt and even Jealousy, the lowest frequencies on the scalar of Consciousness. When one is tired of being ashamed, they become cynical, the second phase of shedding. But it is not acceptable to be cynical so it is often sunk into hopelessness. But the brave will look at the Cynic rather than take cover in hopelessness. So even before this, when you see yourself being cynical, it is time to look at what you are shedding along your path. Just as you shed your skin, do you shed what is in your heart and mind, leaving a path of destruction or growth wherever you go, and in doing so, creating your own reality.  Yet this shedding of conditions is essential to love ones self unconditionally, that is, free of the Conditioned State that tells us contradiction is not ok. And yet we are walking contradictions.

World is Sacred Mirror, that “hidden truth” inside that you are seeking shown to you outside, As Is, in accordance with the Law of Existence, and it's not taking a backseat anymore. Our psychic landscape is presented to us as our environment. And certainly this have one feel bummed out. An Earth Bundle is a formative expression of Soul. This is the ritual of filling a piece of cloth with items that you are attached to, jewelry for instance, a cool rock you found on the beach. A ceremonial item. A coin. We bundle all these things of Beauty together and bury them in the Mother Earth. The prayer that accompanies the bundle is one for forgiveness for the forgetting. The bundle and its contents is also to remind the Mother Earth of her Beauty, which as her children can get rather down about life sometimes, the Mother too can feel this and forget her Beauty, the beautiful world she has given us to suffer in. Surely you have read Orwellian type books and seen movies where there is only suffering. And so it is important to remind the Mother of her Beauty, with these earth bundles.

These words from Kahlil Gibran make good accompaniment for the Mother to accept the offering:

Beauty is life when life unveils
her holy face.
But you are life and you are the veil.
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in the mirror.
But you are eternity
and you are the mirror.

Do not be concerned that the items are not compostable. The offering is also a reminder that all things come of the Earth, and to her they shall return. She will know what to make of them. I will go so far as to say that the Mother, who has tended to all our physical and emotional needs, is passing us on to the Father for our development as spiritually intelligent mental beings who understand that we create and are responsible for our own creations. The bundles are also an act of Gratitude for her generosity. And still, we are not separate from the Mother or the Father, just as they are inseparable.

The Father sends rain to the Mother
which heals her
And the Mother grows green and the rivers flow
which heals the Father

A Rite of Passage, a shift that always involves some level of difficulty, acknowledges this passing over. Indeed, the initiation into Adulthood requires such a shift of ones “poles” as to see both ways, to step out of the calcifying stream of Duality, in which metaphor and in particular, paradox, lay themselves as stepping stones into Connectivity. These stones can be rather slippery and Connectivity will lead you down paths with strange smells, and like mouse following raccoon, there are many times you will want to turn back. But too you have a feeling you are not the first to come this way, this way that shows you that within the human experience, the psychological is inseparably linked to the spiritual and the spiritual inseparably linked to suffering.

A common occurrence at this stage is Comparison, which if not used rightly can lead to Depression. Paranoia and a feeling of doom may follow. These are natural responses to shedding old knowledge, or one may simply feel as awkward as sun-burn or ill-fitting underwear - yet be not absorbed by how awkward or difficult such a “shift” might feel for it is not merely a trading places yet Awareness that if there is this, there is that. And that if there are two opposites, then the “one” must also be near. In Sanskrit this “one” is expressed as Tathata, the true, concrete essence or nature of things before ideas or words about them, referred to also as “suchness” or more commonly, meaning.

When we give ourselves to the world, the act of true selfless-service, things naturally happen. If we don’t, things stay the same. The Illusion of self (presented with a lower case implies self as ego/identified with the content of mind as if it that were truth) as separate from the world comes of the self-conscious adolescent. As this stage falls away, lets go, all that is left is what we are creating. This is for why many fear letting go of their youth. Yet and still, in the over-aged adolescent, whatever criticism or judgment you are handing out to others, you are handing to your little self, and it does not like this one bit. So really one is antagonizing ones self. Once you get this - really get it – is to give the mind generated (conditioned) theatrics heaped on Creation a well deserved rest. Even God took a break.

The child must simply come to be an adult like a tadpole becomes a frog, sliding from one to the other not without significant transformation. Transforming events are vehicles in which Change moves about. In avoidance of Change one may turn toward Inertia, to bask in the shade between the rock and the hard place. Inertia can only be shifted by Unbalance, according to Newton’s First Law of Motion in the Conditioned State. Or, following mastery of the Arts, one might simply lean into Discomfort as to see that a rock and a hard place are in actual fact different things and to suffer the complications of thinking otherwise, optional. Now, if one can allow these things to be differentiated, without comparing them, there is no problem. For most problems come of comparing. We will speak more of Problems in the next step. Let us stay with Discomfort for now.

Discomfort is medicine and a profound teaching if we neither resist nor persist in it. Simply be in the still-point of any experience for as long as that still-point lasts. What is the still-point? It is the place of Choiceless Awareness. Here non-resistance doesn’t imply that you avoid standing up for yourself, or that you remove healthy boundaries and put up with self-abuse. It’s about letting go of any resistance to the internal friction that often comes with Change while maintaining pure Patience toward the thought injections of the commentary, the exhausting narrative of the little mind babbling the same old story in a myriad of ways that distracts you from feeling the Love that lives inside you. Patience, which can only do one thing at a time and so excels in non-judgement and non-attachment, can persevere the deluge until finally, even if you do not know what love is, it can nonetheless pervade the mature Heart and Mind with the equilibrium of Gratitude and Generosity. When this is strong, we rise in love. When this is weak, we fall in love, scraping our knees and even our hearts and very soul.

Doing the Right Thing, or even acting appropriately can seem somewhat dogmatic to the little ego, a challenge even. A better word choice perhaps would be healthy, which infers connection with family, meaningful ways of contributing. This model of health also allows Spirit to work without influence of external suggestion or internal conditioning that may result in an embarrassing exhibition of your mechanical/reactive behaviors. What can make Spirit harshly sharp is stuck Beliefs. When Spirit encounters a belief, the more we hang onto it the more frustrated Spirit gets. And make no doubt about it, spiritual anger is potent, and powerful when working with Mara. Some folks think that all spiritual people are calm and reposed. They haven’t heard the one about the master that tossed his disciple out a 3rd story window for asking what to mediate on. Then jumped out after him, landing right on his chest yelling, “now do you know!?”.

Responsibility and Sacrifice may sound like big, scary words to the little ego as well but when we “sound them out”, listening allegorically with our Understanding and lean into their Knowledge banks, they become approachable, comfortable even, and so easier to access the Truth they bear from our Souls. For instance, Sacrifice is the act of exchange made in the realm of matter that propels the ancestral luminous body to and from the other worlds. One might say that Sacrifice is the public transit system of the luminous. And Responsibility, well this is simply the ability to respond. Now, what of Innocence and Stealth? Do you understand them? What is your relationship with them as you lean in?

Relationship is another word to be teased out of the dreaded (like hair) Conditioned State as a thing of its own right - the fruit filled with the energy or sequence of qualities of Divine Living Essence - which loosely responds to the sound Her. We have said that to be truly Selfish is to act in the world without needing the fruits of it, where the perceived and perceiver rest in not wanting anything from the other, other than what is already happening, also known as Entrainment. Here we expand your Understanding into this fruit, Relationship itself, which cannot be touched, seen or held yet ever present. And no one person can speak for it yet I will give it shot in relating Knowledge to Guidance in these recordings:

Knowledge and Guidance in two parts...

Ok. No doubt your eyes have dangled over the feast spread out upon the table of Enlightenment and perhaps the brain is experiencing virtual Vertigo, a form of Discomfort where the mind wants to fall for itself. You may feel uncomfortably intoxicated with the Abundance of the Spirit World, which will have you reach for an addiction, or at the least burp or fart, which is a sign that the Ancestors are tickled, having a gas even, with your progress in Process. Progress itself comes tumbling down when laughter overtakes dogma. Such is the importance of restoring fully your Sense of Humour from simply keeping you in a perceived position of authority to seeing how ridiculous is the question: which came first, the chicken or the egg? For of course chicken is one eggs way of becoming others, just as an oak is an acorns way of becoming other acorns. So where is the point of superiority in this?

Let us again return to the Art of Differentiation, concerned not only with separating for the sake of wholeness and the shift necessary for initiation but also fostering the weathered “crack” in the fragile luster of consensual reality that allows one to see the multifarious nature of Unity - the unsolvable mysterious truth buried in layer after layer of meaning. Now then, what if you could take it all in, meaninglessly expanding your bandwidth to let the flow of Consciousness show you What Is? What if you could unplug the projector and easily adapt to any given moment as it is like you did as a Child, receiving the unexpected gifts drop by drop, digesting and metabolizing the micro-nutrients in every morsel and poop the rest out? One might say you would be well versed in Diversity, the chef of the ever-changing smorgasbord that ensures that when you go back for more of the same, you come upon Different…just enough to extend the belt of your Understanding another notch.

As familiar parts of you unravel in response to Truth calling, notice that a River is neither straight nor spiral, not unlike the writing in this course. Just keep staying tight with your host and guide (which are two different things) as to no longer be interested in the petty pursuit of hand-me-down meaning yet the renewable power that comes from creating it for yourself. Now, by creating we mean to take from everything the inherent meaning in it, not that which you attribute to it. For that is actually destructive. Watch with wonder as the great and small pieces of your world, and those of others, float by as all things must be separated to come into wholeness. This process may bring about a feeling of being scattered or abandoned yet with right use of Patience, said to be the back door to the Garden, one can see all things more clearly, and so bless all on their Way.

As that which is done with you parts from your company it is not uncommon to catch a cold, flu or anything that has gone viral at the same time as things fall away. Too when that which has been lost returns in your Recollection, it might feel weird - a middle-english distortion of the word Wizard and referring to magic. For this “returning” may be something from your ancestral line, somewhat foreign to you. For instance, I was recently called a right-wing racist for apparently liking posts that questioned the Black Lives Matter posts. I was bewildered by this, more than it seemed relative to my own life. But after reading this step again, which I do at least once a year, the whole course in fact, this paragraph reminded me, helped me realize, it was an ancestral shedding. And I would just have to ride it out, not take it too personally. So the Hopi say, “Prepare for the worst and expect the best.”

The Hopi Prophecy is a call to take good care of what we have been given. Of itself, it is a harvest of the spirit behind the word gathered by over 100 elders in territory that extends beyond time and space, tells us the River is flowing very fast now. The River will not cease flowing by applying ignorance, nor by trying to figure it out and most certainly not by trying to steer it. In connecting with the Jumping Mouse story you hear that keeping the roar of The River at the back of your head will lead you back to the People. When you hear the roar ahead of you, you are heading to the River. This is how one can differentiate if one is coming or going as one changes ones mind hundreds of times a day; one moment a sunny yes, then a shadow of doubt and a cloud of no floats by - flouncy petals of a daisy plucked. In Truth, Yes and No are a fickle bunch and so best used by Conviction to harness the tension that is created from their apparent differences as the most simplistically potent alchemical transformer; a daisy chain circling your head, though you thought it was eagles trying to catch you, or a noose. In fact, tension harnessed is the main tool used by the Shaman. This tension can also be noted in these words:

Your Life is a gift from the Creator, Pacha.
Your Gift Back to the Pacha, Creator
is what you do with your Life.

Once knowledge slips away Self–Love can dedicate itself to helping you accept responsibility for the choices you feel you have made. Even where you feel that there was no choice, you chose to feel that. It is this Self-Love that leads to the open-heartedness that allows us to pick up transmissions from Unity, the “higher” or “over-mind”, though Carl Jung termed this hub of human consciousness as the bottom below the bottom.

Hearsay is when you are told something but cannot prove it is True yet pass it along anyway. This trait of the monkey mind can be teased out by what Socrates called one of the 3 filters necessary for speaking truthfully; that if one cannot prove it is true, it should not be spoken. If one lived in a truly Socratic society, there would be very little to say, or write. When new information comes to you and you can understand it in a realistic and logical way, as by experience, then you can to some extent “prove” it is True. But be clear that this Logic must be paired with direct Experience, as to keep Logic in its tonic rather than toxic state. At first Little Mouse sought proof, and then met Old Mouse, who “shared a meal” of Conviction with him. But the Conviction of old Mouse was not Absolute Truth, for it is based in his direct experience and capacity for understanding. There is yet a deeper level of True Knowledge that comes with understanding the Laws of Existence, not simply your personal experiences and hearsay. And this Truth is what Little Mouse pushed himself on to discover.

With Conviction on board, Confusion becomes less prominent yet not unheard of so that although things are clearly demarcated, they may seem blurry at times. When Confusion does come into the Red Road it is noted as an indicator, a “diagnosis” that the Soul is in transition, which can throw the Spirit, Body and Mind temporarily out of alignment, an occurrence not unlike jet-lag yet may show up as Panic or Melancholy. Again, simply by taking in the gifts of Rest and Reflection that the West bestows upon the Adult, and simply observing what is happening, it changes, giving Time a chance to catch up with being not as we have known it. In Qi Gong this lag-time is known as Wu Wei, doing-not-doing or the still-point in which a new seed may germinate. And the right conditions for the seed to do so is Complexity, the basis of Village life.

From the Place of Adult on The Medicine Wheel your ability to respond will be “heightened” to the point of realizing there is very little to respond to once the gross is separated, differentiated, from the subtle into Unity; and so too, the ability to differentiate a real threat from an imagined one, something that the conditioned psychological fear is currently incapable of. In doing so, Response is enabled as the common language of the biological, emotional, mental and spiritual faculties. It will also take some effort on your part to learn to give the Dramas of life a rest for in doing so, Karma too settles down. And this is of utmost importance for where there is Drama, there is Trauma, and this we do not wish to pass along with our “doing”.

This is a great relief to an adrenal system that has been on low-level fight or flight for an extended period, keeping the adrenals pumping out vivid reproductions of trauma, experienced in some as PTSD, OCD, ADD or other such acronymic mimics of what is happening on the inside that cannot be differentiated from the outside as to be seen as one. Once the Art of Differentiation is mastered, the adrenal gland may become as expendable as the appendix. As written in An Inklings Weave:

“Differentiate used as a Command prepares the initiate for the absorption and integration of the immaculate meaning from the conceptual reality. Acting like the call of the conch does Differentiate instantly stave off the tornados of Confusion when one has had enough of the swells of this ancient magician. And so stilled is the initiate given access to the reality they have created. Yet is it the Good nature of Survival as a fitting that the appointment be rescheduled if the Mother detects that the initiated is not sufficiently prepared for the shift. A pregnant horse will so lovingly end conception if she differentiates that the pregnancy will not result in a healthy new Life, overwhelming, reabsorbing the developing fetus as Her Own for Better Luck next Time.”

At this time it is more practical to take a boat than walk. Picture this: You are on a boat in The River with a bow and no paddles. The glare of the sun is blinding but the bow cuts through the water, which is clear in some places and murky in others. The bow knows not where it is going. Its job is simply to go Through. You see the porpoises leaping just ahead of the bow. What is it they are following? Are you being led? Are you leading? How can you know?

Every act of that comes from Purpose is supported by Nature
and has the potential to change things in ways you didn’t have the wisdom to dream of

As you sit in the bow, a bright spark appears. You wonder, is it or isn’t it? You know not what it is and so speak out loud, “differentiate”. And like the bow cutting through the water all duality flows back into the Ocean as to expose that one juicy morsel of Meaning with your name on it. Then, as you remain still, Enlightenment burns off that which is not you, that which cannot differentiate Reality (5D) from Illusion (3D), and in doing so, makes space for the world-feeding inner life. Be clear that the 5th dimension and even those up to the 11th, are inside of you, not some astral places yet fairly incomprehensible to the mind. And so we have said, accommodate the incomprehensible. Now, believe it or not, this is the task of Believe. Already much has been said about “letting go of beliefs that no longer serve you.” This is not to say let go of Believe. Just as you must dump old knowledge, you must dump old beliefs. Yet Knowledge and Believe have there place in Consciousness, and when functioning in Consciousness, rather than the limitation of the egoic function, are fluid.

Enlightenment, essentially a destructive process, does this removal of the old in what is known as “Real Time”, which takes perhaps a second and useful for heeling to addiction, which is based in and controlled by old memories. Addiction is in fact an old memory of taking something for relief repeating itself and so one must stay tight with it, heel to it, as for the end to unravel. Seeing how addiction to tobacco, alcohol, food, Advil or the myriad of mental habits has developed of an immature sense of Reason is your first step sun-wise to relieve (rather than relive) the burden of carrying a truckload of memories, conditions, up the mountain. We understand that stepping out of Addiction is difficult for you and so Spirit will always meet you halfway. For in this way, Cooperation, the only thing that will save humanity, may flourish upon earth.

Ok. Back on land with your own two feet we carry onward and upward. When one makes a traditional Vision Quest, we sit in a small circle of prayer ties, getting comfortable in a reality of our making for the duration as we fast and pray, for while prayer can take you halfway there, fasting takes us the other half. That circle invisibly expands, creating a wormhole of sorts, as for the Spirits above and below to have a good whiff of you to determine what you need. For the Spirit World has no use for what you want but highly adept at delivering what you need. In taking this Course, this Quantum Vision Quest into the Spirit World, although you are sitting in front of a computer, you are indeed being read, or sniffed, by the Spirits, who have no concern for privacy settings. Here, what is “really happening” is in a time signature or gestalt that may not be aligned to the 3D world. Like visiting Mars for a day would be equivalent to 30 days on Earth, or something like that, you may not “see” any change at times, but it is there, and will come for you, all in Good Time. In the words of Alan Watts:

You are under no obligation to be the same person you were 5 minutes ago.

Differentiation flourishes in the mystery of how on earth everything can be Different yet the Same. This is not a question, it is an inquiry, a Koan of the Great Mystery that comes to its own end as to unravel the teaching that all men come from Woman, and Woman, who was created first, comes from Inyan, the single fluid force come of the darkness that created all things as uniquely equal. In the Laws of Existence, in the teachings of Buddha and Christ, and those of the Lakota and other tribes, the roles of male and female are equally defined and the natural responsibilities and duties of one to another governed by Relationship.

Yet for all, male or female, our first experience of Differentiation came in the moment of mental awakening when we realized we were separate from the body of our mothers, that moment when I am seeped in, the very first shock or trauma to many and so something we would rather not go through again. It was in the spark of this shock that ego was born. As the ego recognized itself it gained knowledge of its power to discriminate around the age of 8. Over time, and without proper guidance in the Age of Reason it became dependent, addicted to the rather indiscriminate reasoning of the “childhood myth” which, if not checked in a Rite of Passage, displaces the Reason behind everything – Divine Will - which naturally governs Adult Life, given the chance. We will explore further the world of the Ego upon Stone B along The Way (also available in The Library).

This is a lengthy discourse for the state of Conditioning can get very defensive when it detects a defector and Defence always brings with it an inability to Differentiate that serves only to isolate. As such, we must carry on with this Art, albeit in a rather loopy manner, as to strengthen its own immunity to Defensiveness. Differentiation works closely with The Word, which is Sound made of Light, not meaning, also referred to as Him. In utilizing the Light of The Word, groups of words are Socratic, encouraging discussion between individuals based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and illuminate ideas. The basis of Socratic learning comes of Socrates, deemed the wisest man in the world for he knew he didn’t know, which is realms away from not knowing that you don’t know. Fortunately words, of their own, are also highly Democratic, suggesting that they can demonstrate the hurdle between the realms, for cratis comes of the Greek sound for hurdle and demo for show. Ultimately words tell on themselves.

When it is words that overwhelm your neurons with their stimulus, when you cannot seem to get over that hurdle, think of yourself as a jellyfish, effortlessly absorbing the nutritional stream into your visceral understanding, without moving a molecule, without even thinking about it. And that is that. Your mind may not “get” the shot of Understanding right away, and you will be tempted to grasp the invisible shores of “knowing”. But resist this urge, for here struggle will bring you to drown, perhaps even those around you. Let it come when it comes, let it go when it goes, the subtle yet profound mantra of the Art of Differentiation.

When this Art is flowing within you, separating the subtle from the gross, it is easier for the Spirits to match your needs with knowledge, which is done on a need-to-know basis.

All things come to you on a need-to-know basis,
like a mother cat tends to her kittens before the necessity of need even occurs to them.

With the need-to-know basis of the Network, insights are never lost for they are stored like sugars in a plant and released as energy that improves your ability to perceive with the Heart and so move into complete Understanding with whatever you are in relationship with. This Understanding is also referred to as Seeing - the direct perception of Nature and its phenomena in its own light, the same light that runs Intelligence, the invisible technology of Spirit that knows, understands and fulfills the needs of every being on the planet, like it or not. And the fiery Spirit must be tempered by the watery Soul, just as we do in the sweat lodge.

A part of this Course is the dismantling of the hierarchy of Need, a psychological warfare that distracts one from improving your communication skills and a complete fabrication of the Illusion that has one attempt to endlessly satiate needs like that buzzing mosquito that eludes you. We wish to point out here that it was through such repetition that you developed and deepened into illusions and delusion. And it is through repetition in this course that Truth comes to clean your house. Many times you will come across what seems to be the same thing yet said another way. It is not just semantics and clever words, it is fiery seeing and watery understanding come to steam away all that you are not.

If there is any misunderstanding here, consider that if you do not understand What Is, as it is presented here or being said by someone, it may simply be due to the fact that at times language can fly by like racehorses at the track. Or, it may be due to the simple truth that you already think you know what they are going to say, and so Anticipation, a kind of premeditated murder of crows, pecks away at your ability to Participate with Life. At this point, you may not have anticipated the depth of these steps, nor the length. This is a good thing, for are you more inclined to participate consciously, truly Listen, in the absence of anticipation.

As comfortable with bringing things together as apart, the Art of Differentiation may also engage with Humility to cut through glaring false truths and filters that clog communication. A common inquiry that enables Humility to cut the crap might be: “I don’t understand what you are saying.” Then, once again, invite Patience to be your guide, for Patience can only work with one thing at a time. Patience also has a preference for What Is in the Moment, not the illusion of past, future, or even the present. You see, like all things of Help and Health, Patience works in Real Time, in which it may have only an earthly second or so to pull you out of the disconnecting shame of misunderstanding as to remain in Connectivity. Fortunately, simply noticing what is happening is sufficient to move things right along, even if that noticing lags behind the happening. What is most important is that you don’t attempt to do anything about it, to cover up.

As it is, most thoughts are crammed into the Collective Conscious, a rather putrid cesspool of negativity and unmitigated fear and need. And it is in this pool that they battle for superiority. This Collective is the 4th dimension and tends to bring about strange entanglements for people with one foot in the 3D and one in the 5D. To stay clear of such entanglements, that often lead to mental and physical imbalances or at the least persistent bouts of Confusion, one must refrain from engaging with these competitive thoughts which come not directly from you but occur through you. Be clear that any persistent thought is “pestering” as soon as you think it is not you, regardless of what it contains. Simply use the silent commandment of “differentiate” and be still to what happens.

This command, or Art, encourages the tense little mind, so long contracted in competition, in seeking answers you could not comprehend, to rest so as to be expansive welcoming wings for the warm currents of hmm, oh and aha to massage The Word and let it flow with the giggles of Compassion while the Heart oversees the refining of our bursts of Understanding into clear linguistic encoding. For just as the cool little cats A – Z in the Cat Came Back were called in to bring Order to propose on its knee to Chaos does The Word have the perfect plan to bring all to Right Place while Creator sleeps. There can be no changing Chaos, for it is what it is.  All we can do is bring Order to meet its Bride, not unlike a horse to water.

Do not grasp on to these teachings yet make them your aim.

The words I and my are in fact very recent migrants into our language and have been a tonic, bitter as they are, for our development, to this point. Yet just like a deer in the forest, words will come and they will go. Moments act in the same way. Not strung in a linear fashion as we have perceived Time to be, they come when they come and go when they go, from and into the random pattern of the Higher Order no one could ever anticipate or figure out yet follow with ease and grace. There is too much to learn and too much to teach. In time a soft warm nose will nuzzle you, just as the Buddha was awakened under the Bodhi tree. Why wait for the moment of Death to suddenly understand the nature of things?

The Old Ones could not understand how the people could forget what things are for their language stayed away from what words mean, but focus instead on describing or demonstrating what things are and how they work, their relativity. They knew that the meaning of a thing was different for everyone, just as no one word may stand apart for The Word can only be understood in relation to all that stands next to or influences it, just as the planets, moons and stars influence one another and all of Life, just as the Light can not be separate from the Sun. It is in this way that the Hopi Prophecy is “written”. It is not enough to understand what the prophecy means, yet relate to each word in it in its own light. For this one must also understand how it came to be. It is the same with understanding who you are and where you came from, and how these things are relative. Furthermore, when one remembers what things ARE, how they work and what FOR, do you open to a drop of the nectar of Wisdom and Truth inherent in all things. Indeed in the Lakota tongue the sound How communicates, “It is” and As It Is the basis of all indigenous language which speaks from the view of no separation between self and other/world that is the view of the Heart. And is this view a key feature of Reality.

Understanding the way reality works at the quantum level 
is to access and use its power responsibly as to make Life joyous. – Jean Houston

This is not to say your life will be more pleasant or comfortable than that of another, but that Life itself may be joyous. And what gives Life shits and giggles is to live the life you have been given, this gift given for you to live. And in living your gift of Life itself, comes the possibility of your Uniqueness, which is available when Conditioning has been thoroughly washed through. You cannot seek it out, though it is seeking you. The deer comes to you. Truth comes to you. All things come to/for you.

Today this story of Banzan comes to/for you from the New Earth, just as lightly as enlightenment may, even in the quietest moments:

Before Banzan became a great Zen master, he spent many years in pursuit of enlightenment, but it eluded him. Then one day, as he was walking in the marketplace, he overheard a conversation between a butcher and his customer.

“Give me the best piece of meat you have,” said the customer. And the butcher replied, “Every piece of meat I have is the best.”

Upon hearing this, Banzan became enlightened.

Now, take yourself to Stone B, When Ego is Lost upon The Way in The Library.

Resources:

Mental awakening – Vicki Noble, Motherpeace, Magician
Secret Teachings of the Plants – Stephen Harrod Buhner
Chicken and Egg – Alan Watts
Banzan - excerpt from The New Earth, Eckhart Tolle

Original content under common copyright Ne'ith Arrow/Changing Mind 2021
neith@changingmind.co    www.changingmind.co

Downloads

  • Step 2:  Separating into Unity
    Step 2: Separating into Unity

    Never mind the staircase, just mind the stairs. - Martin Luther

    Have you heard the one about the centipede that knows not which foot goes first and so never got anywhere. Don't let the staircase intimidate you and don't be that centipede.
    We have much ground to cover in order to uncover the Conditioned State.