The collective conscious

From this point forward, if I refer to the All That Is, I am in fact referring to the supreme being, which from my perspective isn't the traditional Christian God, nor the Christian Science Father/Mother God, nor any of the other gods that abound, but the one single entity or consciousness of which all of us are a part. It is everything, feels everything, knows everything and It does this through us. We are the individual cells - It is the entire body. All that we do feeds into It and all that feeds into It returns to us. We are all connected through this consciousness - connected to It, connected to each other, and connected to all that there is.

We can exist on any plane, in any dimension, in any form and It knows us, because It is us.

When I was little, I couldn't understand how God could be everywhere; how He could know what I was doing. As I got older, not only could I not understand how He could be everywhere and know everything that I was doing or feeling, I couldn't imagine why He'd care. I mean think about it, He's GOD, I'm just me - surely there are bigger and better things to focus on than the problems, hopes and fears of a half grown kid in New Brunswick. A couple of minutes ago I took a look at the world population clock at http://www.worldometers.info/ and the count at that moment was somewhere around 6.807 billion. Ok, so God has nothing better to do than keep an eye on me when there are almost 7 billion people to keep track of? Do we think so much of own importance that we assume He's interested in each of us individually?

Well, today I believe that the All That Is does keep track of each and every one of us, wherever we are and in whatever form we exist. It does this the same way that we keep track of every part of our own body, but It comprehends Itself in a much more detailed way than we ever can, because It is cognizant of the entire consciousness, while we focus on only one stream of consciousness at a time.

If you read my post on October 14, 2009 entitled Psychic odds & ends, you may remember that I discussed a number of different psychic abilities. I said that people pick and choose what they want to believe in, but that I believe all of them are valid, even if I'm not aware of having any of the abilities myself. If every consciousness is connnected to the All That Is and this connection runs back and forth between the All That Is and all of the different consciousnesses that compose It, then there is no reason not to suppose that someone, somewhere, could have the ability to decipher some of the information from what we consider to be the future and relate it to someone in this present. In other words, some individuals, those often termed psychics, could indeed pick up on another person's "future" before it happens, or someone's past that has already occured and talk to them about it now, even if they've never met that person before, because they are able to tap into the overall consciousness that connects us all.

By the same token, people on this plane could and do exchange information with entities that are not in this physical world by connecting through the one consciousness. This would generally occur for people on this plane while they are asleep and in the dream state, but there are those individuals in this world who are awake when they connect with disembodied entities, or as in Jane Roberts' or Edgar Cayce's cases, the connection(s) occur while in a trance state.

If you can accept the concept that there is ONE consciousness and that we are all connected to each other through that consciousness, then you can begin to comprehend how "psychic" abilities and events can exist.

The ONE consciousness

Now that you've had a few days to digest my last post, I'm thinking that some of you are shaking your head in disbelief to think that a fairly intelligent, reasonably educated person could seriously consider accepting and following the teachings of a disembodied entity who communicated by channelling through an unknown writer from New York State. It is a stretch, I must admit.

How do I know it wasn't simply Jane Roberts claiming to channel Seth? Honestly, I don't, but what difference does it make? It's not the source of the information that's important - it's the information itself that matters. Religious teachings have been handed to us in a number of unorthadox ways, but that hasn't stopped people from believing. Christian beliefs include that the 10 commandments were written in stone by the finger of God or that Jesus was conceived by devine intervention, both of which are pretty unlikely. Ultimately, it's the message that matters, not how sexy the messenger is.

We live in a complex world, a great deal of which we can't even begin to understand. Even as technology continues to propel us forward at breakneck speed and we surround ourselves with electronic and mechanical devices that would have terrified our God fearing great-grandparents, we still don't understand or comprehend the abilities of our own brains or beings. We know that if we don't sleep regularly our bodies won't function properly, but our scientists don't yet really understand why. Science scoffs at the idea that our conscious minds are connected in any way to something outside our physical beings, yet we all know intuitively that they are.

How many times have you thought of someone you haven't seen or heard from in a long while, only to run into them or talk to them a short time later? When you meet them you exclaim, "I was just thinking about you yesterday!" or "I was just telling so and so about you this morning!". We accept this type of coincidence without question because it's something that just 'happens' all the time. Have you considered that it doesn't just 'happen', that it might be the psychic connection between our conciousnesses that prepares us for our meeting beforehand? That while we slept we were making arrangements and preparations on an unconscious level to meet up with this very friend?

Can you consider that each of us is a small part of only ONE consciousness? It might be easier to visualize if you think in terms your own physical body. You're made up of billions of cells, each of which is separate and apart from the others - yet when taken all together, those billions of cells make up a complete and miraculous being. On a day to day basis, the cells in your toes are totally oblivious to the cells in say, your arm, but if your toe hurts, the entire body becomes aware of it. Each cell is its own universe and performs its own function to contribute to the overall entity that is your body, but it doesn't lose its personal identity. Consider what happens when a portion of the body is harmed - scar tissue forms and that scar often remains on the body for the rest of its life. This is because the affected cells remember what happened to them and the scar is a reminder to the rest of the body that those particular cells were once harmed. There is a consciousness that connects every cell in the body.

Now extrapolate that picture one step further so that you are the individual cell in the body of God (or what I would rather term as the "All That Is") - the ONE divine consciousness that is ALL that exists. You are connected to everything there is, even if on a conscious level you're just going about your daily life, doing your part to contribute to the overall entity without being aware of the existence of the rest of it. You function as an individual, yet when there is a need in another part of the body (which might be the friend you just 'happened' to think of the day before), you become aware. You connect to that need and focus upon it as long as necessary, then you resume your day to day existence until the next time some coincidence 'happens'. And if that friend is harmed, you remember, and carry that scar for your entire lifetime so that all the rest of the entity is reminded.

Although it's only taken me a few short paragraphs to illustrate how our consiousnesses are connected, the concept itself is very complex and requires some serious consideration, so we'll leave things here for now and pick it up in a future post.

When the student is ready....

They say that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. I believe that to be entirely true. Through my posts to this point, I've made reference to books, events and people in my life that had a major impact on my belief system. Each of them reached me just when they should, pushing me along a path that may have been preordained, or may have been random, but either way, provided me with the tools and experiences I needed to open my mind for what was yet to come. At this point, I was almost 30 years old and had been pursuing my spiritual journey for over half of those years.

Always a voracious reader, sometime in the early 80s I was rummaging through a box of paperbacks at a yard sale when I pulled out a book entitled How to Develop Your ESP Power by someone called Jane Roberts. I read the jacket and it crossed my mind that this was another 'how to' book produced in a hurry by one of so many authors who had tried to ride the New Age wave of the 70s. It was so cliche I almost threw it back in the box, but at only 25 cents, I decided to take it, figuring that was about all it would be worth.

It wasn't too long before I began reading the book and my first impressions appeared to be correct. It just plodded along - describing the author's experimentation with things like ouija boards and meditation. Then, while performing her research, the author fell into a trance and began chanelling a disembodied entity. I thought this was very interesting, as I hadn't read anything quite like it before.

After several trance sessions, the entity began to identify itself as Seth, a disembodied entity that claimed to have known Jane Roberts and her husband Robert Butts throughout many incarnations. Seth described himself as a teacher and using the voice of Jane Roberts, he did indeed begin to teach about the nature of reality and our place within it.

I read every word with rapt interest. I obtained copies of Roberts' next books, The Seth Material and Seth Speaks and read them in quick succession. The more I read the greater my understanding and the realization dawned that I 'knew' all of this already, I just needed someone (something?) to remind me. Years of searching ended and I became a firm believer in the teachings of the disembodied entity, Seth.

The Seth Material becomes more and more complex as you move through it. Ms. Roberts never took credit for any of the books, describing herself only as the the vessel through which Seth reached out to this phyiscal world. Ms. Roberts died in 1984, but she left behind a rich legacy of books and materials that explain the universe and the place(s) of each of us in it. The terminology begins simply and is easy to follow and understand. I have embraced Seth's teachings completely. Any questions I may have had initially have been answered completely and soundly - I who had found only fault and loopholes in any religious materials I'd ever read or encountered to this point in time, could find no flaws in Seth's theories, logic or teachings.

Over the years since I first discovered the Seth Material, life has dealt me a number of unkind hands, but also many aces. There have been blows and bouquets, but through it all, my understanding of the world since my introduction to Seth has given me the strength and knowledge to carry on that I needed in every case. If you're unfamiliar with Seth's teachings, I strongly encourage you find some of his early books and read them for yourself and learn first hand about how we create our own reality.

The karmic connection

The concept of reincarnation by itself is pointless, however, without the principles of karma. While I mentioned karma briefly in earlier posts, at this point I'll expand more on the concept.

The spirit or Ka (as described in my posts of early October 2009) is the energy that is the essence of the being - the 'lifeforce', if you will. I picture it as a shimmering cloud of energy that can take any shape and move at incredible speed in and out of various dimensions. It has no permanent molecular structure and can fill any size space or shape (think of the properties of steam). How it thinks and reasons are beyond the topic of this post, but will be discussed in later ones. What matters here is that in the ethereal form, the Ka has total recall all of its experiences in all of its lives both here and on other planes. When it inhabits this physical plane, it's attached to a body and cannot permanently leave until the body dies. I believe it attaches to its body at the moment of conception, but there are those who believe that it doesn't actually attach itself until birth.

Karma is the term that describes the consequences of all of the actions of the Ka over time. To quote Sir Isaac Newton: To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction: or the forces of two bodies on each other are always equal and are directed in opposite directions. Or, to quote the Bible: You reap what you sow. That's the basic concept, although there is much more detail to karma than is described so simply in those quotes.

Karma is a solid religious concept, but not in Christianity. It gives a rational explanation to why the world is not 'fair'. One of the difficulties I've always had with most organized Christian religions is the absolute unfairness of life. I couldn't understand a god who decreed that a select few would be born into wealth, while at the same time legions of children would die of starvation; that some would be born with severe physical and/or mental disabilities, while others would be endowed with great musical talents or mathematical genius; that an entire population would be wiped out by a volcanic eruption or devastating earthquake, while others would be spared and flourish. Does God love some more than others? Does He/She play favourites? What justifies the suffering of so many children who could not possibly have done anything in their short lifetimes to deserve God's wrath? Are they being punished for the sins of their parents then? How do you rationalize these "accidents" of birth?

I can only rationalize them through my belief in karma.

In its most simple terms, karma is a type of retribution - payback, if you will - the receiving of good in this life for good deeds done in prior lives - pain experienced in this life for pain inflicted on others in a past life. All of a sudden, life's inequities and injustices start to make sense.

While that is the core of karmic belief, it's only the proverbial tip of the iceberg. If it were truly that simple, one could simply do whatever one wanted in any given life and pass the consequences of those actions on to the next one. In fact, that's exactly what some people do. Fortunately, the Ka pursues its spriritual journey fully cognizent of karmic and reincarnational principles and operates in a manner intended to advance the entity's growth and understanding.

More on reincarnation

Up to the mid 80s, the strongest external influences on my belief in reincarnation were Edgar Cayce, Dennis Wheatley and Shirley MacLaine. Reading their stories and experiences helped me piece together my afterlife belief system as it was at that time.

I believed in a simple form of karma - that we have lessons to learn. That we live a number of lifetimes, often travelling through time with the same group of beings with whom we interact repeatedly, sometimes as friends, sometimes as enemies, but always with karmic implications.

One of the books I had read suggested an exercise in which you recorded your dreams, so for some time I had been keeping a dream journal. Most of my dreams seemed like symbolic collages of a number of different happenings superimposed on one another, full of characters I didn't recognize in strange and unfamiliar environments. Yet occasionally I'd have a dream that was so vivid I actually experienced my surroundings in the same way that I experienced my daily waking existence. In other words, in these dreams I knew exactly who and where I was. I came to believe that these weren't dreams at all, but past life memories - brief snippits of specific and particularly emotional events.

There are 4 of these dreams in particular and even though they occurred more than 20 years ago, they remain as clear in my mind today as any "real life" memory.

In the first, I'm a young native American boy - perhaps 13 or 14 years old. I'm wearing a buckskin outfit, not particularly adorned, but simply cut and serviceable garments for a cool evening walk along the banks of a fairly wide river. The river runs on my lefthand side. It's getting dusk and I'm walking along in the tall grasses, deep in thought. I didn't hear the bear until it was too late. The attack was swift and I had no chance. There the dream ends. Strangely, in this lifetime I've always been terrified of bears for no apparent reason, perhaps this dream is the answer to a phobia that I've puzzled about for years.

In another of the dreams I'm a ship's officer in revolutionary France,recently returned from sea. I'm climbing a set of wooden stairs and when I look down, the fine buckled shoes, white silk stockings and dark worsted pantaloon style pants are as crisp and clear in my memory as if I'd worn them only yesterday. I reach a door at the top of the stairs and enter the comfortable, and nicely appointed apartments of a woman who I recognize as my lover. My homecoming is poignant and emotional. When I think of that dream, the emotions and feelings of that moment are still clear, vivid and raw.

Another dream finds me a very young woman, perhaps 12 or 13, waiting nervously in the secret apartments of the cold stone castle of a feudal British Lord. I could still describe to you the furnishings in the chamber, the clothes I was wearing and the dread I was feeling. This tryst was not a joyful event like the previous dream, as I was there at the Lord's command and against my own wishes. Still, when he entered, I instantly recognize that he is the same entity that was the woman in the French revolutionary life. It seems that we have changed genders and centuries, but continued our relationship. I find it interesting that I "remembered" the dream that occured in the 1700s before the one that happened in the 1400s. I don't know why they occurred out of chronological order, but I DO know now why I dreamed of that relationship, although it puzzled me at the time.

The final dream that I consider a past life memory finds me thousands of years ago, long before the others. I'm a woman scientist. I travel up a long shaft from deep underground where I've beeen working at a mining site far from my home country of what Edgar Cayce called Atlantis. The sky is grey and the mine entrance is on the edge of an ocean, though high above the seashore. As I stand on the cliff, I realize that hovering overhead is what looks very much like a modern day airplane, and that its pilot is Steve, my current brother in law. I ask him, "What can you see?" and he says "Nothing... nothing at all... It's all gone". My heart is breaking and I say to him, "Please come down, you should land now". But he replies, "If I come down, I'll never be able to get back up again" and the dream ends there.

All four dreams are only tiny snippits, but each is of an emotional event that impacted my 'focus' life dramatically. The dreams occurred over a long period of time, perhaps 2 years, not in quick succession. No others of such clarity happened until many years later. I was in my 20s at the time and I believe today that each of the dreams was carrying a message to help me prepare for relationships and events that were to come in my future. This is directly connected to the cornerstone beliefs that I described in my first few posts. The plan was in place and my spiritual entity was preparing me for what could happen.