A Life for A Life

 

September 6, 2009
 
 
What did I say up to now?
 
Tami: About what you were occupied with, if it could be conveyed in words?
 
Alan: That’s a question, ‘if it could be conveyed in words?’ And I said something, that there’s . . .  
 
Tami: ‘Sometimes it might be conveyed or heard without words.’
 
Alan: Or at least without words that the ears can pick up in the usual sense, vocally, through vocal cords.
 
Tami: Yes.
 
Alan: We’re talking to ourselves all the time, without vocal cords, right? And we’re hearing all kinds of other things, coming from god-knows where, or from what level, right? So that sort of indicates, partially, what I’m occupied with. Maybe that’s taking it a little too personally – because it’s bigger than personal – though certainly I have a part in it. Some things are becoming particularly clear… probably because of the tremendous intensity and ‘compactness’ of this period of time. In a way it’s most obvious with the people closest to us. 
 
What does it mean ‘closest to us’? They’re somehow ‘dancing on the same dance floor’, some more or less in step, but definitely, inevitably, responding to the music of the overall situation here, in the house. And there are those who are not here, but close-by – when they visit they are definitely part of the vibrational level and dynamic, they can hook-in. Where they are, when they’re not here, I don’t know so much about. Then there are those that don’t visit, but with whom I have a very intimate relationship, by virtue of whatever. And then, there are the ‘bloody masses’, all faced with the same challenge – to Be or not to Be. 
 
This is coming closer to the point. There is an incredible increased aware-ness among people of the more or less ‘going nowhere’ of any of their usual activities – from their heartfelt attempts to be kind or reasonable with friends or family, when that effort is made, to all kinds of things that are just ‘happening’ or repeating themselves through habit of one sort or another.
 
There are those who know, for instance, that ‘negativity’ is always in ‘how you are taking something’ and that ‘blaming’ from mechanical ‘dis-pleasure’ is really ignorance. Still, most often, they’re helpless in front of it – they don’t have the energy to ‘shift out of it’. We don’t even talk about into what – just ‘out of it’!
 
That’s a key issue – into ‘what’?
 
Most may not be able to get out of the mechanicality, totally, but may manage to control it to an extent. Even with low energy you can remember that negativity, however it was triggered, has to do with ‘how something is being taken’. If you have enough ‘knowing’, and enough will – then you don’t express it, at least verbally. Generally it’s first ‘negative’ and immediately .  .  . EXPRESSED. 
 
The Work advises: ‘Don’t express your negativity’. But some can’t help themselves – they may control their mouth for a time but might have an inclination to use their hands, either to ‘hit’ or throw things around . . . ‘bang, bang, bang’!
 
You know what I’m talking about?
 
Tami: Yes.
 
Alan: We’re coming closer to what I’m trying to get at.  In order to really ‘throw the switch’, cut-off the lower level with all its noise, that prison of mechanicality – you have to have the means that allows you to exist outside of it. 
 
It’s been said: ‘You can’t have what you want, unless you believe that you’ve already got it’. Now just what could that mean? The moment you are aware of the ‘struggle’ relative to ‘how you’re taking something’, then you are inevitably also aware of all the mechanicality that’s got you ‘by the balls and squeezing’, so to speak. Just in that realization, within the negativity, there is an element of Self-Remembering. 
 
You catch what I’m saying? Just to recognize something as merely a limited ‘personal’ dis-pleasure shows that you know of ‘something’ else – there is an obvious degree of Self Remembering there. And the more often you Remember, the more that real Self grows within you. And the mechanical dis-pleasures, when they don’t get fed, start to fade away, like dry leaves falling off a tree.  Amen
 
Now how can you maintain the Self-remembering, when a ‘shock’ has worn off? For moments, anyways, all the struggles, all the ‘enemies’, are gone. A most special place to be in. Then after a while, ‘life’ takes over. It can take over very quickly.
 
What’s missing? Maybe, what we’re attempting to clarify now, is what is called the Second Conscious Shock. Generally very little is said about it. When Nicol was once asked, ‘what is second-conscious-shock’, he said something like, “one thing you can say about it is that it’s on the basis, the background, of a lot of External Considering.”
 
Maybe this conversation is trying to get clear on this very point. We have to establish a ‘hook’ in the Real – ‘Master’, within sustained Self Remembering, where Real ‘I’ can no longer be ‘defeated’. 
 
For Real ‘I’ to maintain-Itself, Second Conscious Shock would be that ‘hook’ from which nothing could ‘slip’. ‘New Meaning’ would then be sustained. At the lower level the ‘meaning’ was all in fear, false identity, mechanicality, ‘survival’, as if. New Meaning is on a different ‘stage’ – like a stage in a theater  –  to act on a different level. 
 
The ‘hook’ established by Second Conscious Shock is that new stage itself. IT is THAT which maintains ITSELF. First Conscious Shock requires many words: ‘remember yourself, negativity, external considering‘ etc. – for what has to be dealt with before the interval. We need words at that level: a ‘filing cabinet’, call it what you want . . . to create ‘order’, to put the house in order – preparing for the arrival of ‘Master’. 
 
Okay, Master ‘shows his head’ as we Self-remember. Master is now in the house – but how can he be SECURED there? 'Master' – the Real World, ‘God’, Consciousness Itself. 
 
What is this indicating? It’s around the issue of the ‘hook’.
 
Tami: What will keep him in the house?
 
Alan: ‘What will keep Master in the house’, yes. And it’s no longer in words, not even in Work terminology. Those, at best, were Work ‘I’s. So, what keeps him in the house? 
 
It can be said in a word – it’s not ‘explanation’ anymore. Now it’s the issue of ENERGY. Of course the issue was always energy. ‘Negativity’ with all its ‘rationalizing’, and whatever else, used energy. But now the issue is the necessity of maintaining Energy at the required HIGHER  LEVEL.
 
There are three kinds of food: ordinary food we eat, the air we breathe, and thirdly, our impressions – all destined to be transformed into Energy. 
 
The food of impressions is highly ‘enhanced’ through External Considering, much of which involves absorbing negative energy (mechanicality for the most part). 
 
There could also be ‘good’ food there, but it really doesn’t matter, ‘good’ or ‘bad’, pleasant or unpleasant – all impressions are food, whether they’re painful or pleasurable.
 
‘LIFE is BREATH’ – everyone is, somehow, breathing all the time. Within the air, it’s said, are energies from the whole Universe. The ‘hook’, if that’s a good expression, requires a much fuller degree of that food. It is also impossible to maintain the level of Self-Remembering without the ‘right’ balance between the three foods.
 
Our growth is in connection – not in being ‘clever’. We just have to be clever enough to wake-up, to see the uselessness of all the mechanicality and dreams – to ‘open the door’ to all that is wider and deeper than our so called ‘normal life’.
 
Am I making sense to you, Tami?
 
Tami: Yes.
 
Alan: It takes energy, just to listen to this, yes?
 
Tami: Yes.
 
Alan: I’ll stop for a minute . . . and you can remember that  . . . you’ve got a nose.
 
This is still about words – pointing with words. Before the actual ‘Way’ there is a ‘ladder’. This could prove ‘part of the ladder’.
 
What can maintain Master, Presence, Conscience, ‘God’: that level in you that is not occupied with surviving in pride as a petty little personal piece of flesh?
 
Essentially we are Consciousness Itself. Everything we experience is reflected on that Consciousness. We generally get identified in the reflections. In an incredible little book by Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi (Thus Spake Ramana), he describes it like: "In a movie theater, images are projected on a canvas screen – and, we ‘think’ that the canvas is part of the picture. But it’s not. Only the canvas is Real, the pictures are but a passing phenomena.” Our Consciousness is the only real Real. Nicely put, and not badly paraphrased by me. 
 
If we’re not busy ‘doing the movie’ on the screen, what are we to do? Is there anything real to do? Well, yes, but it’s got little to do, essentially, with what’s on the screen, though generally that’s the only thing we know about ‘doing’ – the sleeping, swimming, eating, making love, fighting, arguing, agreeing, disagreeing, going here, there, getting this, that, losing this, that – all projections on Consciousness. As long as that level of Fiction continues to be taken as ‘real’, we’ll never know anything else. Until we come to see all the lies in it, the pathetic-ness of its most basic unreality – then we’ll never ‘let-go’. 
 
In order to maintain your-Self, at the level of Self-Remembering, you must be ‘doing’ something else, something NEW. Maybe that is what’s called LOVE. What is needed there, and what part do we play? Can we anymore even say ‘we’ there, or even ‘I’? Real ‘I’ is certainly not of the same order as those old habitual ‘I’dentifications. NOW it's the REALITY of what you ARE – where you can no longer deny the I AM.
 
So, what is Second Conscious Shock? Nicoll said it’s on the background of a lot of External-Considering.
 
Dina: Transformation of negative emotions. 
 
Alan: ‘Transformation of negative emotions’. Well in a way, it’s the same thing. With External-Considering you’re inevitably eating a lot of ‘shit’. “In Life we eat food and make shit, in the Work we eat shit and make food.” 
 
Breathe . . . see how it comes . . . naturally!
 
So many ways of saying the same thing. Each one has to find out how, for themself. Just ‘saying it’ is far from the point – that‘s just “the mind that can get you to the door, but can’t get you through”.
 
What does Second Conscious Shock lead to then?
 
Dina:  A Higher kind of Consciousness.
 
Alan: ‘A Higher kind of Consciousness’. Okay, that’s what we’re aiming at. All our ‘cleverness’, rationality, measurement, fears, greed, our good, bad, dis-like etc., are already not the issue – language is no longer the issue. 
 
We’re trying to say something about the ‘hook’, which would stop us from ‘slipping back’ – where Real ‘I’ becomes ‘Master’, and never again can be stolen by past identifications. Consciousness Itself is the Real – all the ‘images’ appear on IT. Consciousness is the FACT, the images are changing phenomena, right? 
 
We’re repeating ourself, somewhat, for the sake of Dina who just came in – that ‘new’ Drop of Universal Consciousness, now present.
 
Boris Mouravieff, as well as other ‘seers’, points out that in the past the Work was very ‘individual’. But in this Age – in these FINAL DAYS – that is no longer enough. There is a much greater need now, much larger than ‘you’. Now it’s vital that people relate to each other in the ‘right way’ for the sake of the Whole.
 
It’s talked about it in different ‘Ways’. In a word, what must be done now at the transcendent level of Self-Remembering – is to LISTEN. To ‘listen’ is to be sensitive and connected to ‘your’ environment, close by, and as wide as possible. Man ‘asleep’ – can not ‘do’! There it’s a complete illusion, where all is just ‘happening’. Real Doing is a Big Thing. 
 
There is a ‘ladder’ leading up to the ‘Way’, basic things that have to be done at your present level of so called ‘individuality’. Whatever is done there has to be done perfect, to come to a perfect understanding of what imagination is. The fullness of External Considering is the prerequisite. Seeing mainly the ‘mess’. What did you call it, the pain? 
 
Dina: ‘Transformation’.
 
Alan: It’s all available for transformation. No matter who you are dealing with, you’re ‘eating’ their identification to some degree. It’s negative energy for the most part – people active in personality, still trying to be ‘somebody’. 
 
So much, yes? 
 
In this period the WHOLE WORLD is seeing the impossibilities that inevitably result from self-enclosed egoistic activity. 
 
“In order to have what you want, you have to believe that you’ve got it already.” In order to Remember Yourself, you have to start with some degree of Self. Even when you feel you ‘can’t do anything’ – never ever to forget – even when you can’t remember exactly ‘what’. Guilt, by the way, is stupid, even more egoistically-evil than pride is – people get a perverse sense of ‘I’DENTITY within guilt. How about that one!
 
A person must remind themselves, at whatever level, that they are really trying to do their best to Work, and that there is nothing that they wish for more. If they can do that, then they can fully BE, and say to themselves,  I AM – in Good Conscience. That’s far more than just being a ‘good child’.
 
So let’s be clear. To BE in GOOD CONSCIENCE –  you must remind yourself that you are in good conscience. If you don’t remind yourself, then you’re in guilt, and you can’t afford to fall into guilt, unconsciously.
 
Only from that place of Good Conscience can you breathe normally, taking in that most vital food. It’s been said that a conscious person is aware of every breath. That’s not already something just to ‘think’ about. 
 
Your breath can be normal, maintaining, even if some-what awkwardly a connection with External-Considering. In fact, only ‘God’ can fully externally consider – only Consciousness-Itself is really aware. We are working our way towards that, no?
 
So it’s all connected. The food, the ‘shit’, of most of the impressions from External-Considering, has tremendous energy in it. It’s the fertilizer that can  transform. 
 
As in my poem ‘Nancy’: 
 
. . .  it doesn't matter where you are
      or who you seem to be
      it doesn't matter what you do
      or who there is to see
      the pieces of the dream world
      are that multiplicity
      the color and the shadows
      the mountains and the sea
      the good and bad
      the right and wrong
      that pass for sanity
      the bones that turn
      to powdered dust
      dissolve into the sea
      
      so, love the moment   
      love the pain
      love catastrophe
      love garbage and the flowers
      the fertilizer, see? . . .
 
The ‘shit’ is fertilizer for the seeds of truth within you. Your subjective judgments around good and bad, should and shouldn’t, don’t mean fuck all. All that twisted energy can be transformed through ATTENTION, not by ‘figuring out’. You can’t transform confused energy with ‘logic’ – only through attention. The ‘problem’ isn’t merely ‘misconceptions’ – but ENERGY. Remember, even a good picture is still only a picture. 
 
Unbalanced vibrations get stuck in various corners of the body – causing an over-all sense of Anxiety. You might take it as ‘fear’, but it’s fear only when it goes to the ‘head’ and you start struggling with it. There it turns into an attitude, an idea, cerebral, academic, anemic. It is in fact random vibrations, shifting and changing. You can’t catch that mess in an ‘explanation’, any more than you can catch New York City in a butterfly net!
 
You must acknowledge your deepest Truth – that you are in this world only for the Good, with faith in the Good, the Light rather than the Darkness. With that remembered Good Conscience you can then breathe, thereby gaining the energy for attention needed to transform those vibrations that we call Anxiety. 
 
Hold it for a minute. Something very important was just said. It may be the ‘last word’. 
 
Dina: What is good? “We deserve good”. What is good?
 
Alan: Are you putting that out as a question?
 
Dina: No, it was said, people deserve good. What is ‘good’?
 
Alan: The way we’re using it now is in REMINDING yourself of your deepest and most real intentions relative to what you know or feel to be true.
 
The times we are now in have tremendous potential. With the unbelievable speed of things and how all issues change so quickly, ‘SPACE’ between changing issues is hardly there anymore. We get to see this and this and that, all together, for the first time. With sufficient awareness, all the issues/pictures come together. In the ‘end’ there is what’s called a ‘Crystallization’ – a Panoramic View, with no ‘hole’ to slip through. Something like that.
 
In this Now Reality, so obviously wild and full of lies and distortions, maybe even people without Knowledge – but yes with honesty – will be able to ‘wake-up’ and be brought to their senses. 
 
These are very ADVANTAGEOUS DAYS – the likes of which have never been experienced 
on this earth. 
 
 
NOW it’s really NOW or NEVER