Mind and matter again

A comment to Mind over matter came to me by email because it didn't fit into the comment box. It teaches, uplifts, and gives hope for the whole world, not only for our individual lives. I hope you like it as much as I do. Although it could also follow the posts under Science, I decided it begins a new category in my index—Post-Christian.

Sondra's words launch a definite turn in my thought frame—a post-Christian frame for thinking about spiritual reality.
Jeanette

YOUR UNLIMITED POSSIBILITIES by Sondra

It isn’t a matter of mind OVER matter. Matter is Mind in one of its many forms. Mind, consciousness, is the source of matter. Look around you at the nearest physical object, a chair, or a spoon. It is consciousness expressing itself in the form of the chair or spoon.

In reference to the quotes in Mind Over Matter 2 – Wm. James, Eric Butterworth, and the quote from the bible:
What all these people – and many others throughout the centuries, are saying, couched in the language of their time, and clothed in the extent of their understanding, is:
You Create Your Reality

This, I believe, is the major thing we have to learn in this phase of our ever–expanding awareness as humans. It is the background to all the other things we have chosen to come to physical reality to explore.

The bottom line is:
We are creating all the time. We can’t stop creating. We can’t turn that ability off and on. It’s as much a part of us as the ability to grow fingernails or pump blood. It comes with the package that is us. So the question then becomes: How does this work? How can we get better at creating the life we want, instead of creating by default and accidentally getting things we don’t want?

Jeanette said - “I do not believe we can (or should) fulfill our wishes by believing they will come true.”
I’m guessing you are thinking that the ego–self or the intellect, are all that is involved in the creation/manifestation process. If that were true we would indeed be in deep trouble very quickly. In the same way that we do not and cannot, on a continuous basis, orchestrate and control from our intellect and ego-self our ability to grow hair, digest our food, or heal a cut, so it is not from this outer level that we can control what we want and wish for.

A slight digression here – The ego is constantly getting a bad rap. It is not something separate, tacked on to us and disconnected to the rest of our being. It is the furthest extension of our inner-self, our soul. It is the part of us designed to operate in physical reality. Its job is to assess conditions and send back to the inner self reports and information about what is going on “on the ground,” so to speak. Our larger or deeper self cannot manifest all of itself in physical reality. The inner self is too large. It won’t all fit.

The ego and personality are the working–in–the–field aspects of us. They are an extension of the inner self into physical reality. The ego and personality are the scouts–in–the–field, designed to inform the deeper layers of our being about our current conditions, our assessments of those conditions, the directions we want to go. Sometimes our assessments are good, and sometimes they are not so good. Hence our accidentally manifesting things we don’t really want. We don’t understand that what’s inside (thoughts, etc) are creating external reality for our appraisal. Outer, objective reality is meant to be feedback.

So, to return to before the digression:

Our Whole Being is involved in the life we create, not just our ego and personality. Our inner self certainly has input. Sometimes this input is called Grace. But even with Grace we get into enough troubles. J However, if Grace were the only thing operating, if we got bailed out constantly no matter how faulty our outlooks, aims and choices, how would we ever learn anything? How would we expand into the vast creative possibilities that are ours?

Our thoughts, beliefs, emotions, intents, outlooks – these are the guidance systems that aim our desires into manifestation. As we learn to align them more and more in ways of love, kindness, care, appreciation, we will manifest life in ways that are more and more to our liking. And more in line with the Intelligence that spawned us.

A thought about the movie “The Secret.” It was very materialistically oriented, no question about that. It didn’t go into the deeper aspects of manifestation at all. And I suspect that if it had, it wouldn’t have been so popular. It did make the idea of manifestation and creating reality familiar to a broad spectrum of people. That is its value: introducing many people to the concept.
Sondra

There's much to learn here.
A reader emailed that she felt lost in Sondra’s writing. I’m guessing the most perplexing part is this:
Look around you at the nearest physical object, a chair, or a spoon. It is consciousness expressing itself in the form of the chair or spoon.
Perhaps it’s less perplexing if I state it in religious language:
The physical universe is God expressing Self.
Keep in mind these synonyms for God (of which none alone is satisfactory):
Source. Mind, Consciousness, Energy.
We know from the mystics—Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Sufi, and indigenous—that in our deepest self we are connected with God. Now, if we take this a step further, we realize our participation in the eternal act of creation. I hope it helps to keep this in mind as you reread the rest of Sondra’s message.

Note also her answer to Dave's comment/question and his further comment.

Comments

Dave60 said…
Sondra sounds like an advocate of the ideas expressed in the book “The Secret” although she qualifies her position by saying it is more complicated than the materialistic orientation given in the book. I have a problem with the idea that we are responsible for creating our reality. The problem being that this view would seem to assign blame to being a victim and pin that blame on the victim. How can one explain events like the holocaust or Haiti’s earth quake if we create our own reality?
Sondra said…
In reply to Dave60 comment:
To think in terms of what happens in our life as “our fault” would be similar to saying to a five year old “it’s your fault” for not understanding calculus and Fourier transforms. The child has no idea such things even exist. We are at almost the same place in our understanding of reality creation.
What we can do is first become aware that this might be true. Then start noticing the external events, people, and circumstances in our life and take that information as feedback about our internal states.
In terms of large scale events like earthquakes or the holocaust – Everything is connected and has an effect on everything else, not only locally, but across time and space. This includes our emotions, which affect other people, the planet and even the weather. There is a lot to get a handle on here. (I'm smailing at that last sentence. What an understatement it is!)
We have so much to explore and learn about. It’s very exciting, especially if we can go about it in a light-hearted, open-minded way.
Dave60 said…
There is a lot to get a handle on; the universe is vast and unimaginable, the extent to which we have an influence on the reality we experience is up for question. I realize that the new age movement has many people claiming that reality can be influenced by thought, I just question if these claims don’t have a more altruistic motive. I have meditated and I have had experiences in which I feel I have contacted something greater than myself, something I really cannot explain in words. The thing is, the awareness which I touched was beyond my imagining or understanding and in truth frightened me, I have stopped meditating because I felt that I could have lost myself. I believe our perceptions influence our reality and how we react and interact with reality but create reality? It is a hard concept for me to accept.

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