Lao-tse: Each day is a new year and we have the hope, if nothing more tangible than that, that it will be a happy one for us. A happy day, a day which brings peace of mind, for only when we have this can we say we are living a happy life. Peace of mind. So happiness we find only in ourselves.
LaB: Then why do we treat ourselves so badly? R: Ignorance. Lao-tse: It is right. That is the answer; our not knowing what our place is. This alone brings to us fear; fear brings to us pain, and pain is surely unhappiness. R: Then we can be grateful when it stops. Lao-tse: It is when things stop that we are in doubt. It is experiencing the pinnacle of joy for the human consciousness when it comes out of, and away from manifestation; stops building forms. I come to you tonight to talk on that which is called the human personality. In the material world we do not see the personality. It is an unknown quantity to us. A baby, on coming into the world, is not at first aware of itself. It must have other experiences before it can become a conscious personality. R: At that stage, before it can become self-aware, it is aware of nothing but impressions from the outside? Lao-tse: Yes, and in the passage of what you call time it gathers these experiences and has inner reactions to them and by these inner responses and reaction its own personality is developed. In order to have a fully integrated earth personality, the incoming being must lose consciousness of his past experiences, both in the spirit world and memories of earth-life of previous times. R: Does it not have these past experiences underneath the surface? Lao-tse: Yes, it is there, but rarely are these experiences brought out, or does the personality become aware of them. R: Does it use that experience automatically? Lao-tse: Yes; so in earlier periods of his life, the entity makes much of his attitudes to the experiences of the world predicated on past memories before he came here. LaB: Is there a de-briefing, to put in our modern terminology, a process that goes on that makes the person forget these memories; because, if he comes on earth with no memory of experiences, as a baby, and he has had them before he re-incarnated, how did he lose them? Lao-tse: By experiences here overlapping, blanketing, shutting out memories of his having lived in the past. Memories that he has, he uses as something to relate with his experiences he has here, and when he cannot find something in the unconscious to relate with an experience he is now having, fear sets in and the next time he is faced with the same experience, fear sets in again. Until he is able to face an experience, or that particular experience without fear, he will go on suffering. Now he must, therefore, learn by the experience what the nature of the thing that is happening to him is, thereby slowly losing his fear. If there is nothing to relate with, there is only one way to handle an experience. That is to run away, to hide, or if we cannot do this physically, we build up some kind of mental wall either to pretend it isn't there, that what is happening isn't happening, or to make out of the happening that which is less threatening to our survival. Do I make this clear? Irene:Yes. Lao-tse: It has been a long time since I have come and spoken through this man. I am filled with joy that I can come again into your home. Now to revert to personality. Permit me to use Lao-tse as an example of what we are talking about. Surely we who think cannot believe that the human personality is a static thing, but is constituted in flux, change, motion. Therefore, considering that this is true, that the ego is constantly changing, I cannot now be the same Lao-tse who passed from the earth over 500 years ago, can I? LaB: Your experiences have made you different too, have they not? Lao-tse: This is so. It is our experiences and our attitudes to our experiences that change us constantly. The individual consciousness is never the same from one period of time to another; therefore, when we are passing, at the moment we are passing from the physical world, we are still being changed. Therefore, who passes? Lao-tse? Surely not! The Un-nameable passes; for even the experience of passing creates quite a change in us so that we are no longer the same one that lived in the physical world. R: That's not so bad, Lao-tse, just so we improve. Lao-tse: Those are words of wisdom. I speak on this subject for the benefit of those who are communicating with those who have gone on from the physical world. Those people who are not properly educated to know what they are doing make most trouble for themselves. I know myself but no other self knows me. Yet there are many, a vast number who do not know themselves; therefore, they cannot know when they are alive or dead. The word dead is of two kinds. One meaning is unaware of the physical world. The more meaningful meaning of the word dead is ignorance, not knowing. We humans find it extremely difficult to communicate our thoughts to one another where we are - in the physical world. Communication is truly an art. It is not something that we acquire at birth, but we have the potential which we must develop, and we need, things being in such a state in the physical world, artists to help us develop it. We find, in the world beyond the matter world, the same existing conditions, the lack of the ability to communicate. While using words as a method of communication is very difficult, in the world beyond the matter world thought is the means of communication. Yet, because we humans have been conditioned to talk in the physical world, most of us continue with this habit of communication in the spiritual world, talking though we create no sound. The sound is assumed because we have been so conditioned. At least for a time we continue this oral communication with one another. Tell me, have you ever heard words coming from the lips of one you were talking to in a dream? Have you ever been aware of the motion of the mouth? Yet it sounds like talk. R: It seems real. Lao-tse: Yes. R: Just so it seems real, it doesn't matter whether it is there or not. Lao-tse: Of course it does not. In the physical world it appears that you hear a series of sounds coming from the lips. You call these sounds words, but are you getting words? The ear, the hearing system, is it receiving words? LaB: It is receiving vibrations, sound waves. Lao-tse: Yes. LaB: Which, in turn, have to be perceived. The instrument of the ear, as well as the eye, receives only some type of impulse or energy waves, or vibrations, but to make sense of it you have to reconstruct it, so to speak, to interpret it. Lao-tse: This is so. Here is the fly in the ointment in communication. LaB: Right. We can only operate from the extent of our experiences. Lao-tse: Is so. Again, there is the feeling we get from words. Emotional feelings and impressions which colour the words; make them important or not so; frightening or encouraging. LaB: In English that is called connotation, I think. Lao-tse: Yes. LaB: The words themselves have their own meaning. We call that denotation. The word denotes something, yet it has no aura about it, a feeling to it, a meaning that is not exactly there, but we have assumed it to be there. Lao-tse: Now, something more. Are we talking to the visible us or is it the invisible us that we are talking to? Irene:The invisible. Lao-tse: The invisible; what is called the consciousness, the mind. We are not talking to the body. We receive impressions from outside the body, but we are not talking to the body; we are not communicating with any part of the physical self. We are communicating through it, but not to it. Do I make this clear, please? LaB: Yes, very clear. Lao-tse: Here, again, because of our belief that we are talking to the body we say that we are talking to that which is called, that which is named, Joseph LaBonville. I cannot be talking to Joseph LaBonville. I do not know Joseph LaBonville. I have no way of recognizing any such condition as Joseph LaBonville. To speak is not only to communicate your mental feelings but your bodily feelings, because your body is a channel through which thought flows and is expressed. If I feel, if my body-self is sick, then my response to your words will be of one kind, and if I am well it will be different. If I am mentally alert, then my responses to your words are different. If I am dull and receive only a small amount of self-impressions from your words, then I can give only a small amount in return. Irene:Self-impressions is what you said? Lao-tse: Yes, self-impressions. In our communication with one another, we are communicating through the emotional system and, depending upon the sensitivity of it, we get much or very little or nothing at all from our communicating with one another. If I say to you, I find it very difficult to control this man's body, what does this mean to you? Can you understand the true meaning of communicating through another consciousness, controlling and communicating through another body? Irene:The only possible picture we could formulate would be due to what you have explained to us, and our ability to translate that which you are telling us. Lao-tse: Yes, and again, you explained that Lao-ts is communicating with you, but what Lao-tse? The Lao-tse of 500 years and more ago? LaB: The Lao-tse of now. Lao-tse: The Lao-tse of right now, not even the Lao-tse of yesterday but the Lao-tse of right now. Irene:Now is the only time. Lao-tse: Yes, and am I communicating with a Joe LaBonville of yesterday? No. Of right now. Yes? LaB: That is right. Lao-tse: Because yesterday was different in experiences, not only of different kinds,but creating different attitudes within yourself than you could have right now. Irene:This tells me something of what Yada said earlier in the evening. The time has something to do with it, you could not possibly have told Joe LaBonville yesterday what you are telling him this evening because he would not be the same Joe LaBonville, and he could not have understood it the same. Lao-tse: Yes, thank you. Is this all you wish to say? Irene:I wanted to ask you if this is the governing factor controlling why you have not told Mark, or given him the chapter that you had mentioned that you wanted to have incorporated in the book. Lao-tse: Yes, so I have been delaying because I have been meditating on just the things I am talking about now. The Lao-tse of 500 years ago is not meditating on this subject, but the present Lao-tse is meditating. I thought to tell him the reason, although I did not. I think the food for us to seek is to understand life on higher levels. That is important. We must know about what is and what is not. We must learn to think about things and create new ideas. LaB: To do this, Lao-tse, if you wish to communicate with someone else, you might use symbols for words. Lao-tse: Yes. LaB: Sometimes we do not have enough words to be able to adequately express something to ourselves. Lao-tse: This is so, but may I say it is not - and you will recognize it right away - it is not that we do not have enough words. We do not have the right words, intelligent words. You have endless words. You need new words when you start thinking on higher levels about anything. Communication on lower levels is not truly communication. It is the releasing of pressures in ourselves, simply the releasing of pressures. When we step to higher levels of communication it is not simply getting rid of pressures, but it is creating variable pressures, pressures not the same. LaB: Would this be, so that we can understand or so that we could feel more comfortable or more harmonious? Lao-tse: Yes, because on these higher levels, our thoughts cause us to make sounds that are less painful because they are free, mostly, from fear and anxiety, which is why you find the more painful action in the lower levels of communication. Do you understand, please? It is a thing that I wish very much for you to grasp. Let us approach it in this way. If you are still in the world of superstitious beliefs regarding the salvation of your soul, the word sin is a very painful word. The word death is a very frightening word because you are connecting the departure of your soul with judgment in a higher consciousness. Let us use the word sin on a higher level where to sin is to make a mistake, to err because of not knowing. Here the word is not painful; moreover, it teaches us much. We are more open. We are more free on that level. Irene:You members have said that we should be grateful for the sin, or the mistake we made, for it is through these that we can grow more. Not to be fearful of them, but to appreciate them. Lao-tse: Yes, and the word sin instills fear into our emotional self and creates pain and guilt feelings. LaB: This may seem paradoxical, but it seems that if we are to use a language - and we, of course, are incarnated here to have to use symbols to express thoughts of higher levels, we apparently do not have an adequate vocabulary or medium through which to express these thoughts. Now you, the teachers of the Inner Circle, are teachers of the Light and you undoubtedly are able to communicate at higher levels; but yet, when you communicate with us, you have to use physical means which are inadequate to express your ideas. Now, would you be able to teach us the words that would be adequate to express these higher ideas, that in turn we may not only use the words as labels but as insight into the higher level with which we are trying to identify ourselves? Lao-tse: Sorry, I cannot use a different vocabulary or different words than you are conditioned to understand. But I think that what I would say, would help to make you afraid of words instead of helping you to think of words on higher levels than the level on which you have been thinking; to understand what is, instead of wishful-thinking creations; fantasies brought about by the way you have been taught on all manner of subjects. LaB: Many thanks, Lao-tse, for your light, for the kind thoughts and your wonderful efforts to bring this knowledge to us. Lao-tse: Thank you. I wish to continue on this subject and enlarge upon it at another time. R: May the light be extended upon you. LaB: And be reflected back to us. Lao-tse: It can be no other way. We also become a light for one another. It is indeed, in the Light that I come and stay with you. Good night. |