Imagine a universe that is breathtakingly beautiful.
Imagine a universe that is so complex that the human mind cannot begin to comprehend it.
Imagine a universe that is so simple that it and everything in it is composed entirely of vibrating strings.
Imagine a universe that is surrounded by a Void so all-encompassing, so all-pervasive that no-thing, not even space or time exists.
Imagine that the universe is expanding INTO that Void and, by so doing, is bringing the wondrous, amazing and beautiful into what had once been the Void.
Imagine an infinite number of universes—similar to ours and not so.
Then, know this:
Whatever you can comprehend, whatever you can understand, whatever you can imagine about this universe and all those others, the All that Is has imagined more.
Just a note about the blog’s setup:
Some months ago, I arranged things here so it reads from front to back – with the simpler concepts on top and the deeper stuff further in. So you’ll find that the blog reads more like a book than most do.
I’m not posting much new material at the moment [I just ordered some new books so maybe I’ll be inspired once they arrive and get delved into – we’ll see]. If/when I do, I usually post the new stuff on top and leave it there for a week or so then place it where it seems, to me, to fit into the overall narrative.
So if you read the blog from top to bottom it should make sense – at least I hope it does. :)
Two Crows
Mauigirl gave me the idea to post a list of books on the sidebar that I’ll be drawing from as things go on.
I listed them in approximate chronological order as I found em and/or in order of difficulty. For instance, the Seth Series was harder [for me] to comprehend than the Michael Teachings have been — so they’re listed later although I found them first.
What follows is my interpretation of what I’ve read from several sources—chief among them being The Michael teachings [see the sidebar for several books in the series.]
The Tao or All that Is has divided itself into layers of existence. According to Michael, Cayce, Seth and others, there are 7 Planes:
The Ordinal Planes
1] The Physical Plane
On the Physical Plane we experience separateness in all its variety. We descend into the belief system that we are separate from one another, from animals, from rocks, from plants, from the table where I’m typing this, even from the All that Is itself.
Before we come to the planet for the first time, we spend time and energy checking out several planets. We can cohabit within several species of plants and animals—even rocks and mineral formations.
In fact, one reason for the widespread beliefs among virtually all primitive peoples regarding sprites, elves, ogres, leprechauns, fairies, totems, furies, various gods, etc. etc. etc. is a recognition, at a deep level, of the presence of these pre-infant souls investigating the planet. These new souls also help the planet rejuvenate itself and recover from problems brought about by the beings already inhabiting it.
Just about now, however, new souls are beginning to look elsewhere for planets to move onto.
About the time a planet arrives at the Mature Soul Level, most new souls lose interest in it. It’s not much fun playing catch-up when almost everyone on the planet is well ahead of you. It’s also no fun at all to get left holding the bag when the planet has been pretty well screwed up before you even got here. Someone is going to have to undertake a massive cleanup if the planet is going to survive—and the infants don’t see why they should have to do the cleanup if they didn’t participate in the mess-up. And, who can blame them?
The good news [for the planet] is that this will accelerate the growth of the population as the average soul age increases more rapidly as newer souls don’t continue arriving. This means that the souls that are here will become more and more willing to accept responsibility for things like the environment generally, global warming, pollution, etc.
And here’s the bad news: since those very young souls aren’t here checking us out and, meanwhile, helping with rejuvenation and recovery behind the scenes, that leaves the rest of us on our own when it comes to cleaning up the place. Ruh-roh.
Anyhow, we’re here, we’re all pretty familiar with the physical plane already.
So, I’ll move on.
2] The Astral Plane
We go to the Lower Astral Plane every night when we’re dreaming. There we can confer with our Spirit Guides—friends we left behind when we entered this lifetime. We can also meet friends who are on-planet and are engaged in dreams of their own. All of these folks help us make sense of any knotty problems we’re currently dealing with in our lives in progress. And, of course, we return the favor to those who are currently earth-bound like us.
Those of us who learn how to travel out of our bodies also land on the Lower Astral Plane.
After we die, we return to the Lower Astral and hang out with friends. We assess our most previous life along with numerous earlier lives examining patterns we’ve developed and deciding if we want to continue down those paths or reassess and choose other, possibly more productive, methods of progress.
Those of us who are more developed might take on a job of some sort—helping younger souls reorient to the life between incarnations, say. Or working with those souls who are in something I’ve heard called The Intensive Care Unit. This is an area reserved for folks who have committed acts that are deeply evil. They need ‘time’ to recognize what they’ve done, assess their actions, comprehend the fact that they’re going to have to go through karmic reckonings, etc. Though I haven’t read that this is so, I would imagine that these folks might fall into despair and need help to get through it. After all, you can’t commit suicide after you’re dead. You have to face up to your actions. So, older souls work to help them do that.
I’m sure there are other jobs I’ve not heard of that souls engage in, as well.
After we’ve completed the last of our physical lives and cycled off the planet we move on to the Mid-astral Plane. Here we hang out again waiting for the last souls of our Entity [a loose grouping of souls who split off from the All that Is at about the same ‘time’ (sorry about the references to time, here, but I don’t know how else to talk about this stuff. Please bear with me.)]
Our Essence Twin is probably cycling off at about the same ‘time’ and, soon after we both arrive at the Mid-astral, we fuse our two souls together. We don’t lose our separate egos yet, we’re each aware of our selves—but we’re also fully aware of our Twin’s being and of its experiences on the planet and on the astral plane during the time we’ve been separated.
When all the souls from the Entity arrive, we move to the Higher Astral Plane and continue fusing. Again we don’t lose our selves, but we do become aware of all the experiences of these essences.
At about this time, we’ve fused with about 1000 souls [what Michael calls ‘fragments’].
Then we move on to the next Plane.
3] The Causal Plane
Here we teach souls on the Astral Plane and, as mentioned in the post on Off World Soul Ages, at some point we send a representative back to the planet we left behind. There, the representative soul teaches what it has learned. It may lead a nation out of bondage as Mohandas Gandhi did—or it may act as a neighborhood organizer—or it may work to enable a group of people to assert its rights as Martin Luther King did.
During a transition period like the planet is traversing now, many Causal Plane representatives come back to prepare the way for the Infinite Soul.
But, every Causal Entity sends at least one representative to its previous planet. So there are at least a few present on the planet at any given time.
Unlike the Infinite Soul manifestation, this Transcendental Soul isn’t self-aware. It doesn’t know that it is different from the other souls on the planet. It lives its entire life within the body, doesn’t perform miracles [other than those similar to the ones Gandhi was able to pull off when he convinced Hindus and Muslims to work together for their common good. Even those, though, were a major struggle—depending as they did on the good will of human beings.]
The Causal Plane is the level Michael is at now. It is at this point that we begin letting go of our egos.
In all the books, Michael is referred to as ‘they’. This is because they haven’t yet shed their egos enough to begin to think of themselves as a singular being. I find it simpler, here, to refer to Michael as ‘it’—but that’s a matter of my preference and isn’t the norm in any of the books I’ve read.
At the Higher Causal, we connect with one other entity [an entity generally consists of about 1000 souls or fragments] and begin the process of fusing. Often this is an entity with which we share a lot of Essence Twins. As this fusion begins becoming complete, we start moving toward the Mental Plane.
Michael apparently hasn’t begun this process yet. First, as I said above, it hasn’t yet begun thinking of itself in the singular. Also, I’ve read that Michael consists of about 1000 fragments. So it hasn’t yet begun fusing with its twin entity.
The Neutral Plane
4] The Akashic Record
It is at the Causal Plane that we first begin to interact with the Akashic Record. Maybe that’s why teachers like Gandhi, King, Seth and Michael teach from the Causal—after they have made contact with the knowledge it contains.
We don’t exist on this level. Instead it is essentially a library that contains all the information in the universe. It neutrally observes all that has gone on within the universe from its inception to its completion. When the universe has completed its course and is ready to spin off a baby universe, it gives a copy of this record to the new universe.
This may not apply this time though. Michael says we’ve decided not to play the physical game again—at least for the time being. But, maybe the Akashic Record will still be needed for whatever the next game will be. Who knows?
Scholars [see the posts on the soul’s Roles] dump their accumulated knowledge into the Record when they cycle off their respective planets. Other souls or entities may do this as well if they’ve a mind to, I don’t know.
The Cardinal Planes
5] The Mental Plane
On the Mental Plane you have direct intellectual contact with the All that Is. You keep on combining with other essences and entities. At this level you grasp, at an intellectual level, the infinite universe and the All.
Lao Tsu taught from the Mental Plane of Existence.
6] The Messianic Plane
On the Messianic Plane you experience agape [complete, total love for all beings]. At this level you comprehend the oneness of all and recognize that love for the other is, in fact, love for oneself. You have direct emotional contact with the All that Is and grasp, at an emotional level, the Infinite.
You continue blending until you have enfolded about 100,000 souls.
The Christ Soul taught from the Messianic Plane of Existence.
7] The Buddhaic Plane
At the lower levels of the Buddhaic Plane, you merge with all other Essences, Entities and Cadres of sentient beings. As you rise higher you join with non-sentient beings—animals, plants, minerals, planets, suns, the space between all the matter in the universe. Here, you comprehend at the instinctive level, the infinity of the All that Is and, in the final levels, you combine with the total consciousness of the All that Is and your journey is complete.
The Buddha Soul taught from the Buddhaic Plane of Existence.
You may remain within the All that Is for as long as you wish [although here, again, language fails as you are no longer ‘you’ but are one with the Infinite]. At any “time” [though, of course, time does not exist], any fragment may splinter off and begin a new journey beginning, again, at the Infant level of existence. Or, any fragment may choose to remain within the Whole and never leave again.
If a fragment does choose to cast itself off and make the circle again it will, almost without exception, choose a new Role, a different male/female energy, a different frequency, a new Essence Twin, go to a different planet from the last time [or choose not to take the physical route and remain separate from the universe], and on and on. In this way, we continuously bring back a wide variety of experiences adding breadth and depth to the Whole.
Michael says that, on average, the souls on this planet are experiencing their third walk-about.
xxx
The entire universe, according to Michael, is based on the number 7. It also says that the number 3 is a significant number. That is why, so says Michael, people empower those two numbers. We instinctively know that they are important.
I’ve begun to wonder, lately, if this has anything to do with the discovery, by Einstein, of 11 dimensions in the universe. 7 + 4 [3 spatial + time] = 11.
Just wondering along.
Given our planet’s perception level at the moment, it is easy to conclude that, ‘Older/more advanced is Better.’
That’s not how the game works, though — and we perceive it that way only out of some sense of competition [a Young Soul way of looking at things.]
Picture a circle outlined by dots rather than an unbroken line. No one of those dots is any better or worse than any other dot. Each is necessary in order to complete the circle.
Each Soul is exactly where it needs to be along the path leading back to the All that Is.
jfwiw.
Back in the 1960’s, Bill Vaughn, a humorist with the Kansas City Star, published a collection of the pieces he had written for the paper over the years. The first essay was simply one of his compiled pieces. The second was entitled: ‘On Second Thought: An Introduction.’All this is to say that I think I missed a spot. So, without further adieu—The Genesis Story—or, if you prefer, The Big Bang from the Spiritual Perspective:
This came from the Seth Material. If memory serves, the book is, ‘Seth Speaks.’
The All that Is is, so far as it knows, the only one of its kind. It continues to hunt around to see if it can locate any others but, so far, hasn’t found any [I sometimes speculate about that and wonder if it is a lonely existence.]
Before the advent of other beings [of which we are one form] the All that Is, being alone, began to dream. By their nature, the dreams of the All that Is began to move toward conscious existence. Over time the dreams began to become aware that they were actually simply dreams and began to clamor to exist in their own rights. The All that Is had to find a way to let go of its creations or go mad. The fate of any future existence hung in the balance as the All that Is grappled with this dilemma. If it had failed it might have created a universe that had no laws— that was, by its very nature, Chaos.
It succeeded, however, and a Big Bang occurred on the metaphysical level which was manifested on the physical level, as well [and who knows how many other levels?] In that instant every particle, every wave, every bit of energy—in short—every bit of string in the universe was created. In fact, the 11 physical dimensions and the 7 levels of the All that Is also sprang into existence.
According to Michael, our particular physical universe is in its 3rd incarnation [an assertion backed up by quantum physics] and the strings [which might coincide with what Michael calls the ‘fragments’ (in other words, us, the ‘All’ in the All that Is)] within it don’t plan to go for number 4. Maybe previous incarnations did result in Big Crunches followed by Big Bangs numbers 2 and 3, I don’t know.
This may account for the fact that the quantum physicists claim that there are stars within this universe that are older than the universe itself and why they claim that the universe is too fine-tuned to have been created by random chance — that it must be in at least its third iteration. And, maybe, that’s why they say the Big Crunch won’t happen [this time around] but that the Big Drift will be the fate of this universe.
Again, according to Michael there are whole other adventures out there waiting to be explored and we’ve decided to stop playing with the physical—at least for the time being.
**sigh** There I go using language loosely again. But how do you talk about this stuff without using words like ‘time’, anyway?
xxx
So, what’s your take on all of this? What are your thoughts on Seth’s explanation of the Big Beginning?
4/23/08
God is sitting in Heaven when a scientist says to Him, “Lord, we don’t need you anymore. Science has finally figured out a way to create life out of nothing. In other words, we can now do what you did ‘in the beginning.'”
“Oh, is that so? Tell me…” replies God.
“Well, ” says the scientist, “we can take dirt and form it into the likeness of You and breathe life into it, thus creating man.”
“Well, that’s interesting. Show Me. ”
So the scientist bends down to the earth and starts to mold the soil.
“Oh no, no, no. . .” interrupts God. “Get your own dirt. . . .”
xxx
Down through history, we humans have been very Human-centric.
Every culture from primitive times even until the present has perceived itself as central to the Universe and, somehow, more favored in the eyes of its Deity[ies] than all other cultures.
This is evidenced by the fact that those cultures we’ve been able to check on, at least, had a word that meant, ‘People’ and the same word meant their own personal tribe. Many, if not all, of those same tribes had another word that meant ‘Other’ and, almost universally, that word translated as something akin to ‘Barbarian’ or ‘Savage.’
Well into recorded history, it was a criminal offense in some cultures to suggest that humans weren’t the center of everything.
Little by little, however, science has shown us that that is, in fact, not the case. It turns out that we live on a small rock circling a nondescript sun in one arm of a not especially distinguished galaxy.
Our only claim to fame is that we are at the center of the Universe. But, since the universe is expanding in all directions at once, even that’s not special—every point in the universe is the center.
Heck, it even seems as if there’re an infinity of universes, fergoshsakes!
Even today, though, read most natural history books—watch almost any nature program on T.V.—and you will still find allusions to the idea that humans are at the top of the heap among all the species on the planet. It is assumed that that is our rightful place.
Now, enter the story of the All that Is that dreamed us into existence. It’s tempting, when we envision the dreaming All that Is whose dreams are becoming self-aware, to assume that ‘self-aware’ means what we think of when we apply it to ourselves. It doesn’t.
As the story above illustrates—the All that Is dreamed dirt into existence at the same nano-second that it dreamed us. Not only dirt. Hydrogen, too. And helium. And protein. And DNA. And the building blocks of all the fantastical life forms in all those other universes that don’t adhere to the same laws this one does. And bacteria. And termites. And dogs and cats and nudibranchs and jellyfish and birds and death watch beetles and shrimps and, and, and . . . . but you get my point.
Of course, we can argue, those things didn’t exist in that first nano-second. But, then, neither did we. At least not in the sense of fully-fashioned-entities-made-in-the-image-of-God. The potential was there but the ‘finished product’ had yet to emerge. Or, more accurately, our bodies didn’t exist then. Ftm, neither did our souls. Prior to heading down the path toward Human, we were a shrew-like creature connected to a common hive soul. Just as shrews and mice and lemurs and the great apes are today. And, at the very, very beginning, we were much less, even, than that. We were, in fact, dreams that were beginning to have a sense of self just like all the potential mosquitos and potential flounders and potential saber-tooth tigers and potential wolves and potential elephants and potential whales. And we [along with every other particle and wave and string] in the universe were there all along waiting for the universe to settle into a level that could support life/reality as we know it. In fact, we were helping that to happen. Not only the human-potential was helping the potential-that-was-the-universe during its plasma phase right on down to this nano-second [and beyond] every possible creation was there right alongside us helping to create the NOW.
I have to admit, I like this story better than the Six Day Story, myself. But that’s just me. Other people’s reality is the one about Six Days—literally. And their reality is every bit as valid as mine.
After all—What do we know, for sure, anyway?
As I said in the 1st post, the quantum physicists and astronomers tell us that the void outside the universe is so complete it doesn’t even contain space/time. This is a concept that I simply cannot wrap my mind around—so I have to just take their word for it. [We’re going to be running into a lot of those as this blog progresses, I imagine.]Closer to home, there’s another instance when time ceases to exist:
According to Einstein, the faster we move in space, the slower time goes. So, it would seem to follow that the slower we move in space, the faster time speeds up, right?
So, what would happen if we could literally step off the planet and stop moving altogether? If Einstein is right, I would guess, all time would flash by in an instant.
According to Seth [see below], that is precisely what is happening: All space/time is occurring simultaneously—it has simply been slowed down so we perceive the universe as if time exists within it and events seem to follow each other in orderly progression.
xxx
The metaphysical teachings that I’ve studied in the most depth [The Michael Teachings and The Seth Material] tell us that the Astral Plane [aka Heaven] exists all around us—we simply can’t, as a rule, perceive it.
If they explain WHY this is so, I haven’t found that explanation in any of the books I’ve read yet—and I freely admit there’s lots and lots of stuff out there that I haven’t gotten around to—with more being written all the time.
So, here’s my latest theory:
Maybe the Astral Plane [and the 5 other planes beyond it] not being a physical plane, doesn’t move in space. If that is the case, we could be sitting in the same chair occupied by Aunt Tillie, who came by for a visit this afternoon, and we would have no way of knowing it because Aunt Tillie is outside of time as we perceive it.
My theory doesn’t explain why, as Seth has implied and as has been outlined in yet another book [Life After Life by Raymond Moody], people who have died can see and hear us. They have even told Moody of feeling frustrated when they couldn’t comfort their loved ones or explain to the medical personnel that there was no need to keep trying to revive their bodies—they were doing just fine, thankyouverymuch.
Moody, who interviewed people who had had near-death experiences, gave the clearest account of this of any source I’ve read. The folks he spoke with hadn’t crossed completely over to the Astral yet [or they wouldn’t have come back.]
Maybe having one foot in each camp, so to speak, makes such perception easier for them. I don’t know.
xxx
Interestingly, I had already had the beginnings of the idea in my head for this post before I got word that my mom was dying—the morning of the day the phone call came, as a matter of fact.
I might just shrug that off as coincidence if my cousin hadn’t told me, later, that my mom’s sister had been saying all week that she was sure that, ‘Something is the matter with Rie [my mom].’
And that gets me to wondering: Was she telling us she was packing her bags for the trip? And maybe already getting a glimpse of what lay ahead?
xxx
All that said—
What do you all think? What ideas do you have about Heaven or the Astral or whatever you choose to call it? And, what thoughts do you have about time and space, while you’re at it?
OK, here we go again:
I’d like to share a case of something that I think MAY have been the Karma/Grace principle at work.
First, allow me to say there was much about parenting her children that I disagreed with my mother about. There was one matter, though, that I could not fault her on: she was a scrupulously careful mother who never put her small children at risk of physical injury. She always made certain that child-gates were in place, that pot handles were turned inward on the stove, never left her toddlers unsupervised, etc. etc. etc.
So, on the afternoon I came home from school and found my mother talking blissfully to my younger
brother while she did her ironing, I was stunned. My 2 1/2-year-old brother was sitting in an open window with his back against the window-screen. This was one of those old-fashioned screens that was stapled to a wooden frame and tended to rot around the edges over time—and this one was pretty old. Beneath that window was a 1 3/4 story drop to a concrete walk below.
I was only ten years old and I could see the danger immediately. So why didn’t my mother see it? Yet, here she was standing across the room, looking right at him with a hot iron, an ironing board and a clothes basket between her and her son who could, conceivably, go out that window at any moment.
Again, I was only ten, but I was also aware of something else: my brother was an obstinate brat who had a tendency to challenge me if I told him to do anything. He was, after all, traversing the terrible-two’s [though I didn’t know about that concept at the time.] Still, I did know that he would, almost certainly, stomp his foot at me and shout ‘NO!’ if I told him to get out of that window. And, that would increase the risk.
Add to that the recognition that pointing out to my mother the fact that, ‘We have a problem here,’ would not be a good idea, either. She would likely become defensive and argue with me. My brother might become upset and push against the screen without even meaning to. It would use up valuable time that we might not have. Etc. Etc.
All of these thoughts ran through my mind in much less time than it has taken me to type them here. Almost instantly I knew what I had to do: Drawing as little attention to myself as possible, I walked over to the window-seat and sat down within arm’s length of my brother. I didn’t say a word. I just sat there—tensed like a spring. Sure enough, within a couple of minutes [at least that’s how it seems in retrospect] the screen gave way, my brother lost his balance and went out the window head-first and backward. And I grabbed his ankle and hauled him back in the window.
xxx
Now, this whole scenario may have been one major coincidence. In fact that is exactly how I viewed it [if I thought about it at all—which I very rarely did] until I began to learn about Karma.
As I have thought it through with that concept in mind, though, I’ve come to other conclusions:
The most astonishing part of the situation is the fact that my mother allowed it to happen in the first place. As I’ve said, it was totally out of character for her not to see the danger and tell my brother to get down from there. And she didn’t. Why not?
I guess a second point is the fact that I was, after all, only ten years old. How did I see a danger my mother didn’t see and figure out a way around it?
And, why did I walk into that room at that precise moment, anyway? Almost every other day, I would run into the house, hurl myself upstairs, change my clothes, grab my skates and take off for Jane’s and Mary Dey’s house without a thought for where my mom and brother might be. Why did I change my pattern that day?
I’m sure you see where I’m going here.
Here’s where the speculation begins:
What if there was karma between my brother and me? There often is karma of one sort or another among family members [That’s why they come back together—to see if they can work it out this time.]
So, suppose for a moment that, in some previous lifetime, I threw the two-year-old ‘fragment’ who would one day be my brother off a cliff onto a rock and broke his skull. I did it maliciously and on-purpose.
Given the way we chose to work it out, it was likely a long, long time ago and my brother didn’t want to go the route of revenge [if he had he would have thrown me out the window].
So, between us we worked out a scenario, instead, in which I could save him from a similar fate this time around. Our mother had to be included in the plan by ‘not seeing’ the problem so that I could solve it, myself.
One other thing leads me to think this was Karma: the aftermath. Knowing my mother, she probably went into hysterics after the incident. Almost certainly she came across the room screaming, grabbing my brother and me, crying uncontrollably, the whole nine yards [after all, she’s an early Mature soul. Emotions are what they do.] But I remember none of that—although the earlier part of the memory is completely clear in my mind. But, once the karma was complete, the rest was immaterial and I have no recollection of it at all.
xxx
So, what do you think about my conclusions?
And how about you? Do you have any ‘coincidences’ lurking in your past you’d care to share?
xxx
Update 4/16/20 : I was on the phone with my brother recently and, out of the blue, he said, “I remember when you saved my life.”
I was floored — I had always assumed he wouldn’t remember the incident. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t yet 3 years old, after all. But he even gave me some details I hadn’t known. He told me that the screen didn’t give way. Instead, he told me, he was fiddling with the latch and accidentally disengaged it which was the cause of his falling out of the window.
And he remembers hanging upside down outside the window for what seemed like some time though my memory is of pulling him in very quickly. Of course, when the adrenaline is pumping, it can do strange things to time — so there’s no telling, at this late date, what the timeline actually was.
Still, it was nice to get that confirmation because, to be honest, I had begun to doubt the memory — especially after having concentrated on it as I did when I was writing it up for the blog. I wondered if I had misinterpreted it or even dreamed it. But no — Don remembers it, too. That’s good to know.
I just realized: I’ve been running on some assumptions, here. Sorry.
I have studied Seth and, later, Michael for SO long, I just assumed everyone knows who they are. And—I know that isn’t true, really.
So —Meet Seth—
There’s a whole book dedicated to nothing more or less than introducing Seth [The Coming of Seth] so this is going to, of necessity, be a very rough thumbnail sketch, indeed.
Seth burst upon the scene in the early 1960’s, so far as I recall. Jane Roberts, her husband Robert Butts and some friends were messing around with a ouija board just for fun and, suddenly this entity started coming through. It said it had been trying to contact Jane for quite a while and, when this opportunity came along it jumped at it.
Meanwhile, as you can imagine, Jane was jumping out of her skin. She didn’t WANT to be a medium. She had never in her wildest dreams thought of doing anything of the sort. She simply wanted the whole thing [including Seth] to just go away. Seth told her that the choice was hers but strongly urged her to continue channeling as doing so would help her progress and help the world at large move toward its Mature Soul Manifestation.
Robert added his voice to Seth’s [I can just hear Jane saying, ‘Easy for you to say!’] and slowly, reluctantly she began to let Seth come through.
Over time there were numerous experiments with consciousness, physical body distortions and contortions with Jane saying, DO YOU SEE THAT??? [as her hand grew to 4 times it’s normal size then shrank back to normal in a matter of moments, her hair and eyes changed color then returned to normal, etc.] and Robert describing the phenomena to her. The physical manifestations could be seen by others—which was some comfort, at least, to Jane.
Very slowly, Jane began trusting the information that was coming through her—first through the ouija board, later through automatic writing and still later by voice with Robert taking down the material as dictated by Seth [Seth’s handwriting was atrocious].
She continued, for much of the time she spent channeling Seth, to hold doubts as to its origin — wondering if it was simply a deeper part of her own personality. Seth denied it but refused to argue — allowing her to hold this view if it made her feel more comfortable.
Before her death, there were 10 books co-authored by Seth and Jane though Jane is the only author acknowledged on their covers. The last two seem to be incomplete—probably as a result of Jane’s illness.
I’ve read 3 of the books cover-to-cover and dipped into a fourth—but they are very heavy going and, when I discovered Michael [easier, by far to comprehend—at least for me] I kinda jumped ship and have been happily engaged in wading through those teachings instead with occasional forays back into the Seth books just for the heck of it or to see if the two agree with each other.
Recently, though, I’ve been returning to Seth. I’m currently reading, “The Nature of Personal Reality,” “The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events,” “The Magical Approach” and rereading “Seth Speaks” to refine my understanding of the basics. aamof, I’m starting to get a few glimmers for some future posts. Stay tuned . . . .
xxx
And, now, meet Michael:
Again, there was the introduction via ouija board:
One night, at a party, several people were clustered around the board when Michael came through. To make a long story short—two people had the easiest time making contact [I don’t recall their names] and the rest of the guests soon lost interest and drifted away. Those two, however were alternately freaking out and becoming more and more enamored of the material coming through.
One interesting note: Though Seth seemed to find no trouble in giving itself a name when Jane asked for one, Michael found it very hard to do. It just kept saying it didn’t have a name. The people involved were adamant, though. They didn’t want to call the entity ‘Hey You’. So, finally, very reluctantly, it named itself Michael because its final incarnation, in a village near ancient Babylon, had had a similar name. It said it wanted to emphasize the fact that speed isn’t as important as humans seem to consistently believe it to be. [Maybe, as we move further into the Mature Soul phase, we’ll let go of that viewpoint.]
Over time, a larger group developed. They began calling themselves Michael’s People and a book by that name was, eventually published. LOTS and LOTS of books have come out of several collaborations between Michael and various people.
Michael explains the different approaches [between itself and Seth] this way:
The Seth entity is, primarily, a Server/Scholar entity.
Servers often follow the lead of someone else—not because they’re weak but because they need and want to be accepting of and caring for others.
Scholars tend to be solitary beings. They can immerse themselves in one field of study to the exclusion of all others for anywhere from 1 to several lifetimes. They’re more comfortable dealing with other people on a one-to-one basis—so Seth tends to work that way even though it has been off-planet for a number of what we would call centuries. In fact, each fragment maintains its Role until it rejoins the All that Is.
Michael’s entity is a King/Warrior entity.
Both of these Roles tend to deal with large groups of people more easily than Scholars and Severs do.
So, Michael has attracted lots and lots of mediums or seers or whatever you want to call them and BOY! have they churned out the books!!! I’ve probably read about 10 of those cover-to-cover and peeked into several others. I quit buying them about 8 years ago because I had plenty to be going forward with.
The titles and authors are included on the sidebar along with several other books. I’ve loosely grouped them based on when, chronologically, I discovered them and/or how difficult they were [for me] to grasp.
Beyond the published books, I’ve got massive loose-leaf binders of verbatim channeling sessions that I pick up and wade through randomly from time to time. Probably 6 to 8 of those.
See what I mean about lots of stuff here? And I’m sure there’s more out there that I haven’t yet discovered.
xxx
Now, as I promised earlier, a word about the makeup of both these entities.
As I read back over this post before launching into this explanation, I saw that I’ve already explained part of it along the way—but I’ll try to clarify the situation a bit further:
You and I and almost all humans on the planet are made up of a single fragment [soul] that, prior to birth, created a body and a personality for use in a one-time shot [one incarnation] on the planet. Consider the soul as the ‘body’ and the personality and the body as the ‘clothes’.
Between lives we go to a level just beyond the physical [the lower astral plane] where we engage in work [I’m not all that clear about what kind of work we do, but I’ve read about it in several books—not all of them written by Seth and Michael] spend time with friends, play with various forms of reality and prepare for our next lifetime.
After each of us reach the end of our last lifetime on the planet [at the close of the 7th level of the Old Soul Age] when we’ve probably lived, on average, about 200 to 350 lifetimes or so, we cluster with a bunch of old friends we started out with [picture your high-school graduating class] on the lower to mid-astral plane while we wait for the last of our graduating class to finish up.
After we’re all assembled we hang around together for a while in the mid-astral till we feel ready then we begin assimilating and moving higher in the astral. The group of fragments slowly becomes one entity and moves into what is called the Causal Plane.
Now, don’t panic, we don’t lose our selves—we simply merge with several hundred other fragments or souls and we do it when and as we’re ready to do it. For some time after this merging, we continue to think of ourselves as ‘we’—not as ‘I’.
Over ‘time’ [gosh, language can be so limiting!] we begin to assimilate further and further and eventually, the entity does begin to think of itself as a single being and moves from perceiving itself as ‘we’ to perceiving itself as ‘I’ and the first step back toward the All that Is or the Tao [as Michael calls it] has been completed. This step takes a LONG time [there’s that pesky word again! :( ].
Both Michael and Seth are engaged in this process ‘now’. Michael tend to talk about themselves as ‘we’ while Seth seems to feel more comfortable with the ‘I’ identity. So, it would seem that Seth is somewhat ‘further along’ than Michael is. Maybe that’s why I tend to find Seth’s information more difficult to comprehend.
Anyway, at the end of every milestone along the way a similar merging of entities occurs with the group incorporating more and more fragments [aka souls] within its ranks until it merges with the All that Is [which is where we all came from before the whole game began and is our eventual destination.]
Then, if/when we want to, we can take on another Role and start the whole process over again. AND we can choose [as you and I did this time] to take the physical route [more demanding—but ‘faster’] or the more leisurely route which doesn’t include a trip through physical reality.
An entity that falls into that category has, in fact, written at least two books [The Lazeris Teachings in case you’re interested.] I’ve begun those but haven’t spent too much time or energy on them.
My frame of reference kind of parallels the ex-junkie who prefers to learn from a counselor who was previously addicted to drugs—‘How can Lazeris, who has never inhabited a body, have a clue as to what I’m going through here?’ So, I tend to listen a lot more closely to Michael and Seth who came up through the physical ranks—but that’s just me.
xxx
So, there you have it in a nutshell—
Where Michael and Seth came from and a sense [I hope] of who they are.
I’ve been reading several Seth books, lately and I’ve come to some new conclusions regarding the Soul Age matters that Michael has outlined.
First of all, as I read the material in the books and as I wrote it up here, I both received and conveyed the impression that the Soul Ages are cut-and-dried. That the Infant cycle ends and the Baby lives begin followed by the Young lives, then the Mature and Old lives. That each sequence of lives is delineated by a boundary of sorts and that the matters being dealt with during each level don’t bleed one into the other. Now, I’m beginning to think, I may have taken the information too literally or not made enough allowance for the individuality of the soul.
Rereading the Seth material [after a hiatus of some years, aamof] I’m starting to rethink that premise.
Although Seth doesn’t speak of Soul Ages per se, it does seem to describe a similar phenomenon but this progression seems to be more flexible than I had interpreted Michael’s delineation as being.
It seems to me, after looking at the idea through the Seth Material lens, that the evolution might occur with more fluidity. The soul might even arrive at the Mature Soul consciousness, say, in the matter of emotions earlier in its evolution while remaining in the Young Soul awareness level when it comes to the matter of relationships, for instance. Or that it might arrest at the Young Soul level in regards to dealing with money while moving forward with relationship issues [this might be especially true if a soul were to return to the United States or to a third-world country as an overlord-type figure for lifetime after lifetime during the transition period between the Young and Mature phases (or, more accurately perhaps, the soul might choose to return as an overlord or CEO because it isn’t prepared to make the leap in regards to the issue of acquiring money and power-over-others’-lives.)]
I’m not saying that this is necessarily so – but that my interpretation of how souls mature is changing as I merge the two teachings.
Just a thought along the way.
So – what are your thoughts along these lines?
According to the primary source I’m studying at the moment [The Michael Teachings], among others, there are seven soul ages—five of which we complete on the physical plane. These make up the levels of development we move through as we make our ways back toward the All that Is.
First, a little background:
When each of us splinters off from the All that Is we begin a new grand cycle — or what I like to call a Walkabout. It’s probably not the soul’s first outing of this sort. Depending on how adventurous any given soul is, it will likely have gone through several before. For instance, I’ve read that the soul that inhabited the body of Jesus of Nazareth for most of that lifetime [until the crucifixion] was on it’s 27th Walkabout.]
Anyhow, this is how the itinerary goes: First, we choose our role [more about roles later.] Then we decide
whether we will include the physical dimension in our journey. The downside to that route is the fact that it’s lots harder to traverse the physical than it is to steer clear of that course. The upside is that it’s ‘faster’ than taking the more leisurely route that doesn’t include the run through the physical realm. So, those of us who are impatient tend to choose this track—even though it’s harder work.
Once that decision is made, we tour several planets. We can hang around on each one for as long as we wish just checking it out.
For what it’s worth, the planet Earth doesn’t have many of these new ‘fragments’ checking it out these days.
Once the general population reaches a certain average age [about the age we, collectively, are now] most fragments lose interest in joining the game-in-progress.
The planet is looking tired—there’s a massive clean-up that needs to happen—and folks who didn’t have a part in making the mess generally aren’t interested in cleaning up after the rest of us. And who can blame them?
Also, it’s not much fun playing catch-up when almost the entire planet’s-worth of souls are so far ahead of you. So, the odds of a new infant coming here are pretty remote at the moment.
Anyhow, once the fragment has made the decision to go physical and chosen a planet, it needs to slow w-a-y down — lowering its vibration to a level that can be contained in a body. If it didn’t do this it would tend to burn the body out within a very few years—maybe sooner.
Then, it hunts around for a body that isn’t spoken for already. It spots a pregnant female and begins hanging around her. At this point, there’s no accumulated karma, so any pregnant mother will do. Depending on how impatient the fragment is, it may jump right into the body and remain with it throughout the pregnancy. A far more common option, though, is to touch base with the growing fetus occasionally—just to check on its progress. Otherwise, the fragment goes on about its business of checking out the planet, hanging out with friends, giving its personality its final tweaks [more about how we build our personalities and so on in later posts].
Actually, any fragment can opt out at any time during a pregnancy and, in fact, has about two years after birth to make its final decision about whether to remain in the chosen body. So, even after birth, if the fragment finds that the situation it has been born into isn’t what it had in mind after all, it can bail out. A number of re-absorptions, miscarriages, stillbirths and crib-deaths can be accounted for by fragments deciding that they had made a mistake and starting over with a new body [often even with a different family]. This is true at any soul age—not just during the first incarnation on a planet.
Once the fragment has committed itself to its first body, it is on its way and, most likely, will complete the physical incarnation cycle and will do it on whatever planet it started out on.
Next post: The Infant Soul.
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By the time the infant appears on a planet for the first time, it has been on its own in the universe for a while. It has spent ‘time’ considering several planets before settling on the chosen one. Then, it has examined the planet of choice and may have investigated several different animal or even plant species [by cohabiting within several varieties, for instance] in it’s analysis before settling on the planet it will call home for the next several thousand years.
By the way, this ‘cohabiting’ is not the same as transmigration—though it may seem to be so. However, karma cannot be collected at this point and such cohabitation is purely research-oriented in nature—it has nothing to do with the development of the soul. That is what differentiates it from transmigration as such.
The soul is, after all, making a big investment here— committing itself to numerous lifetimes over several thousands of years as a sentient being on the planet and, unless it is a very rash soul, indeed, it wants to be certain this is a good fit. As a result, when it finally takes it’s first human body, it has probably moved into a fairly instinctive mode of existence. This comes about as a result of the choice of forgetting where we came from.
This choosing to forget comes in handy as remembering previous lifetimes would be cumbersome at best. I’ll go into that more in later posts. For now, suffice to say, would you really want to know about crimes you committed in medieval times [and the resulting karma you have or have not paid]? My answer to that question is a resounding, ‘NO!’ One life at a time is challenge enough, thankyouverymuch.
The Soul has also chosen its ROLE [more on roles in later posts] and spent ‘time’ creating its first body and its first personality. If it is wise it will take counsel with other, more experienced souls as these are all daunting tasks—particularly for an inexperienced, relatively new soul still learning the ropes.
xxx
The early Infant Soul is somewhat raw and non-defined when it arrives on the planet as a fully sentient being for the first time. It can look fairly primitive and not-quite-pulled-together. The individual often looks furtive or frightened.
The lessons for the Infant are primarily those of physical survival and, as a result, Infants tend to cluster near the equator where the weather, at any rate, will not increase the difficulties involved in survival.
However, because infants tend to cluster there, they are easy prey for unscrupulous older Souls who may be playing with things like totalitarianism and such horrors—not to mention wild animals and diseases. Lives can be brutish and short with Infants experiencing every type of survival test imaginable.
Infants learn how to find food and water, build shelters, and the very earliest lessons in collaboration with other people. They haven’t yet learned how to work cooperatively with others and any favors they do for others are strictly of the tit-for-tat variety. They may be loners as this method of meeting the new environment tends to feel safer than spending a lot of time with other people.
Eating is a matter of survival and has nothing to do with pleasure beyond the sensation of a full belly—something which is, in fact, not often achieved.
Similarly, sex is practiced as a survival mechanism. Sexual pleasure is not yet attainable—only the assuaging of lust.
On the positive side, infant souls can be very attuned to nature. They resonate closely within their own small group—family or small tribe—and experience the group consciousness more clearly than they will again until they have graduated from the planet. They have the ability, all too soon forgotten, of living in the moment.
Old souls sometimes will opt to go to these equatorial zones to help the infants there learn the basics. They may take on the roles of shamans and healers and will be venerated by the trusting Infant Souls in residence.
Unfortunately, sometimes Young Souls [see later post] will incarnate there and take advantage of the population. That is often the case when dictators take over and terrorize the general populace. [Think Saddam Hussein—a young soul in the currently transitioning (infant-to-baby) country of Iraq. Or, for that matter, GW Bush (late Baby or early Young Soul, I’m almost certain) in Iraq.]
The conscience is not yet fully integrated in Infant Souls and, in the rare instance when an Infant takes on a life in a sophisticated country like the US, for instance, it is likely to run afoul of the law due to this lack. Although these souls may inflict great pain on others [usually on a one-to-one level—not brutalizing large groups of people—they’re generally not sophisticated enough to pull off a major crime spree, yet], their actions are often brought about by fear rather than true malice. Even so, this is a time of opening and creating karmic ties of the violent variety whether as victim or perpetrator.
Next post: The Baby Soul
Within each soul age there are seven levels [more about those in a later post] so, by the time the soul reaches the Baby Soul Age, it has lived at least 7 lifetimes and probably more like 20 to 40. The Infant stage is, often, fairly long because so many of its lives are short. Therefore, it takes more lives to learn the Infant lessons than it takes to learn later ones as the soul matures.
When the soul moves from the Infant level of consciousness to the Baby level, it has its survival skills down pat. Now, it’s ready to get civilized. It wants to know the rules of society and will move into more and more sophisticated communities around the planet in order to learn how different cultures organize themselves.
Baby souls go through a lot of changes in their growing-up process. This is an energetic and exploratory period. Baby souls are like adolescents: eager to get out into the world and demonstrate that they know how to ‘do it right’. There is still a basic lack of understanding and they have an immature perspective. They are almost, but not quite, ready to make the big leap to independence and self-regulated behavior.
The Baby soul age is like the stereotypical pre-teen/early teenage know-it-all stage. Babies, having less understanding and insight than older souls, tend not to see the bigger picture. They are likely to dismiss the ideas or suggestions of those older ones and cling fiercely to their views of us-vs.-them, for instance.
The Baby soul often thinks and acts in ways dictated by his or her peers. S/he is putting limited experience to work and, therefore, is pretty narrowly focused—especially if s/he is surrounded by Baby Soul peers.
Babies tend to live in small towns where there are, typically, lots of other Babies to pal around with. This way, they can live fairly comfortably without feeling too threatened by all those older souls in the big cities who WANT to deal with the bigger picture. Babies are usually perfectly content with the smaller picture, thankyouverymuch.
The cop walking his or her beat is often a Baby learning about law-and-order. The same is true of the prostitute turning a trick. Or the mayor of a small town [Babies like to be big fish in small ponds].
Another way to learn about the legal system is to commit crimes—sometimes violent ones. When they DO land in a large city, getting involved with a gang works well for getting this perspective. Commit a crime, get caught, go through the legal system including the prison hierarchy. Get out of prison and go through the parole system/halfway-house. Repeat.
It’s all good [although from the earth-bound perspective it doesn’t always look that way.] The perspective from the Causal Plane is different from that of earth, however [Michael exists on the Causal Plane.] From there, every earthly experience is perceived as valid—as in: an opportunity for learning.
Many, many Babies live in small-town-America. Many [though by no means all] are upstanding members of their communities. One motto often adhered to is, ‘Do it right or not at all.’ Their lawns are weeded and watered; their homes are clean; they don’t want your car parked in front of their homes and they certainly won’t park in no-parking zones, themselves. They are proper and mannerly, following the rules of etiquette.
The “do it right” attitude extends to the area of sexuality, as well. More often than not, Baby souls approach sex prudishly both in public expression and private practice. Moralistic in their value system, Baby souls regard the missionary position as, of course, the right way to do it, and only within marriage.
The current focus on condemning such practices as condom distribution—even in an effort to control the spread of deadly disease—is distinctly a Baby point of view being manifest. This can extend to the vengeful viewpoint: ‘those people [people with AIDS, for instance] deserve what they get anyway. I’M not going to give out condoms to keep “them” from getting sick.’ [The US VS THEM dynamic is a very Baby perception.]
They see moral issues as black/white—either/or, with no shades of gray, and of course they identify themselves with the white—good. Anything they do not understand they identify with the black—evil.
Even the idea of other people having a different opinion from their own will puzzle the Baby Soul and, if they perceive the issue as important enough, may bring out a tendency toward violence. Think about abortion-clinic bombings, for instance.
They borrow simple concepts of right and wrong from the rules of society, or better still, from what they perceive to be the laws of God, and then stick doggedly to them all their lives. They tend to blame the world when things go wrong: attributing such occurrences to “evil forces” at work. They find it difficult to accept the error of their own ways, since they believe they are doing what is right. Self-righteousness is a common personal viewpoint.
As to religion, Baby souls tend toward fundamentalism or an evangelical point of view. The personification of the deity is more natural to this Age than any other. To them God seems anthropomorphic —like one of them: more knowledgeable and powerful to be sure, but still merely a glorified human being— and a male human because males are perceived in the majority of earthly institutions [and certainly by the Babies within them] as the primary authority figures.
Babies believe in the forces of evil, and these forces are also typically personified as an anthropomorphic “Satan” figure.
The “Word of God”—whatever sacred text the individual’s religion follows—is interpreted literally.
When their children get into trouble at school, no matter the circumstances, the typical Baby Soul parent will side with the authority rather than their child and will work to make their child acceptable to the authority figures of the school.
But, Babies are more complex than the simple statement, ‘What are the rules? Ok, that’s what we’ll do.’ Hitler, for instance, was a 5th level Baby soul. Richard Nixon, too, was a Baby [7th level, I think though I’m not absolutely sure of that.] And, though I’ve never found any reference to him, I’m almost certain G. W. Bush is a Baby.
On the rare occasions when Babies get into lofty authority levels they tend to 1] go overboard and 2] believe that they are free to create the rules they would be slavishly following if they weren’t in positions of great power.
From their limited perspectives, they don’t perceive the principles more mature souls are following when they create social rules. They simply see the end results. So, while an older soul may create workplace safety rules that actually help the people they are regulating, Babies are more likely to make rules they, themselves, don’t have to follow. Or create rules designed to give themselves the edge over other people within the society they are regulating. Or create rules that oppress others rather than help them live more fruitful lives. When they do this Babies are, generally speaking, creating lots and lots of karma they’ll need to balance at some later date.
The political perceptions of the Baby soul are quite conservative, if not downright reactionary. An excellent example from current history is “The Moral Majority” in the U.S. which was led by Jerry Falwell. I think you could tell simply by looking at the man’s physical characteristics that he was a baby soul. He looked every inch the self-contented toddler, didn’t he?
And the members of the church in Topeka who have been issued a court order to stay away from military funerals because they were haranguing mourners with their condemnations of gay people personify the Baby perception.
They want to impose their strict and narrow standards on everyone else because they regard the perfect society as an obedient society—faithful to a righteous law. There is little room for individual liberties and free expression.
As Michael says, the Baby soul sees itself as “me” and other people as “many other mes”. The meaning of this is that Babies expect others to be like themselves, and are surprised and bewildered when this proves to be incorrect. They don’t know how to deal with the differences they see in other people. They avoid people not of their own race, nation, tribe, culture, religion, socioeconomic status, political party, special interest group, etc. Baby souls, of all the soul ages, feel most comfortable with their own kind, whatever they perceive that to be. Their sense of identity is reinforced by the groups they belong to. They perceive the differences in others as evil and distance themselves from any perceived ‘otherness’.
Baby souls are “uptight” about life in general. Who wouldn’t be under the stress of always having to be right? They live by popular stereotypes and standard clichés. Baby souls have very little sense of humor.
When they seek employment it will be as followers. You won’t find Baby Souls setting up their own businesses. They much prefer to be told what to do—and then they will do it without questioning the rightness or wrongness of most business decisions unless those decisions go against some moral conviction taught them by some ‘higher authority’ such as the minister in their fundamentalist church. Even then, they will likely seek counsel from their minister rather than make a decision, on their own, to ‘blow the whistle’. Almost always, Baby souls will leave all decisions to Young Souls who will be more than happy to make those decisions as we shall see.
Next Post: The Young Soul.
All that Is 