Sunday, March 24, 2002 (Private/Phone)
Participants: Mary (Michael) and Howard (Bosht)
Elias arrives at 1:58 PM. (Arrival time is 29 seconds.)

ELIAS: Good day!

HOWARD: Good day, how are you?

ELIAS: As always, and yourself?

HOWARD: I'm trying to be as always - I'm working on it! (Elias laughs) Everything is fine here today. We've had a little snow, the sun has come out, and Mary and I had a real nice chat. I enjoy talking to her. (Elias laughs)

I wanted to continue on the truths and falsehoods, or those things that are our reality, bottom-line, if you would, or baseline to it. Margot forwarded to me yesterday a discussion that she had between CathChart and Melinda and others regarding a quote of Joseph Campbell in his book The Power of Myth. Bill Moyers, in the video sessions, led off a question to Mr. Campbell, saying, "What Joyce called the grave and constant in human sufferings, Campbell knew to be a principle theme of classic mythology."

It occurred to her, to Margot, that this idea of mortality was a baseline to our dimension. We have identified sexuality, belief systems - and my notes are not here - and sexuality as being the baseline to this dimension. Is mortality a fourth category, or is it part of...? It would be part of belief systems, I guess.

ELIAS: You are correct.

HOWARD: Wow. I really spaced out because I was looking for words.

Campbell goes on to say, "The secret cause of suffering is mortality itself, which is a prime condition of life. It cannot be denied if life is to be affirmed." That's the end of the quote, so that it can be properly recorded.

So our beliefs have included mortality - that is, that we know that we are going to die - as some kind of limiting factor to our value fulfillment?

ELIAS: At times.

HOWARD: Would you call it, as you have in the past, an action of a belief, or would it be - see, we have cause and effect here - or would it be the result of?

ELIAS: Cause and effect are a belief also. Are you inquiring whether the incorporation or action of death generates suffering?

HOWARD: No. Suffering is a result of life, not death, in my understanding of that belief. So, I guess not. I guess what I'm asking... A definition: we have defined mortality as being lesser than, as a condition of existence, that we are mere mortals, that we live and we die and in between we experience. That idea seems to me more based on a belief of futility, of the futile nature of humanness than on the cosmic nature of value fulfillment, of change, life experience, love, and those things which are forever true to ourselves, true to our existence. To identify our existence as, in the Campbell sense, to be flesh and blood incorporating consciousness and awareness of choice, it diminishes it to me to say that it's over before it begins. Am I being clear here?

ELIAS: I am aware of your energy expression presently and of what you are generating, and what you are generating is a processing of information, in a manner of speaking. Therefore, in clarity, what is the actual nature of your question? (Pause)

HOWARD: I'm reminding myself of this incredibly intelligent professor who has no idea of what he's talking about. I'm trying to recapture some of the feelings of words that I was coming up with, especially the feeling part, to clarify for myself, as well as Margot and the others, why mortality is an action of existence within this reality.

ELIAS: Ah.

HOWARD: But it is not. It is like splitting hairs, it seems to me, to set it aside as some eventual consequence, like preordained. It's not like that; it's just part of existence, which is part of the baseline of this dimension, which is a belief system or based in beliefs of various kinds.

We all want shrines to ourselves; if not in a book we wrote, we want a pyramid, we want a tomb, we want to be remembered to prove that we're not dead or that we're not mortal. We live on in our works and our deeds. So, within all of that is where this confusion comes from.

ELIAS: The concept of mortality and the many associations with it is borne of your beliefs.

Now; I may also express to you, in association with your beliefs and also partially in association with the physical construct of your dimension, you choose to engage and disengage your participation in this physical dimension with physical beginnings and endings, so to speak, for you are creating a physical manifestation of an attention. The attention is not physical, but you are translating the energy of that attention into a physical manifestation in conjunction with an energy expression associated with time.

Now; in that type of physical manifestation, you design a type of construct for the engagement and disengagement of the physical dimension.

Now; once engaging the physical manifestation, there are many associations with beliefs as to how you shall create the physical manifestation and how you shall disengage the attention from that physical manifestation. As the physical manifestation is directly associated with the physical dimension, your beliefs influence a perception that you express that you must design an action to allow you a manner in which you shall leave the physical manifestation, in a manner of speaking. There are many beliefs and many associations of beliefs that surround, so to speak, these actions.

There are also many beliefs associated with the action of death itself, many of which are associated with religious beliefs, and this also generates the expression that you have offered in relation to your beliefs of the necessity in generating a legacy. For within the expressions of your beliefs and associated with your construct of separation, which also is a belief, you are unsure objectively of your continuation once you choose the action of death, for you are unsure objectively of what you actually are in this physical manifestation for you are unfamiliar with yourselves and the beings that you are and what consciousness is. Therefore, in a desire for continuation, you generate an objective desire within your physical manifestation to be known, for knowing yourself is unfamiliar objectively. Therefore, you project your attentions outwardly and generate an objective want to be known in continuation as a substitution for the knowing of self, and in this, you define this want of being known in the expression of generating your legacy.

HOWARD: I understand what you're saying. I'm thinking that I've injected some of my own stuff in the definition or explanation of Joseph Campbell's idea.

ELIAS: Very well. What is the nature of your question in relation to the other individual's statement and your questioning in relation to truth and falsehood?

HOWARD: His point of view, as I understand it - and please correct me if I get into my own stuff - Joseph Campbell is in quest of truth using myth as his guidepost. He identified that mortality was an issue with all the cultures and societies that he studied. Perhaps he was attracted to the idea of mortality itself. His studies also included how each society and culture treated the aging process, with reverence given to elders, with the keeping of wisdom that the elders held which came with the long-lived, and that the societies lamented the passing of the youngsters, the young warriors and women, which came prematurely and affected the culture's outlook on longevity.

You've already expressed and have said that we have not been able to understand the idea of consciousness and its continuity, its existence within this reality, and we stop short as a culture and society from fully understanding the totality of our existence. This is what Joseph Campbell was looking for, I feel, in the mythology, because he always spoke about the warrior, the individual coming forward, stepping out, becoming greater in life, or on the other hand falling into the predictable entrapments of the chaos and mundane aspects of their day-to-day existence. He looked at that as a dichotomy, a dynamic tension, as the hero of beingness can also quickly become the goat of an experience and quickly banished.

All of that is all part of the mortality aspect of the mythos, of the short-lived aspect. It seemed to him that it was a major influence on everyone's existence, so much so that it clouded their existence, that is to say the cloud became... All they were looking at were perceptions of themselves, the other part of themselves that other people saw them as.

For whatever reasons, mankind on a whole has accepted the idea that they are mortal, they will die, and the heroes that Campbell spoke about were the ones who rose above this. I think it's the nature of our humanness to do that. I don't think it's a baseline and I don't think that I need to be continuing to think that I'm a piece of meat existing as a victim to everything that's going on around me, which is why I brought it up in the first place. I don't think that mortality is anything more than what it is. It's a book between two bookends, life and death. The book is as big as or as thick as or as many pages as we can write for this particular focus, and then we move on.

I think I've said too much on this.

ELIAS: (Laughs) And I may express to you, do not discount yourself so quickly, my friend. I may acknowledge your statement and your analogy of the book between the bookends.

I may also express to you, in relation to your analyzation of what has been set forth in philosophy by the other individual and your questioning of that, prior to the onset of this shift in consciousness within your time framework and history, the other individual's assessment, although not entirely accurate, has been generally correct.

In the movement of this shift in consciousness, you are altering that reality, for you are allowing yourselves to turn your attentions to yourselves and to pay attention to yourselves in the now. This is a tremendously significant alteration of your reality, for it in its expression is tremendously affecting of your perception, which generates your reality. I may express to you, my friend, philosophy is an expression of observation, speculation, and imagination.

Now; the observation offers information concerning physical expressions. The imagination offers communications from other aspects of yourselves, which are valid and real. The speculation is the insertion of your beliefs in conjunction with the other two expressions.

Now; the limitation of philosophy is that it is a projection outwardly, and in the expression of philosophy, the philosopher does not incorporate the action of moving the philosophy to self in relation to the now and the knowing of self in genuineness, and the application of the philosophy in conjunction with self and the recognition of beliefs.

HOWARD: Didn't Immanuel Kant follow that? "I think, therefore I am." Wasn't he trying to go there with what you were saying, into self?

ELIAS: In an attempt, partially, yes, although in a limited expression. For as you examine that statement, "I think, therefore I am," and you recognize the actual definition and function of thought, this is an attempt to be moving the attention to self and attempting to generate an objective association with knowing of self but distorting the understanding, for there is generated an incorrect definition of thought.

HOWARD: I got it. Boy, it's so subtle, this stuff!

ELIAS: That statement, "I think, therefore I am," is a statement in keeping with your beliefs that thought creates your reality, and it does not.

HOWARD: I understand. NOW I understand. That is to say, five years ago, I understood. Ten years earlier, I was still grappling. (Elias chuckles) I do understand, and thank you for that.

ELIAS: You are quite welcome.

HOWARD: Before the end of the session - I'll give you a half an hour to think about this - but it's time for you to compose your 50-word poem so that we can win the pub in Ireland. We have a contest coming up, and I thought that I would enter my 50 words and yours, and we'll see what happens.

ELIAS: Or shall you enter your own and I shall offer energy to you to be generating it?

HOWARD: That was not the agreement! I asked you three years ago if you would want to offer 50 words, and I think you said yes. (Elias chuckles) Okay, I'll go with the latter, or the former, whatever. (Elias chuckles) I thought if you had something to say about Sarah and her family that might win us a pub, that would be cute.

ELIAS: (Chuckles) But the agreement is not necessarily altered. It is merely your perception of my offering. (Chuckles)

HOWARD: That's true.

This is a funny one, because it just came up so recently. A bit off the subject, but I saw recently a documentary about a con man. It was a one-hour special documentary, and the man's name is [James] Hogue. He really reminds me of myself, of the way I would deal with situations. I was quite impressed by him. My first question is, is he a focus of mine?

ELIAS: No.

HOWARD: Then I was attracted to the energy that he was projecting.

ELIAS: Yes, in recognition of similarity.

HOWARD: Would he be a so-called part of our group, in the sense of... Shoot, I don't know what to say. He strikes me as Zuli and aligned Sumafi. He was a great track star, in my mind, but he was also looking for things that weren't ... for non-distortion. Would that be correct to say? (Pause)

ELIAS: Yes.

HOWARD: Is he a focus of one of the people in our group?

ELIAS: (Chuckles) And Bosht, may I inquire of you the identification of what "our group" may be?

HOWARD: As you know, I don't have many friends, do I? (Elias laughs) I think I'll leave it there. Your answer is sufficient, I believe, because I can't define our group. It's global. I'm everywhere.

ELIAS: You are correct.

HOWARD: Nevertheless, this man really impressed me, especially with his knowledge, his engineering acumen. It's a real shame, in my mind, that he was treated as he was.

The next question has to do with fragmentation. I had a TFE wherein I found myself totally alone in blackness. I was aware of being alone, without being lonely. I was curious. I looked around my boundaries, which weren't in me - totally alone, consciousness, floating in this darkness. I heard a noise, or rather I became aware of a choir of heavenly host of noise, sound, very pleasing to me. It had no source; it was just all around me.

Then I became aware of a small dot, far, far, far off in the distance. It grabbed my attention and I floated toward it. It became this kind of a golden disc like a sun, a sunflower-like image, very orange, very burnished, bronze-ish colored. As I got closer to it, I could feel some heat, and I saw a caricature of a face on it. The face was like the face of a lion, and it smiled. It had big eyes, and it looked inviting and alluring to me all the while.

Then this thing kind of transformed into a mane, a lion's mane, shimmering in heat, like firewood, escaping embers, like that. He said, "Are you curious?" I said, "Yes." "Well, here, I have something to show you." And he opened his mouth and his mouth was dark. It opened up like the shutter of a camera, an old-time Pentax camera - fwrrrrt! I went through this opening in his mouth and I entered this universe, stars everywhere, and they were singing! It was not the sound that I was hearing before; it was like a glorious place! I said, "Oh, wow! I want to be part of this!"

I've often thought since that moment that it would be like... I've often felt that I'm not from around here in the sense that ... well, I'm just not from around here. But that in this particular event, I had come from somewhere else and I had experienced a lot of things. I went through this window or doorway into this other universe, this other place, so much so that I became totally immersed in it; but it wasn't my creation; it was somebody else's. They said, "Are you curious? Would you like to see something else?" "Yeah, sure." And boom! And it's like I've been here ever since.

I feel that this moment of awareness before entering the gate and going on into what I perceive to be the now or our continuing now was a moment of fragmentation that occurred. That's my explanation for it, because otherwise I have no description of my beginning, except then. I knew that I always was; I just simply have forgotten about it and I became distracted by this other thing. Can you comment on that?

ELIAS: I may express to you, this is quite colorful imagery that you have presented to yourself in explanation of the action of fragmentation. Figuratively speaking, you may allow yourself this imagery as your explanation to yourself concerning this action.

Each of you may generate your own individual imagery or experience to offer you an objective explanation and sense of the action of fragmentation, and each of your imageries shall be different. But this is not to say that your translation is incorrect; it is a translation, and it offers you a comfort in explanation of the action. (Pause)

(Phone disconnects and after a minute Mary returns)

Elias departs at 2:46 PM.

(1) See Session #545, 1/16/00. Elias' response to Howard's request for a poem was, "As to your inquiry of an essay, I shall consider your proposal."

©2004 Mary Ennis, All Rights Reserved

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Copyright 2002 Mary Ennis, All Rights Reserved.