Interconnectedness
Topics:
"Interconnectedness"
"The Practices of Dzogchen: Trekcho and Thogal"
"What Elias Experiences"
"Qualities Associated with Gender"
Tuesday, January 14, 2014 (Private/Phone)
Participants: Mary (Michael) and Julie (Fontine)
ELIAS: Good morning!
JULIE: Good morning, Elias.
ELIAS: (Laughs) And how are you proceeding?
JULIE: Well, I'm proceeding pretty well. I've taken stock recently, and I feel like my life is going well in very many directions and so I'm pleased with that. There are a few bumps here and there, but I'm pleased.
ELIAS: Excellent!
JULIE: Yeah! Thank you.
JULIE: So, I have a few areas that I'd like to explore with you today. The first quick question I have: There's a person in the forum named Ashwini, and we'd like to know her orientation. Her impression is soft.
ELIAS: Correct.
JULIE: Okay. Good. Is she religious focused?
ELIAS: Yes.
JULIE: Okay. All right. And maybe I'll run through some more orientation impressions really quickly of people I know. My brother-in-law Andrew, is he intermediate?
ELIAS: Correct.
JULIE: Okay. My friend Amy, common?
ELIAS: Correct.
JULIE: Steph, common?
ELIAS: Correct.
JULIE: Andrew's son Josh, is he soft?
ELIAS: Correct.
JULIE: His son Jonathan, intermediate?
ELIAS: Yes.
JULIE: Okay. My son's girlfriend, Shilo, is she soft?
ELIAS: Yes.
JULIE: My daughter's boyfriend, Matt, is he intermediate?
ELIAS: Yes.
JULIE: Okay. And Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, is he soft?
ELIAS: Yes.
JULIE: All right, good. Thank you! I guess I'm getting pretty good at this. (Laughs)
So, I've been practicing Dzogchen for a while and studying the theory of it, and it seems to be very similar to the things that you teach. One of the main tenets is that the outer and the inner awareness are the same; they're one. The main practice is Trekcho, where the practitioner is aware of openness, nowness, awareness, presence, and a unified unity, like an interconnectedness. All of these qualities are called "the Natural State," and the practitioner just rests in the natural state, which is also known as "Rigpa" or awareness. Are you familiar with this?
ELIAS: Yes.
JULIE: Okay. The second main practice of Dzogchen is called Thogal. I don't quite understand everything that's being done with Thogal, so I wanted to just tell you about it and get your take on it. With Thogal practice, it's a visual practice where the practitioner is resting in the natural state of consciousness and either gazing at the sky or gazing at a light source like the sun, or even a light bulb or candle. Gazing into space, the visual field will start morphing and moving and shimmering and things like that. Also there are some phenomena that one will see, like they've been described as eye floaters by scientists, but if you gaze at these eye floaters you start seeing that they're like little balls all connected together. This is actually part of the Thogal practice, that you're gazing at these little balls or spheres and that they actually start to increase, and then they start to change into different archetypal shapes and forms, and they say that you even see deities. Through doing this practice, essentially the result is that one transforms the whole visual field into...I guess it transforms into a wholeness, but also, for the person, their body actually transforms into light, like it loses its form and characteristics, and when that person dies, their body disappears and transforms into light and rainbows.
Could you tell me what's going on with that? My impression is that it's an acceptance of maybe beliefs in form and vision, all the senses really. Maybe it's even a complete acceptance of all beliefs. So can you tell me what that is?
ELIAS: In actuality, this is a very refined process and practice, and I would express that if the individual is actually fully engaging it, what the individual is actually doing is moving in a direction, in a manner of speaking very specifically, to disengage – disengage physical reality.
Now, I will acknowledge that the objective or the intention of death is not the intention in relation to the serious practitioners in this form, but that is what it is designed to do. The intention is, philosophically, to merge oneself fully into interconnectedness and to realize that in relation to the fullness of consciousness beyond what is perceived as the limitations of physical reality. And in that, I would agree that if the individual is genuinely moving in that direction completely, so to speak, that the action of the body consciousness disappearing, so to speak, would be correct, for the awareness would be entirely and completely moved away from the physical reality.
And in that, as I have expressed previously, the reason that there are differences in relation to what occurs to the physical body after death is dependent upon whether an individual continues to hold an aspect of objective awareness in conjunction with this reality and connected to a particular physical focus, and therefore in some situations the body consciousness remains for years. In some situations it may remain for centuries. In other situations it may be dissipated or disappeared immediately – in varying methods, not merely in association with cremation, for in that it is not entirely gone. There are some remnants, temporarily. But – an individual could be choosing to be eaten, in which they would generate an immediate dissipation of the body consciousness and there would be no remnant of it remaining. In this, that would be an entire removal very quickly of any attachment, so to speak, to the physical reality. It would remove any aspect of awareness from the physical reality.
But in this, if an individual is moving in this type of practice, the objective, in the philosophy, is to entirely merge or to become entirely interconnected in consciousness without any constraint of physical limitation.
Now, what I would express is, as you are aware, this is a developed philosophy and belief, and in that it is, or can be, a successful method for a particular intention. But I would also express that in similar manners to other philosophies, the idea of disconnecting from physical expression as being more interconnected or more enlightened or even more spiritual is a distortion. It is a direct expression of religious beliefs which generate separations.
In this, in actuality you can achieve a complete awareness of interconnectedness and INCLUDE the physical in that. For you are no less interconnected within a physical form than you are without a physical form; it is merely a matter of your awareness and how aware of your interconnectedness you are, and you can be equally as aware of that expression of interconnectedness within physical form as you can be outside of physical form. But other than that, it would also be a matter of preference: what the individual is more drawn to.
Now; I would express that a practice such as this can be useful and instrumental in expanding your awareness and therefore also, in a manner of speaking, raising your vibrational quality, for it encourages you to be more aware and to see beyond what the senses report. And therefore, I would express that it can be of benefit if you incorporate an interest in that direction, and it can be helpful or facilitate encouraging your perception to accept much more possibilities than you generally do. Therefore, it can be in practice a considerable benefit and a useful tool.
But I would also express that this practice, in similar manner to some other practices in its goal of awareness, does lead the individual in the direction of disengaging from physical reality – not necessarily with that intention, but that is the direction that you move in automatically, for it does encourage ultimately less participation in the actual physical movement of your reality and encourages more of your attention to move beyond the physical reality.
Therefore I would express that it is a matter of preference and interest in what the individual engages, and for many individuals it is a matter of their beliefs that dictate to them, in a manner of speaking, what is more spiritual and what is more enlightened.
JULIE: Okay. Well, what I would like is to be more flexible, more aware of different directions and choices, but not so entrained in certain directions. I would like to be aware and more spontaneous. That's one of the tenets of Dzogchen, that actions and events and everything physical arises spontaneously, and I would like to be more in that flow of spontaneity.
ELIAS: And I would encourage you in that, for it can be very helpful in those directions. I would definitely be encouraging of you, for it can be an excellent avenue and an excellent tool to be expanding your awareness, to encourage you to be more present, which, as you are aware, I am always advocating in THAT direction.
And it does encourage you to be more present, and the more present you are, the more you can move in the direction of being more spontaneous, for the more present you are the less planning you do; therefore, the more inclined you are to engage choices that are creative or imaginative in the moment. And the more present you are, the more inclined you are to be paying much more attention to your impulses, your impressions and your intuition, which also would encourage you to be more spontaneous and less planning, and I would advocate in ALL of these directions.
It also promotes more of a state of wellbeing, in a manner of speaking, for you are being more present, you are being more aware of your interconnectedness with everything, and therefore you are more inclined to be aware of what is most beneficial to you in any moment.
In this, I would express that it can be an excellent method to engage in relation to being more engaging – not necessarily with other individuals, but being more engaging in general, for it does allow you to be more aware of the interconnectedness of yourself to everything else, and in that, much less of a separation; therefore, not necessarily viewing yourself or anything outside of yourself as being entirely separate entities, which does change your perception considerably.
JULIE: I kind of already experience that a lot – I think. Am I correct about that?
ELIAS: Excellent, yes! And you will notice in this that when you are aware of and experiencing more of your interconnectedness and less of the separateness, and you are being more present, many of the questions that individuals express disappear. They are not relevant, for many of the questions that individuals have in relation to themselves are expressed with regard to right and wrong: "What are the right choices? What are the good choices, what are the right choices?" And in that, many of them involve how they interact with other individuals: "What is the right manner to approach a situation? What is the right response? What is the most helpful?" And in this, when you are experiencing yourself with less separation, and in that awareness of more interconnectedness and you are being present, without those definite lines of separation, so to speak, how you interact with other individuals is less of a situation of "them and me." Therefore, when a situation arises, there are less questions in relation to how to approach the situation or how to interact with it or what is the right response in a situation, for you automatically move in the direction of what your greatest benefit is, which also benefits the situation and whomever you are interacting with. Therefore, many of those concerns that you express when you are drawing those very definite lines of separation become irrelevant and fall away.
JULIE: So it's almost like I don't see them as an individual, or I don't perceive them to be; it's more I'm perceiving the interaction of the now moment of our energies in between us, right?
ELIAS: Yes.
JULIE: There's no separate individual.
ELIAS: Correct, that it is all one, that it is all interconnected, and therefore in that, you are not perceiving in the capacity of separate entities.
JULIE: Right.
ELIAS: You see another individual, and you acknowledge the other individual as the expression of another personality, but you do not generate that strength in separation from yourself, that rather than viewing two very separate, very different entities, the perception is not necessarily that you are one entity, but the idea of entities does not enter the equation. You do not view yourself as one or more than one. There are no separate entities. It is all one flow.
JULIE: Um-hm.
ELIAS: Just as you view a body of water. Yes, a river incorporates countless individual drops of water, but do you view each of those drops of water as a separate entity? No. You view the river and the movement of it. And in that, you do not perceive it to be as separate.
You view yourselves very separately. You view yourselves in the capacity that you would if you were separating every drop of water from that river. Which, in that analogy, you can automatically see the difficulties that that presents – and the implications. If you are viewing every separate drop of water, you are no longer viewing the river, and therefore you are no longer viewing the movement of that river. And in that, you are not viewing or perceiving the connectivity of it. There is no flow. There is no interconnectedness. There is no connection. And therefore, the idea of the river or a flow disintegrates, and it becomes a river no more. It is only drops of water that are disconnected from each other, that incorporate no flow, no direction, and no body.
In this, you are very similar. You have moved in a direction of such an expression of separation that you do not see your interconnectedness any longer. You do not see the flow or the entire body, so to speak, of what you are. What you see are the individual droplets.
JULIE: You're speaking directly to me, so you are saying that that's how I am right now to a great extent? Very separate?
ELIAS: What I would express is, not necessarily at this point, and I would be acknowledging of that, that you are moving in a direction of altering that and changing your perception in relation to that in creating less of that separation. I would express that you WERE. You have been, previously in your lifetime.
JULIE: Definitely.
ELIAS: But that you are moving in a direction of blurring that separation at this point, not being as definite with it or as isolating with it, and in a manner of speaking, allowing yourself to learn how to change your perception to be more inclusive rather than exclusive.
JULIE: I think when I was a child, I was very merged into my family. I didn't feel very individual. I'm just wondering if I was pretty open and merged and flowing as a child?
ELIAS: Yes.
JULIE: And then as a teen or when I became an adult I became more separating. Is that correct?
ELIAS: Yes, I would agree.
JULIE: I mean, I feel like I was pretty open and flowing as a child.
ELIAS: I would agree.
JULIE: And that now, I have... When I'm alone it's pretty easy to just feel like a blur, like you said. It's only when I encounter other individuals, I think there's this association that kind of jolts me into the separate mode again. Maybe it's fear. But I've also experienced times when I've experienced that blur between the lines of myself and others, so I actually do know what that feels like, and of course it's my aim to be there full time. (Laughs)
ELIAS: (Laughs) And I would express that it's not necessarily, at this point, actually fear but more familiarity, that this is familiar, and there is a slight aspect that remains in relation to what is perceived to be expected.
JULIE: Yeah.
ELIAS: That this is the manner in which other individuals, other people view their world, and it is expected for you to view it in this manner also, from that separate point of view.
JULIE: Yeah, because I think that in order to communicate with them that I do have to take that point of view on, to communicate.
ELIAS: Not entirely, but as I have expressed recently with some other individuals, now you are moving into a point of this Shift in which it is becoming necessary to alter your language, to increase it. And also in relation to that, it is a matter of interacting differently and allowing yourselves to move in directions of exploring how to be interactive with each other in a slightly different manner that is not as separate. And as you do that incrementally, I would express that individuals adjust and become accustomed to differences relatively quickly.
JULIE: Okay.
ELIAS: It is very similar to expressing new words – which, I have expressed recently in another aspect of this, which your experiences are beginning to exceed your language, which will require you expanding your language and creating more of a vocabulary, more words. And the question was posed, "How do you do that?" You do it very simply. You have in actuality, in the time framework of this past 40 years, you have already invented more new words than you have in several centuries. In this, creating new language, creating new words is a very simple process; it is merely a matter of inventing a new word and using it.
JULIE: Okay.
ELIAS: And very quickly, other individuals begin to use it also. And let me express to you quite literally, as soon as the numbering of individuals reaches approximately five other individuals in your physical proximity that are using the new word in actual interaction, conversation, that new word will appear in other areas of your world automatically. It begins to ripple that quickly, in which that same word that you have invented and have begun to be incorporated in your language with only five other individuals will begin to be in use in Russia, in Japan, in South America, in Africa, in Australia. All of these areas that seem to be far removed from you, that same word will begin to appear.
JULIE: Okay. Cool.
I want to change directions just a little bit.
ELIAS: Very well!
JULIE: Okay. So, for many years now, when I'm waking up in the morning, often I will hear sentences being spoken by… It might be my own voice, but the words it's using sometimes are poetic or archaic or not a way that I would speak personally. So I'm wondering if that is an aspect of myself or if it's another essence?
ELIAS: That is an aspect of yourself. When you are expanding your awareness, you tap into other aspects of yourself: other focuses, other aspects of yourself that are other-dimensional or nonphysical.
JULIE: Mm-hm. The Voice, as I call it, it's always very wise. Maybe it causes me to look at things in a different way, maybe it's a suggestion to turn my attention in a different manner. I'd really like to be able to be in touch with it more during the day too.
ELIAS: I would express, that is you being more aware of yourself as essence, and in that, being more self-directing, in a genuine manner. In this, I would express that as you expand that, as you practice it more and as you allow it to be engaged more, you will begin to associate with that voice more as yourself and therefore drop another veil of separation, that veil that most of you incorporate in relation to the idea of yourselves and your essence as if they are two separate entities.
JULIE: Mm-hm.
ELIAS: But they are not. Just as in your practice and your philosophy you are presenting to yourself that inner and outer awareness are not separate. They are not two. It is all the same, just as your objective and subjective awareness. We discuss them in a manner that suggests that they are two separate awarenesses, but in actuality it is not. It is all one. This is the reason that I have expressed many, many times over and over that one does not follow the other; that suggests that there are two, and there is not.
JULIE: When I think of other essences, I sort of have a problem with that, just thinking of other separate essences. Maybe another way to think of it would be that other essences are just actions in consciousness that I'm not including in myself in that area of attention right now.
ELIAS: Correct. That would be an excellent expression or explanation, so to speak. For they are not separate. They are not different in consciousness. There are no separate entities. There is no division. It is merely the design of your physical reality that promotes that. That is what you are accustomed to.
JULIE: And I prefer not to. I actually feel comfortable in this merged state of awareness where everything just feels to be me and I don't have to be thinking about what would be best for the other individual. But it's like there isn't another individual, it's more like I'm merged… It's like my whole sense of inner self is oneness, like not a lot of different separate things.
ELIAS: Precisely!
JULIE: And you said "blurry," and I can totally connect with that. It feels like just a big blur of water, energy or motion rather than it being a lot of different separate individuals or entities.
ELIAS: Precisely.
JULIE: So it's okay to do that? (Laughs)
ELIAS: Very much so! I would be VERY encouraging of you. This is very much in keeping with the movement of this Shift in Consciousness. This is the point of dropping those veils of separation.
That is not to say that you may not want to continue to participate and explore within physical reality, and that you recognize that there are aspects of physical reality that suggest separateness, but that the actual separation is an illusion. It is an illusion that is merely expressed in relation to the projection – very similar to the idea of the video games. In that, in the game, what is occurring for the avatar in the game is very real, but the expressions in the game are a part of the game. They are a conjuring. They are an illusion. And you are creating the game and the avatars and everything else in the game, but the projection of it is the illusion. And in that, the separation of the design of physical reality is created precisely to generate that illusion, for it is different, and it is an avenue to explore. Without physical reality, there is no separation at all. Therefore, that is what you are most familiar with, not the physical reality that does incorporate separation, and that is the reason that you are inclined or excited to explore it.
JULIE: Elias, if there is no separation, how do you have experiences and discoveries? You, as Elias?
ELIAS: Let me express to you, my dear friend, this is the reason that there are so many instances in which it is difficult to translate to any or all of you what the experiences are outside of the physical reality, for how you process information is all very strongly associated with physical reality, and in that, it is automatically how you associate.
Without physical reality, that is not to say there are no experiences or expansion. There is always expansion. There is always exploring, and there is always experience. But it is not attached to feelings, or thought, or physical action. It is all movement. Very similar to the river once again: The river experiences. It bends. It moves. It moves faster or slower in different time frameworks. It experiences pebbles and rocks and cliffs and trees and roots and fish. The river is experiencing. Is it feeling? No.
JULIE: Um-hm. I think I've had that experience once when I was in a very expansive stage and I was simply experiencing energy flow – myself as energy and movement. I DID experience that before.
ELIAS: Excellent!
JULIE: Almost as if I were a river and I was experiencing all of my different waves – and it was interesting. (Laughs)
ELIAS: It is different, and in that it is no less valid, but it is very different in the quantifying of experience.
JULIE: Oh.
ELIAS: But I would express to you, yes I do experience and explore and discover, but not in the manner that you do.
JULIE: Okay. (Both laugh) So that's kind of exciting for me to think about being more like the river.
I want to just ask a few more things before the session is over.
ELIAS: Very well.
JULIE: Okay. So, what is my essence theme? Do I have one?
ELIAS: And your impression?
JULIE: Love, union, communion.
ELIAS: I would express communion.
JULIE: Um-hm. That's always been a very feeling-packed word for me (laughs), and the desire to really feel the intermingling and the mergence with all beings.
ELIAS: I would agree.
JULIE: Okay. That's beautiful, thank you.
And the percentage of male and female that I'm expressing in myself?
ELIAS: And your impression?
JULIE: Well, at some points I have felt like my female is very strong, like even 93% sometimes. When I get in a more philosophical bent, I think it could be more 50-50. So I don't know what my overall expression is.
ELIAS: I would express that it is in this focus definitely more predominately female, and I would express that it would be approximately 72%.
[The timer for the session rings]
JULIE: Okay. And some of the things that I wrote down that are maybe what I would I consider to be female qualities are allowing, receiving, going with the flow, working with what is already being expressed and then gently guiding it in my preferred directions, tuning into essence with a listening attitude, and just being very inward. Are those all kind of female expressions?
ELIAS: No.
JULIE: No. (Elias laughs loudly) Okay. What are those?
ELIAS: I would express that those would not be necessarily gender qualities at all.
JULIE: Ahh. Okay.
ELIAS: I would express that they are qualities that you do express but that they are not necessarily associated with gender. I would express to you that the qualities that are more associated with gender would be more of an inclination to nurturing, more of an inclination to intuition, more of an inclination to paying attention to emotion.
Remember that your reality incorporates that basic duality. The female energy moves more in relation to the emotion, and the male moves more in relation to the sexuality – which is not to say that females are more feeling and that males are more sexual. (Chuckles) It is a matter of those aspects being the two base elements of your reality, and therefore the feminine would be the emotional base element and the male, or the masculine, would be the sexual. In this, those are more of the expressions of –
(Elias abruptly drops out, and the session ends after 1 hour 1 minute)
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