Thank you Susan for such wonderful words of wisdom and a straight-to-the-point reality check!
*** GAH
Opening Our Understanding
(emphasis added)
Been thinking recently about what "first contact" would entail. Many thousands, perhaps millions, all over the world have seen extraterrestrial craft and many have personal experience with direct contact. Some individual contacts are kept secret and the contactee never mentions the incident to anyone.
Many people have multidimensional experiences ...they see, hear or feel things, which fall beyond our three-dimensional belief system. If people would be willing to verbalize some of the belief systems actually governing their inner lives, it seems to me people would be discussing many "paranormal " concepts openly, as openly as politics. However, since it is not deemed within the norm to accept these kinds of ideas, most people keep secrets.
As for personal experiences, I don't by any means feel mine are amazingly unique, just a bit out of the ordinary. Never, not once, in all of my life, have I ever felt afraid when confronted with extraterrestrial contact. The sight of ships fills me with deep awe and once I found myself dropping to my knees weakly in the presence of hovering craft. I have been rendered absolutely speechless, which is very odd for me. Never have I felt the least bit of fear or the need to run away to protect myself. Unfortunately, I cannot say that about my encounters with humans on this planet. And to be honest, I cannot say that about a couple of encounters with spirits coming through to this level; but those were old ones coming in response to our bothersome summons.
Let's take into account the fear based, juvenile, power-seeking persona that is the present norm in our civilization. Our cultural ideals resemble that of a teenager ruled by hormones, who worships the acquisition of objects for security and acceptance and values power over compassion. Blindly seeking acceptance and love, and fearing anything unknown, we like to imagine ourselves with needy personas in want of a father god. If you project that same juvenile persona onto beings who may visit this planet you have a formula for fear. The truth is that we are juveniles who have not, as a species, evolved past teenage misconceptions based on inexperience and fear. Try to picture us - and I know it is difficult - as a grown up species, acting like mature adults, taking responsibility for our actions, striving for non-aggression and understanding. Picture us allowing ourselves to feel and think deeply, to trust our inner selves and to reject fear. Picture us letting go of the quest for power and material goods. Imagine that we find a spiritual core within our individual selves and allow ourselves to close the deep black gaping holes of sadness and fear carried like bulls eyes in the center of our beings by most humans.
Speak with the elderly and you find that generally when we as a species reach a certain level of maturity and age, we no longer crave the things absolutely necessary in youth. The old realize the terrible needs and driving desires of the young are all a result of hormones and inexperience. Recent research tells us that when hormones cease, men become more feminine (less testosterone) and women drift towards masculinity (less estrogen). The polarized sexes with their aggressive, biological tendencies at bay seem to merge into a unisexual type of being, with less need for dominance-seeking behaviors. The need to preserve the species by mating and procreating dissolves, along with all the hormonal fogs and fumes. Like ghosts, many of the old needs dissipate, leaving the essential being. This is the time for maturity, understanding and deep contemplation. Teaching, passing on knowledge to the next generation and preserving truth comes to the fore and a sort of higher stewardship attitude emerges among the elders in most cultures. This usually surpasses the mere biological need to protect the younger generation so that the species continues. This is equally true, I believe, when civilizations or species mature. Ideals change and the limitless quest for safety and power begins to evaporate.
It seems our species on this planet has attempted to reach a higher level of maturity several times previously - most likely three other times before us. Each time, we reached the moment when we acquired enough knowledge, power and weaponry to allow us to destroy our own kind or to advance. The end comes through misuse of resources or self-destruction with barely understood, newly discovered energy forces. Our scientific minds overstep our teenage morality. Each time, we have almost made it past the testing time or initiation during which we are given the opportunity to grow to maturity. We have reached different stages each time previously before the self-destruction occurs - by earth, air, fire or water. We never quite make it beyond the crucial point. It is sad, but we always seem to fall back and have to begin the long journey again. If aggression and selfishness are not overcome, then self-destruction inevitably occurs. Destruction does not imply we are cast down by a judgmental, angry god, to the fires of hell. No, it is not a biblical punishment. We must pick ourselves up and try again almost from the beginning, until we become ourselves. This fate awaits us in our individual soul's growth, as well as in our planetary growth. The old adage "as above, so below" applies in all respects. In our juvenile belief system it appears the father god is exacting punishment, but in the larger plan, it is just the way of life. Karma is not punishment, but merely the universal law. Equally, the universal law states you cannot be more than you are at the moment - but curiously, when you are more, when you make that leap, all is changed. In the individual evolution of each soul, we are asked to emerge beyond aggression, biological need and selfish acquisition - we are asked to move beyond fear. When we accomplish this, we do not so much pass a test, as become more of who we are already. We are granted initiation into the next level. As the Indian saint, Meher Baba said (in my favorite saying of all time), "Wherever you find yourself, that's where you are". You can only exist at the level of your attention. We, as a species, seem to keep finding ourselves at the still point of change and growth, but have not yet been able to make that final change, to switch our attention to the next level.
Civilizations able to visit us from light years away have mastered many problems. Both their attention and their intent are focused and clear. In order for them to travel through space past the speed of light, their technology must have evolved beyond ours. Also, they must have figured out how to deal with fear and to avoid self-destruction. There is a "ring-pass-not", a natural barrier, which obstructs those who have not learned the prerequisite "lessons". Like a natural barrier of consciousness, one is unable to go beyond the barrier until one has attained a certain level of understanding and knowledge. This is not a physical barrier shutting out a certain group, rather a barrier of understanding, intent and experience.
However, attaining the basic understanding, which would allow you to pass through the first barrier, does not guarantee wisdom. There are many levels beyond ours and certainly, in our amazing universe there are some beings with questionable ethics who have learned the basics but who have problems maintaining the ideal. However, the vast majority of advanced civilizations do subscribe to universal ideals. It is what it is.
So the next step presents itself. We have to deal with religion and spirituality. Leaping to the next level as a species does not occur with mere "scientific", "logical", "objective" reasoning or through spiritual practice only. Forgive the Italics, but these terms are so overused and are inaccurate adjectives. Scientists see through the filter of their own belief systems and edit their findings according to their fears and the extent they can accept certain hypotheses. Objective observation is a nice term, but physics proves the person performing an experiment has an effect upon it that changes it. Then the fact that most experiments are funded by corporations with inherent agendas (big pharma, oil, etc.) does not leave much room for honest research. I firmly understand that there are physical laws, which govern our planet, but we have a childish understanding of their implications. Concrete mental thinking is not going to project us past our fears.
As far as religion and organized spiritual practices, why do we have to accept Jesus Christ as our personal savior in order to understand that our physical surroundings and our universe are constructed with some sort of plan in mind. Please don't get me started on intelligent design and that crock. The notion that "god", the big white bearded guy floating in the sky, created the universe several thousand years ago, and controls us with an iron hand, has been perpetrated on us for a long time. Back in the pagan days, he was Zeus, and it was the same bunch trying to keep us barefoot and powerless. The spiritual beliefs hijacked by organized religions with political aspirations make it seem criminal to discuss spiritual beliefs. Why can't we have an understanding of spirituality and focused stewardship by multidimensional beings without mixing in the twin bogeyman of logic and religion? The Pope, the TV preacher begging for money and the head of physics at a prestigious university are interesting people but they are humans with fears and limited consciousness. Truly, they have no better understanding of the universe many of us have experienced than the world leaders or politicians, who try to tell us what to think, buy and fear. They try to edit our observations, but in the end, I know what I know and you know what you know. We each have experienced certain events, which have shaped our consciousness. If we allow exploration into our own beliefs without father figures telling us what is real and without allowing bogus people to co-opt our reality, we may find that we accept a sort of spirituality that encompasses core beliefs of many religions. We don't have to automatically dislike those who think slightly differently. Each religion was based on the observances of one or several people who modified an existing set of beliefs and added their own spin. Some of these prophets or founders advanced the way humans understand the world by adding one special idea, and many merely advanced themselves. But the core beliefs from which all these religions spring are not new. And if you study how each core belief originated, you pretty much come to the conclusion that it has all been presented before. It was forgotten for a bit until a new bunch resurrected the same idea. The governing principles of these core beliefs have been re-introduced by successive individuals to advance us towards certain ideals and this appears to be part of a larger plan. We go forward learning new ideals, feeling that we are doing well as a race, then stumble back and fall, only to have the old beliefs fed to us again until we finally get it.
We are all cousins at heart, seeing spirituality through our own experiences. That is perfectly understandable. The problem occurs when we insist on our own experience as the only way to understand the world and our soul.
Commentary by Susan Nidle
to read the preceding article in-full:
http://paoweb.com/su120407.htm
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