Arterial Self, Problem e

Problem e: Others' Impressions of Us
There is a man serving behind the counter of a shop. Three people stand waiting as he is talking to the customer he is giving change to. As it turns out he mistakenly gives back the wrong money, and the customer then tells this to him.

The person beside him is a 'good living' man who is quick to mentally check all others' incongruities. He immediately assumes that the shop assistant meant to pocket the money if not caught.

The young chap beside him waiting, is an unashamed thief who enjoys the drama and excitement of suspicion. His estimation of the shop assistant grew in that one moment, surmising that even though the fellow was 'caught', he handled himself marvelously anyhow.

The third was a little further away from the happening and did not see the transaction at all. This was the manager, the overseer, who would reserve just a little doubt about him ever after.

The person to whom the wrong money was passed had not thought ill of the shop assistant at all, but took it to be just a genuine mistake, largely because she was enjoying the conversation so much with him, flattered by his attention. He had not been flirting as she had interpreted it, but had rather been nervous for it was his very first day, and he was after all, trying to create a good impression.

Commentary:
From this example we can get a very clear understanding of the unreliability these subjective impressionings can offer. Often as not it is the unusual which stands out as a noteworthy recollection and is so imparted to the man himself, rather than that which he may truly be known by.

The man behind the counter in the shop assistant’s uniform may be a man of any vocational caliber. His personality, open and good humored, he may be any man who could fumble the currency, but in the minds of the onlookers he is tinged with the dispute of his very worthiness.

Intuitively, men know just how far wrong these judgments are apt to be. They personally indulge in such assessments daily; and for good reason also, as it becomes a means to future discrimination as to their own behavior and needs of refinement. So it is, as they say, unavoidable.

We are showered with opinion and rarely is it of the strengthening variety. However, if indeed it is, and has come from such a person who perceives you to hold the most wonderful and admirable attributes, then it becomes an etheric enhancement which then brings about a vitality into the immediate aura of the man, assisting him with his further applications of true selfhood.

In contrast to this we find that the more negative the conjecture (whether it be true or false in its surmise) brings about the general feeling within the sufferer that everybody and everything is accusing him - just as baby Orpheus understood the Moon to condemn him, and the argument with the Wind and the Grass. The result is that there are many ill-tempered souls who are viewing each other suspiciously, feeling each other's unrest.

The Arterial Self is painfully aware of these mismatched affections and kinships. Fortunately a true love, a true knowing between one and another may arterially link both souls and they to God.

Arterial Self, Problem d

Problem d: The Weight of Others' Opinions

When Orpheus was but a baby god he ran from his mother's breast, for having suckled too fiercely he had clamped down upon her teat, only to be slapped across the face, reprimanding his insult.

As he fled from his home, the old Moon stared down disapprovingly, to whom he replied, "I do not care for you" and then the silver disc paled amongst the sky...

Presently, with the arrival of the morning, came the Wind who crept around and licked his naked body and Orpheus believed that its tongue was sneering him and he cried out loud, "I do not care for you either!" and he stamped his tiny foot to seal the thought.

The Wind then flew far from him. He lay down into the soft grass to rest, and as it covered him tenderly, it tickled the irritated baby who believed that each spike was prodding him with a pointed blade.

Tersely he could not contain his annoyance any longer and did not even care to address the grassy bed to explain to it what was so wrong, but instead he ran further and onto a mud-bank and settled there amongst the custard of many decomposed winters and solutions of damp earth.

Just then Mother Sun laughed, and with her warmth his clay-skin hardened. Orpheus felt himself crying and asked of her:

"Why do you not love me Mother? Why do you rebuke me so?" With this he wailed.

She smiled a broader smile as he stood up waving his little fist at her saying further "I have fought battle with the old Moon and the treacherous Wind and the spiteful, spikeful grass, and I will not stand for any such meanness!"

At this the dried mud cracked and fell from his skin, and Mother Sun seeing his poor spirit reached down and raised him up, bringing him once more into her arms and onto her breast. Instantly the day's trials left his little furrowed forehead and he forgot his first and only fight with those companions, who cared more than not ... and all was well.

(Footnote: Orpheus was given a lyre from his father Apollo, which it was said that Hermes invented. By its aid Orpheus had the power to move men and beasts, birds in the air, the fishes in the deep, the trees and the rocks - all with the music from his lyre. He was signatory to a perfect harmony with all men, creatures and beings - in contrast to the infant tale of the complete opposite, Orpheus made good!)

Commentary:
The tryst of opinions goes a little like that explained in our story of baby Orpheus, in that our own sensitivities have much to do with the weight and meaning that others carry so upon us. It can go badly indeed if an individual has been so chastised at an early age and from this has never recovered. His relationships ever after, may well correspond to the bitterness of feeling himself to be outcast and unwanted, as he then tries to be independent of others' thoughts and opinions of him.

Of course no one individual can be fully inconsiderate to the social mean or to familial opinion, and so this being coupled with the many imaginary conflicts, there becomes a further isolation and distance from the truth.

Baby Orpheus tells us of our finding our place in the World, that it can change from it bringing its comforts and pleasures to that which is almost intolerably difficult to manage - and that it is largely moreover regarded by our inner bearings rather than decided by our involvements with the outer elements alone.

What the story does refrain from answering is how our babe ever left the breast! Our earliest detachment was and is from Father God. No longer is our sole conscious being affixed and adhered to His immediate Heaven.

We have been made both distinct and separate from Him, even though His Joving reality remains. Should a baby tug too roughly at the breast, his mother will not love him any less for it, but nor shall she suffer the discomfort. So at some time it must be that the infant Man must be brought to understand likewise, the objectionable things he does do and do them no more.

We may well believe ourselves sorely disputed, as ever on there becomes a contest and conflict for selfhood - namely our wants and needs weighed against those of our fellow brothers and sisters. It was with amenable commerce that the first breakthrough did come, for herein the psyche of Man was brought an adaptation to consideration, in that the arterial soul consciousness began to develop planning and applied mathematics, as it became required. Commercial transactions led the men into ways of fair dealing and actuated measure.

Even if the system itself was given to an unfairness - that one could gain an advantage over another - we nonetheless realize that with the birth of commerce into the world there became a means for Man to abstract his wants and longings from the primary responsiveness into planned and negotiated reasonings. One may bargain that the Sun will lift the horizon by the use of a dial or a clock, but the interacting which is required between one man and another is laboriously less predictable than the forecasting of cyclical events.

The bargaining between men gave them also a continuum to work from. As it is the way karmicly, men could trust in a future proceeding rather than have to act within the immediate constantly. There are, added to this, some things which cannot be bartered with; namely the man's own license over himself and that of his own arterial deciding.

Man as a corporate entity, engages in transactions which occur on many planes of being simultaneously. When a man is predisposed unto another he will begin to qualify that of his own thinking with those thoughts that are immediately attracted to him. To this end there follows a sorting process with great distinction and effort entailed, so that the original host of thoughts remains uncorrupted.

It is in point of fact, a very delicate and deliberate act to be openly considerate of another man's thoughts or opinions as they fly out to greet you. All the while and added to this, we are constantly affected by the conceptual pictures that our close associates hold of us. We cannot help but be like the man whose suit does not sit well, when the impressionings dear friends hold of us take hold of us and beg their reality.
Such impressionings may have no manufactured falsehood in the original, but be quite true to a particular outstanding incident in the past, whereupon some obscurity became more memorable than the quieter talents you would be better known for. Or it may be that the former self now greatly contrasts the man that you have become. Whatever the cause for the differentiation, it does happen that the picture images another may hold of you, directly impinge upon your person and at times your consciousness.

Arterial Self, Problem c

Problem c: Habits Redundant (Donkey)

A man has a cart that he has taken to the market for many years. The wheels are worn but well greased. The cart is cumbersome yet almost impressive for size alone.

One day the man feels his own weariness along his traveled road and turns around to look behind and there he sees that his donkey has collapsed and died and is lying in his cart.

He finds that he himself has been pulling this cart, along with the weight of the dead animal. The man thus finds that he is bridled to that of his former self and is now so exhausted of it that he can go no further in this effort.

Commentary:
The donkey has long come to represent our most blessed personality's characteristic, for within our personality we come to lean upon such habits and obstinacies in every day to day negotiation. Our responses become far from responsive, and also quite distant from being representative of our true self, for it is both the strength and the comfort of the personality to live in the past and to keep it perpetuated.

This serves a man up and to a point, for it is by the rhythm of repetition that the incarnating process becomes established within the world. We are enabled to bring reality into being by repetitive practice. There is a fundamental consequence to rehearsed and repetitive behavior, for the etheric forces may congeal into a form and establish a memory thereby resounding within the physical world accordingly.

The patterns as laid down by ritualistic/repetitive action bring into incarnation that which we seek to invoke, therefore we can see the great importance of our humble donkey in his service to mankind. Here too becomes the picture image of our Christ straddling the beast, quite clearly depicting fantastically, the process of the Incarnation. From the very highest through to the lowliest of routine (as routine it is), the World and its members all understand the service value of the donkey.

We are obstinate, powerfully obstinate, to forces which would compel us every which way; we are servants at the same time yet, to higher and harder forces of repetition and cycle as well. We are given to the seasons of the year and similarly the over-seasons of our earthly life. We are drawn into the pools of 'habit', the Pneu, as instincts are born from the indelible habits as set down to reference of being ... Then, in minor art-form to this, we go about our lives maintaining our habits - those of our own choosing.

Now from this the student can see that there is to be no mean attitude therefore to that of our beloved donkey; yet nor should there be outstanding reverence offered either, for donkey is simply donkey, not man.

In our problem (c), our donkey has deceased and ceased its usefulness. It has now become so burdensome that the man can no longer advance whilst he is tied to it. Even with the principle of life making its entry into being through the process of deliberate repetition there comes a time when all cycles must eventually exhaust themselves and end. This becomes then the greater principle in relation to the lesser - that cycles are engaged with yet larger cycles of pause and repetitive action and so forth.

It can be to this conclusion that medicines which have formerly been known to hold a remedial action upon a constitution, simply cease their effectiveness unreasonably after a time. (Remembering also that a medicine is not self earned or even necessarily tolerated, its efficacy upon the system comes from outer and other means, unlike with the self-established disciplines where it is that a man adjusts himself.)

Any pattern of being can quit when its term has completed, coming to its natural resolution and end. From this we are therefore compelled to seek new life and new cycles elsewhere rather than try to perpetuate a corpse of activity.

In our relationships with others we may come to depend upon the set sequences of behavior; the cues and routines which enable a measure of compatibility. This form of interaction will be helpful for only as long as there is new life generated (i.e. new thought/ interest/ understanding/ experience etc.), and that the term itself has not yet been fulfilled.

Upon review there can be found certain friendships and associations from which we have departed, and although the signature will always remain shared, the need or desire for communion with these individuals has subsided or gone from our consciousness. This does not indicate any ill-feeling or loss of love necessarily, but is rather a cycle fulfilled which is not caused to perpetuate in a future time known.

There are many faces we have not seen for a very long time to whom we once scanned importantly for their approval or disapproval of us, which brings us to:

Problem d: The Weight of Others' Opinions

Arterial Self: problem b- 23rd January 1997

Questions:
Dear Teachers,
Following on from our last teaching on the Arterial Self we are keen to develop further that primary dialogue with Father God which should always pre-empt any decisions we take requiring Christian action.

Guidance and advice from other beings or people is most welcome, but with the independent nature of this process, it is inevitable that offense will occur to any who may be seeking undue control over us.

The issue of selfishness versus the Arterial Self finds relevance in this context which indeed makes us tremble.

We believe that a major cause of the impotence of the Christian is that his propensity for guilt has led him to judge many of his promptings as selfish, when in fact they were probably the call of Father God through the Arterial Self. Thus we have not acted - and died.

We now sense that a change is necessary whereby a more active life can be lived, full of enthusiasm and joy, devoid of guilt.

It is at the conjunction where this active life in the future will meet with that other person or being who knowingly or unknowingly seeks control over us, that we feel apprehensive and seek your further teaching. The qualities of enthusiasm and joy in this context feel somewhat elusive and in need of your insight.
Love,
J., J. & C.

Dear Teachers,
My question is to ask about further ways in which we may identify the true desires of our Arterial soul-self. Can we be mistaken? Can we acknowledge something to be exactly that, but instead have simply bought into an imagining? Thank you for this, and for the other questions as well,
Love, X. 

Problem b: Impulsiveness

Two would-be parachutists are crouching at the airplane's opening. One, who stands now before the door, hesitates and cannot summon the 'nerve' to step out into the airy spaces and drop. His companion pushes him from behind and so he goes.

Commentary:
In this further study we may set about to examine some scenarios of relationship whereupon one man contrasts another in action or in decision-making. The validity of our own personal requests of another or of decisions to be had for ourselves, may be weighed against not a few considerations, but of many. There is, of course, the arterial waver, and for those who know of themselves what their true desires and life may be, then that is all ... yet also, one great gift of the Arterial Self which is not to be overlooked, is that of it being the decider.

To decide implies that there is a period of time, a pause (no matter how long or short) when the deliberating between takes place. Now if the Arterial Self was purely impulsive then this would negate the opportunity for such actual deciding. Many an action which has been subsequently regretted has come of a nil-thought, impulsive and hurried action. When men or de-men urge an individual, it is always with the implication that there is no tomorrow - no second chance, no other offer, no greater moment, etc. They would indeed go to the length of pushing the other out of the 'plane, even if this was not the decision felt and known by the one who would fall...

So our first key to this arterial knowing is of its value as recognized in the considered pause. The pause being but necessary to it, also the very appreciation of what it is about to encounter consciously, to take in and work with, delight to and bring joy to, and so forth. The pause is verily the space between each dynamic and it becomes the sanctified realm of rest when we have commuted arterially to God and asked of Him what is correct or incorrect at any chosen time.

The urgency of there being no tomorrow is an untruth spiritually speaking. Of all things our tomorrows are the most likely to be in successive abundance, however it is our very own ability to partake in them that may be endangered if we behave as if there is a shortage, and that should somehow exaggerate our actions in the now.

Equally a man cannot represent the past and forever continue on as if there is no new future to be afforded him either. Not all days are to be repetitions of the former, for then the personality atrophies the soul within and chokes the Arterial Self into semi-submission. Rather than then becoming urged prematurely into a quickening future we can find that the man can be with a false face, living to maintain the appearance of a time already passed, which brings us to:
Problem c: Habits Redundant