"I of my own knowledge…"

What the Middle Ages called sins we call other things. The benefit of calling them sins is that it reinforced the idea that whether one succumbs is somewhat a matter of choice. The disadvantages, we know.

The benefit of our psychological way of seeing it is to remove guilt — but it promotes the idea of our helplessness, or victimhood.

People often ask why life is so hard. They ask it with special force once they have gotten to the point of realizing that we do indeed co-create our lives. “If we have as much power to shape our lives as is claimed,” people sometimes ask, “why do our lives have so much pain, so many troubles, so much frustration?”

A while ago, I was given an answer that satisfies me. Perhaps it will you, as well.

Over the past year, I have been in communication with departed spirits – the shades of the dead, as people used to say. That’s another story for another time. For now, either take it for granted, or pretend, that you are hearing the shade of Ernest Hemingway, talking of what happened to him after he killed himself.

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R: Mm-hmm. You up to another question, here?

F: Sure.

R: This question is, are you extraterrestrials? [chuckles]

F: [laughs] Are you? [they laugh]

R: That question doesn’t –

F: I think the question is rooted in some assumptions that we don’t share. In the first place, there is no difference between you and extra-terrestrials except where you’re living. (more…)

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R: I can’t get over last session, it was so long I guess. I asked about comparison of material that Frank brings forth and the Seth material brought forth by Jane Roberts. And you suggested that we practice looking at this question from your point of view

F: Mm-hmm. Have you done so?

R: I tried to do that, and I really didn’t get any new insights, I guess, because I find myself going back to things that you have said, and it comes out something like this:

From your perspective, we are all a totality that includes Frank and Jane, a totality that’s not sliced into time and space segments, yet somehow Frank and Jane each have a collectivity that includes some aspects that are specific to the cores of themselves so that Frank has the gentlemen upstairs, and Jane has a Seth, as well as possible overlapping aspects. And in your position, you could focus on Frank, and/or Jane, but in the two cases, the responding collectivity would be somewhat different in composition for the two of them. So, I don’t know – I don’t think these interpretations are wrong, from what you said, but I think that is in line with what you said so far. [chuckles] I have to add that so far.

F: Well, that’s an ingenious first attempt, but it underlines the vast distance we have to go. Very interesting. We had no idea that you’d come at it that way. It’s very interesting. (more…)

Rita Warren: Maybe this is my nit-picking, and we can turn off my nit-picking at any time, but I tend to get caught up in things like definitions, and making sure I understand what we’re talking about, and –

F: Could we re-phrase that? We would say you tend to get caught up in trying to get clarity! That’s what you’re supposed to do! [they laugh]

R: Oh good.

F: [laughs]

R: All right, well I think the first one will be easily taken care of. It has to do with the word “channeling.” Frank has not wanted or not used that word for what’s going on here, on the grounds that he is present. Now to me that doesn’t exclude that definition at all. Being present or not present is a matter of the development of the consciousness, whether it can tolerate being present or not. So when someone asks “is this channeling,” I hate to say no because I think it is. Do you have any suggestions around that word? (more…)

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R: All right. Now there are a group of questions that have come in to Frank, based on their reading the material from past sessions. I’d like to ask some of these.

This came from a person who’s asking can he simply shift his consciousness, becoming one of his other versions – one of the other versions of him – and thus I guess be in a much happier life circumstance.

F: All right, that’s an interesting question. It’s founded, though, on a misunderstanding, we think. [pause] We’ll back up, as always.

Let’s say there are 50 versions of you – a vast understatement, but let’s say there are 50. We’re talking about 50 versions of you in your present lives, just because of different choices. All those versions exist and always did exist. It isn’t like they were only created when you chose, because when you chose you went down one or the other that already existed. To say “can I change my consciousness to move over to another life that has better choices, which took better choices,’’ which is in a sense is what he’s asking, is to think that he can leave any path. And in fact the actual reality is, you all are on all paths. As we’ve said earlier, we can’t answer a question that says will this happen or will it not happen because the answer is always “yes it will” and “no it won’t”! (more…)

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R: When I was asking you about improved human beings and we talked earlier about improved societies, I was asking about them as goals, aware that we’re a very goal-oriented culture. And yet we’re constantly being told to live in the moment, not analyzing our past or anticipating our futures.

F: We don’t think that’s the proper understanding of that statement.

R: Perhaps you would expand on that.

F: If you don’t mind. You can plan for the future and be in the present. You can review the past and be in the present. Conversely, you can be walking down the street doing nothing and not be in the present at all. The emphasis on that is to remember yourself continually. To keep your consciousness conscious. (more…)

Rita Warren: All right, good evening to the gentlemen upstairs.

F: Good evening to the ladies downstairs. [chuckles]

R: I had mentioned in an earlier session, on the 11^th, that I wanted to return to the issue of disasters when there’s been loss of life on the earth, and ask, to the extent that you’re able to alter things in the 3D world, what meaning do these kinds of events have?

F: Hmm. [pause] That’s a hard question to answer, phrased that way. It’s rather like asking us what meaning does a day have. Because what you all see as all the same kind of things, putting the title of disaster or atrocity or war around them, to us are infinitely different. We’ll give you an example to show you the difficulty, and then ask you to rephrase it.

R: Okay.

F: [pause] If you have that disaster at Bhopal, where people died because of corporate indifference, and you have a disaster in New York where people died because of an act of war and, let’s see, if you have a disaster resulting, seemingly anyway, from nobody’s fault – the bridge over St. Luis Rey, if you remember that old example — if you only look at the fact that there is widespread, seemingly indiscriminate death, then you might say those three incidents are three of a kind. And we would say they’re nothing like. (more…)

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R: Well, let’s see. I’m confused here. In viewing all those possible alternatives that we chose among for this particular one we’re looking at here, you’re saying that all those choices were not only potential but they in fact occurred.

F: Exactly. They exist. Not past tense, not future tense. The whole thing is one big present. At least to us.

R: It’s very difficult to perceive things from your perspective. [laughs]

F: Well, in fact, it takes a certain skill to – It’s like a homing device, you know. We have to sort of keep a bookmark on you. [they laugh] because –

R: That’s good. That’s good.

F: You don’t ever have trouble finding us only because we find you. But if we didn’t, you couldn’t.

Now, you can extend that a little farther and say, if there weren’t the inherent tie between us – if we weren’t really all one thing – it’s difficult for us to imagine that! — but if we weren’t all one thing, how could we find each other? (more…)

Rita Warren: Well, I think this is our 7^th session. I was looking back today at some of the notes and thinking we have a few leftovers I should pick up on tonight. [pause] I have understood from you gentlemen upstairs that you have a great deal of information – maybe all of the information – and our job is to suggest a focus for identifying the information by asking questions.

F: You will have to pardon us if we always answer literally what you say, because we’re so aware of slippage in communications that we don’t know any better way to do. So the way you phrased your question, we would say we have access to knowledge and we probably have access to further knowledge when you want it. All we’re trying to emphasize is, we don’t ourselves know, but we can find out. That’s the way to put it. It’s one of our usual nit-picks.

R: Okay, well, how does all this information become available to you?

F: [pause] To us the process is more or less what it is to you when you’re thinking about something without needing external resources like books or conversation. So it’s as though we’re ruminating, only we’re kind of gravitating toward the information. Don’t know a better way to put that. (more…)