Session 005

[Jade]

Austin, I've been working on a re-read too, I'll treat this as a study guide:

Continuing a re-read of the material with an angle for creating a study group. Any thoughts or ideas about these things would be very useful! Not looking for objective interpretations or a debate, but rather a range of perspectives that will add to my own understanding. If possible, please use the "View Source" function (the button to the far right on the toolbar) and copy+paste each point into it's own quote tags.

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The healer is only the catalyst, much as this instrument has the catalysis necessary to provide the channel for our words, yet by example or exercise of any kind can take no thought for this working.

Is Ra referring to the fact that Carla does not consciously know or remember the words spoken during the contact?

Yes, I think so. It sounds like Ra's talking about being a channel, being a tuned instrument. An instrument doesn't participate in its playing, only the player (Creator) does. In the question, Don is asking about "creat[ing] a mental configuration to heal itself". Ra's analogy is that while Carla is the channel for the information, it takes no additional effort on her part to "create a mental configuration in the patient that allows him to heal himself" that would be conducive to one understanding the LOO. She is the channel, it is the listener who is responsible for reacting, just as a healer is a channel and it is the one being healed's responsibility to affect themselves.

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We begin with the mental learn/teachings necessary for contact with intelligent infinity. The prerequisite of mental work is the ability to retain silence of self at a steady state when required by the self. The mind must be opened like a door. The key is silence.

What is the key difference is between the ability to retain silence and the ability to control the mind’s thoughts?

Maybe it's like a yin/yang, empress/emperor thing. Retaining silence is the receptive state, controlling the thoughts is the thrusting action.

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Within the door lies an hierarchical construction you may liken unto geography and in some ways geometry, for the hierarchy is quite regular, bearing inner relationships.

The geography, hierarchy, and relationships seem to me to be a reference to the archetypal nature of the mind, or at least the type of structure which may be examined through study of the archetypes. Is there are broader or more narrow interpretation?

I agree that Ra is talking about the archetypes, and also just presenting the paradox of structured/hierarchical infinity.

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It is not for a being of polarity in the physical consciousness to pick and choose among attributes, thus building the roles that cause blockages and confusions in the already-distorted mind complex. Each acceptance smoothes part of the many distortions that the faculty you call judgment engenders.

There seems to be a subtle distinction between picking and choosing attributes and “making the choice” – what are the key differences?

I'm having a little trouble with this one. Are you asking the difference between one picking the details of their incarnative state, vs making the choice of polarity? This sentence is prefaced with "The second mental discipline is acceptance of the completeness within your consciousness. " So I take it that Ra is talking about choices being moot, that one is complete within themselves, and the more we accept this the less judgement we have.

The first exercise is about playing with polarity (finding the antithesis of each thought). The second exercise seems to be more about reconciling the paradoxes. The fourth step is said "The next step is the acceptance of the other-self polarities, which mirrors the second step."

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The simplest example of this is the understanding that each biological male is female; each biological female is male.

What might be some other examples of how this bodily polarity may be expressed?

Beautiful/ugly, wealthy/poor (inasmuch as this can be expressed through physicality), well/unhealthy, left hand dominant/right hand dominant