The Law of One, minus the space opera

[Nabil Naser]

I know what you are talking about. My first reading of the Ra Material, something like 25 years ago, left me in a state of bewilderment. I enjoyed the book very much, but I wasn't sure what it was that I liked about it.
It took many readings, until the book's pages where falling apart, before I got a good understanding of the material. Even after that, I kept reading the books over and over again. And every time I read them, the information became clearer and clearer, as I found connections that I had not noticed before.
If the purpose is to share the material with people who are not familiar with The Law of One, a simplified version can be very useful. It can also serve as a motivator for more in depth study.

Wanted to get your opinion on something, folks. I'm open to any reaction to this.

For the past ten years of my involvement with the Law of One material, I have often found it difficult to inspire curiosity in people whom I think would be open to the non-transient, core spiritual message so well represented in the sessions. This has nothing to do with what I (admittedly imperfectly) judge to be their resonance with the Law of One in its simplicity. Instead, it is the extent to which the spiritually valuable material is mixed in with what I call "space opera" details - things like having to explain that the entity bringing this through is called "Ra", having to justify the whole UFO and exo-political Confederation drama, etc. These are things that are difficult to accept on their own if somebody is not predisposed to UFOs, conspiracies, etc. Given that they are often transient matters, would it not make sense to formulate a version of the spiritual material in a condensed format?

As I re-read the Law of One for the first time in years, I really do go back and forth on this. There is a sense in which a lot of the "space opera" details inspire a sense of mystery which, properly balanced, need not be distracting at all. The issue is the degree to which this information is accessible to somebody not familiar with the ancillary issues. The primary goal in the original contact was fidelity to the transmission and total transparency of the experimental conditions. I am not challenging the value of the source material one iota; I am wondering whether the presentation of the original sessions is always the best way to encounter the material.

Example: I read the study guide before ever reading the sessions themselves. This was, in my opinion, of unspeakable advantage to my appreciation for the sessions when I did encounter them. But the study guide uses all the elements of the sessions with equal weight, I'd say. It's a study guide to the sessions. What I'm talking about is a study guide or commentary on the concepts themselves.

I do wonder if there's any way we could condense this material in a more readable and immediately useful way. It may not be viable or possible without something too important being lost. It's something I'm contemplating as I move forward in my rereading. Essentially, even something like the well known study guide could be refashioned in this way. The overall progression of the sessions, speaking VERY broadly, is to progress from more interest in transient matters to less interest. What would be interesting would be a study guide or companion commentary that reversed this: instead of focusing on the transient matters first and getting less transient, focus on the non-transient matters first and bring in the transient "space opera" details as more fundamental matters are developed (if at all).

The problem here is that, in reformulating Ra's messages without many of the examples of the more fantastic details, there is significant opportunity for distortion, through personally filtering the material in precisely the way those of L/L did not, at least not consciously.

Perhaps what Carla did with "Law of One 101" was the right way to go about this: if you are going to restate the Law of One in your own words (i.e. channel the Law of One from yourself, so to speak) you might as well at least be up front about its personal character. Carla has always demonstrated talent in using examples from her life to frame her understanding of these matters. Maybe what I'm doing is trying to convince myself to write something like this, but I feel like I'd need to approach the degree of dedication to this material that Jim and Carla have achieved before I'd have anything useful.

Anyway, this is something that's been on my mind for years, and I was just interested if anybody had feedback.

[Confused]

I know what you are talking about. My first reading of the Ra Material, something like 25 years ago, left me in a state of bewilderment. I enjoyed the book very much, but I wasn't sure what it was that I liked about it.
It took many readings, until the book's pages where falling apart, before I got a good understanding of the material. Even after that, I kept reading the books over and over again. And every time I read them, the information became clearer and clearer, as I found connections that I had not noticed before.
If the purpose is to share the material with people who are not familiar with The Law of One, a simplified version can be very useful. It can also serve as a motivator for more in depth study.

Very true, Nabil. It is amazing in terms of the lengths to which Ra strove to articulate complex concepts with accuracy, to the extent to which human linguistics allowed. I am truly grateful to Ra for that. And yes, new insights keep pouring in as one enters a meditative study of the literature.

[yossarian]

Am I the only one who thinks this is a good idea?

I think you should do it and see what the result is. I think the process alone will deepen your own understanding and can lead to a new and valuable perspective on the material.

The one caveat is to avoid a common pitfall of spiritual teachings which is to lie for the sake of simplicity. For instance scientologists believe that Xenu put humans in a volcano and all this stuff, but scientologists will deny this until you've reached a certain level of initiation. This initiation process is a pitfall in my opinion.

What you're talking about sounds like the Jefferson Bible to me, which is something that countless people have benefited from, not the least of whom is Jefferson himself.

I would encourage you to not be discouraged by the naysayers and if you still feel a passion to do this to give it a try.

I actually think it's a really good idea and would be useful. Reformulations need to be acknowledged as reformulations but they aren't bad in any way. I'm a big fan of derivative works in any field and I think hearing many voices and perspectives on the same topic helps and doesn't hurt.

Redacting the space opera/political stuff and writing a condensed version that includes the spiritual concepts sounds like a worthy reformulation.

Ra does not have a monopoly on truth. Of course your reformulation will be biased by your personality. That's ok. Ra's formulation of the Law of One is biased by Ra's personality. Also ok.

I'm a little disturbed by the way you are being brow-beaten into giving up a creative impulse. What is the possible downside to expressing your creative impulse? Very little downside, lots of potential upside.

I think some people are deifying Ra.

Ra answered the questions Don asked. A reformulation of the material that focuses on one aspect of the questioning sounds like a really great contribution to this body of knowledge.

If I'm being blunt I see a lot of hypocrisy in the way people are criticizing your idea. They have their own interpretations and reformulations of the Ra material and those reformulations pour out of them constantly at the slightest trigger. Every word posted in this thread is a gushing reformulation of the Ra material that someone channeled through their personality. Is it wrong to put these reformulations into a book? Of course not!

The Jefferson Bible is a wonderful version of the Bible. I think your Jefferson Ra Material sounds very compelling and I'd be interested in reading it for the new perspective that it would contain.

[Steppingfeet]

I would encourage you to not be discouraged by the naysayers and if you still feel a passion to do this to give it a try.

...

I'm a little disturbed by the way you are being brow-beaten into giving up a creative impulse. What is the possible downside to expressing your creative impulse? Very little downside, lots of potential upside.

Yossarian, is Jeremy receiving this sort of response in a thread other than this one? I just reviewed this particular thread and am unable to locate a single instance of naysaying or brow-beating. Everyone has offered their thoughts with kindness and respect, each person more or less supportive.

Also, there was a thread earlier which evolved into a discussion about "translating", as it were, the Law of One into simpler, more easily accessible terms that may be helpful to the direction of the "Space Opera" thread.

http://www.bring4th.org/forums/showthrea...9#pid13839

Love/Light,
GLB

[yossarian]

Yossarian, is Jeremy receiving this sort of response in a thread other than this one? I just reviewed this particular thread and am unable to locate a single instance of naysaying or brow-beating. Everyone has offered their thoughts with kindness and respect, each person more or less supportive.

Yes, everyone has offered their naysaying thoughts with kindness and respect.

Everyone has offered their discouragement with kindness and respect.

But it's still discouragement. It's still naysaying. Browbeating is a strong word, but not too strong. This is a polite conversation and polite conversations are capable of provided heaps of discouragement. Anyone who has dined with the Queen knows this feeling.

Reading the progression of jeremy's statements from the start of the thread to the end, I see a clear pattern.

He started off with doubts already. He comes to us and says:

jeremy: "I have this creative impulse, and I really think it would be a good product. But I have doubts about whether I'm up to the task. Will I introduce deleterious distortions? Will I cause harm?"

The forum responds:

"This would be unwise. [insert theological argument]" <-- obvious discouragement

"There are better ways to reach people, such as radiating your being. [insert scripture to support argument]" <-- tacit discouragement, redirecting jeremy's inspiration towards something that resonates with the poster rather than with jeremy.

"Others have not considered themselves sufficiently anointed to do this task. Why are you capable of it?" <-- sowing doubt and feelings of inferiority

"Instead of following your inspiration in X way, you should follow it in Y way [insert scriptural support]" <-- tacit discouragement

"Why are you doing this? Why are you removing the uniqueness of the material?" <-- this is a false dichotomy. By reformulating the material, jeremy removes nothing from the original material. Nothing is lost. The uniqueness is still present in the original source and now there is a derivative work which serves a derivative purpose.

"Don Elkins wrote it this way because Don thought it was best this way." <-- tacit discouragement. Who is jeremy to make a new spin on Don's work!?!

"You can't judge what another person needs to hear, therefore reformulating the material according to your own inspirations is paternalistic" <-- discouragement, and a fallacious argument. You can apply this argument to literally every piece of communication ever. It's not paternalistic to make a judgement call based on inspiration about what things to prioritize when you communicate with someone. It's a necessary part of every communication, including when Ra spoke to Don, when Don spoke to Ra, and when all of you speak on this forum.

"It's ok to do this, but you should only speak about it and not write about it." <-- again, this is telling jeremy to do what resonates with "me" rather than what resonates with jeremy

Personally I think several of you are being hypocritical in your advice to jeremy because you, on this forum, perform the same service that he wishes to perform everytime you write something on this topic. If you were to follow your own advice, you would just post the entirety of the LOO books in response to every question, which would be absurd. "No redactions! All quotations must include the entire work or the quotation has been cherry picked in distorted alignment with your flawed personality filter!"

Here's my advice to jeremy: What resonates with other people is not what will resonate with you. Most others are telling you what resonates with them. For instance I personally would not do your project because I'm not you. I would do some other project that I'm inspired to do. But since you're CLEARLY inspired to do this project, and clearly have a noble cause and a noble purpose, and even see and know others who would likely benefit from this project of yours... do it!

Everything everyone ever says whether online or speech or a book is filtered through their personality. I'm SURE you will do your best to be as accurate and helpful as possible in your interpretation. This is all that can be asked of anyone - to do their best. And so I genuinely think it would be a tragedy if you stifled your inspiration out of a fear of being imperfect. Have the courage to risk your imperfection and do the best you can. Have the courage to follow your convictions and the deep longings of your heart. If no one will support you, go on alone!

Inspiration is a rare and beautiful thing. Rarely do I see people express creative inspiration for something they deeply care about as you just have. I think and feel and believe that you, jeremy, you can trust your creative impulse and you can trust that sense of inspiration. You can trust that it won't lead you astray. Follow the excitement! Act!

[rva_jeremy]

Yossarian:

I appreciate you sticking up for me, but I don't perceive any hostility or lack of respect where you do. If you'll refer to the original post, I was floating an idea, not looking for people to approve of my idea. Frank feedback is all I ever wanted, because I often have a choice between seeing what I want to see and seeing things as they actually are.

I did not take people's words as discouragement; I took them as, "what are you trying to accomplish, Jeremy?" And given what I'm trying to accomplish - an effective transmission of the concepts of the Law of One - I've concluded that it would be more beneficial for me to compose original works that reflect my best understanding, rather than re-ordering a body of material that was so carefully preserved with minimal editing to maximize transparency and honesty. That is my goal: to do something of similar honesty and transparency, something that does honor to the original material without feeding into the negative impulse to reorder what is already perfect.

So my takeaway from this thread is this: I will read through the material once more, taking notes, and I will use these notes and reflections to write more on my thoughts and findings. This is more honest path than a "Jefferson's Bible" approach (which was an excellent analogy for what I was proposing) because it allows me to say exactly what I want to instead of trying to filter Ra's words to my own purposes. If it's going to be all about me, might as well be up front about it.

Thanks for your concern, Yossarian.

[yossarian]

Just for the record, I don't see hostility or disrespect either.

I think everyone was very polite and respectful.

The point I was making was unrelated to politeness or respect.

[Richard]

It seems to me that separating the space opera….or wanting to separate the space opera from the Law of One is more of a personal interpretation that doesn’t resonate with someone. But Don’s original perceptions and personal history were greatly influenced by the space opera facets of acquiring this knowledge. You can see it in his lines of questioning in the early sessions and in his earlier work. Even though Ra wanted to stay away from those subject, Don sometimes forced the issue.

It was Don’s early writings that drew me to the Law of One. I think taking that context out of the writing to make it more acceptable to a broader audience is about the same as the editing of other Holy Books to suit current the priesthood and what they think their audience needs to hear. Sure, its been done before…but should we walk that path again and again? To me…the Law of One should be taken as a whole body of work whose words are there for the individual to decide with what resonates and what doesn’t.

Richard

[BlatzAdict]

yea totally. i love the space opera.. cause i'm such a huge sci fi geek to begin with.

I notice what tends to happen with humanity is the division, separation and compartmentalization of things. The urge for things to be labeled, divided, only reinforces Duality.

It isn't until we start to look at the interconnectedness, and the big picture do we finally see the truth, and the synchronicity across all points of expertise, whether it be class-ism, feminism, quantum physics, historical, etc etc.

You guys forget why the book is called Law of One. Because everything is one. I agree with Richard but I'm taking a more extreme approach. It all stays!

It's almost like the space opera stuff really does test your limits as to what or how you percieve reality. If you don't believe it, then altruistically you did not have enough will or the insight to see past the stories and into the main themes and ideas.

It's that will of spirit, that gut wrenching need to find the truth, isn't that what is needed for the evolution of a soul? Notice how young souls don't tend to have this sense of character if you will. So easily swayed by themselves, unable to recognize their light. I have also been vulnerable to this in many aspects so it's not like I'm super wise either.

So much of the time in our culture we are so obsessed with how things are named. What about what things mean as opposed to what they are named? Look at the word Dharma. and try to define it. You can't

it means so many things, the moment u say it is one thing you are wrong.
perhaps they were trying to convey and label what Oneness was.
Oneness is everything so to be one with Oneness, one must see things in a holistic way or a broad or expanded view.

phew that was a mouthful!

[Coordinate_Apotheosis]

Bump, glad I found this thread.

I am of the encampment that more supplementary materials would be useful.  I love the study guides I've seen, but I always wanted more.  Carla's specification of the core lessons of the Law of One in her book on how to Live it was the singlemost helpful resource I had.

I would strongly encourage people to tidy up and re-present the Ra Material with their own understandings and interpretations, so as to allow an expansion of consideration, or simply put, I want to see the Ra Material from many perspectives and angles, not just a select few.

I want to see someone's attempt to disseminate the (ever the) same information with their own organized presentation.  I would gleefully look forward to reading the Jeremy Law of One Presentation, to see how you specifically frame things so as to give me new perspectives.

I'd even read a Unity100 or Zenmaster version of a Law of One presentation.

We should do that, all of us who want to should make presentations on how we took the Law of One and how we would try to present the info to others.

A Space Opera Appended Study Guide would be legit with the focus on the passages of the Law of One pointing out specific concepts of interest such as The Mirror Effect and how The Lawof Radiation can positively help effect positive change in others (how to efficiently help about birthing 4D through our actions and intentions) and if I don't read a single thing about negative entities, I'll be even happier.

I am put off of parts of the material that focus on the darkness, the Law of One is a simplified complex concept, I resonate with 'Space Drama' in that those aspects ultimately reduced the overall impact.

For me learning about the literal war in heaven did NOTHING but make it more difficult to accept what I was reading.  I don't want to know about no damn war in heaven, I want to know about how I can more closely manifest my true soul self through my humanity and return to unity while incarnate.

Just like if someone focused on the negative info, I'd be fascinated reading it because I'll know its focusing on the parts informing us of negative entities, and I'll read it to learn how to better be prepared to appropriately handle such an entity.

But if I'm looking for inspiring stuff towards unity but have to sift through paragraphs about mutilated cows, real physical thoughtforms that did the mutiliation, or stuff like the CIA's damn ufo fleet, I'm put off and out of the mood.

The search function is great, but I really want to know the Law of One through others. Because if we're all one, then all of our perspectives are innately uniquely valuable to each of us.  My perspective, Jeremy's, Unity100's, Gary's.

By seeing through others frames of mind, I learn more than if I tried to frame things myself.

So, I say, manifest Law of One Personal Interpretations/Presentations, I would be 100,000,000% on-board and interested in that even as just a side resource on the b4 website.

[kycahi]

Thanks for the bump, C A. I suggest to anybody who would rewrite the Material to go slowly cuz you might run out of zeal for the task after a little while. I ran out myself.

A few places in there, Ra says that they are not giving the info to the the L/L Three to "spread the news" to a wide audience. They were happy to give it to Don, Carla and Jim and, IMHO, let them to spread it around as they wished. By now, many/most readers of the Material benefited greatly and have shared what they learned in their own words appropriately for their friends.

I don't mean to discourage anyone here at all. Just let yourself begin the project and then see how it goes.

[CurtisUSA]

The first time I read Ra it was a different read, but to me the great take aways for me was after subsequent readings were;
1. The concept of wanderers, this with like a lifelong clarification.
2. The concept of neg. polarity and its purpose, which explains so many frustrations I once had with this planet.
3. catalysts as a exercise to raise your vibration/light, with guidance coming from the otherside, so watch what your feeling as clues.