Our discussion of spiritual hierarchies, of which this is the third part, would not be complete unless we touched upon the hierarchical construction we call the archetypal mind. We shall begin that topic with this article and conclude it in my next article.
In the grand conversation Don Elkins had with the social memory complex, Ra, as recorded in the five volumes of The Law of One, most of Book IV was dedicated to their exploration of the archetypes. It is the most challenging of all of the topics which the two tackled and, because the conversation remains unfinished, it is the most provocative and tantalizing.
Many have asked me why I did not attempt to continue the Ra Sessions after Don Elkins died in 1984. There were two reasons. Firstly, the Ra group stated during the sessions that it was only with both Don and Jim McCarty, the third member of our research group, functioning as batteries that contact with them was safe for me. When they said that, I was down to 85 pounds soaking wet and eating like a particularly greedy hog to maintain that weight. At each session, I would lose two to three pounds. I was under constant psychic greeting and dealing with one physical and psychological challenge after another. I could just imagine what the sessions would be like without the protection of Don’s immeasurable love. I listened!
Secondly, I felt that no one but Don could possibly guide the questioning of the Ra group at the level of excellence which Don maintained. Professor Elkins had been studying metaphysics as well as physics for more than a quarter century when he interviewed Ra. Jim had studied in the field for ten years, but his experience was not nearly so broad and he was far too modest to presume to try to fill Don’s “Questioner” shoes. No one else was even remotely acceptable.
I have never regretted that decision. The Ra contact is unique in my channeling career. It stands alone. Its 106 sessions have a characteristic voice and constitute the very center of my life’s work.
I am equally proud of the conscious channeling I began in 1974 and continue to do today. The Confederation entities which I channel from conscious light trance also have unique voices and offer excellent material to the serious seeker. In many cases they are far easier for the seeker to read and to understand than the Ra sessions are. And there is a continuity there which is missing with the Ra contact, since I have continued with the same sources for over 30 years, compiling well over 1500 transcripts so far.
However the clarity and profundity of the Ra contact rings true through the years. This information will never be dated, banal or stale.
In Session 5 of the Ra contact, Don was talking with Ra about healing. Ra said,
“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.
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 reason for daily meditation comes into focus when we realize that we are trying to develop the ability to retain silence of self. All the intellectual knowledge in the world cannot help us to penetrate what Ra calls mental work. Indeed, the seeker is attempting to stop the whirring wheels of his mind. Spiritual work does not gain momentum as the seeker becomes more widely read and more deeply informed. Spiritual work benefits, rather, from the seeker’s growing skill at releasing intellectual thought and opening in unknowing and peace to the present moment and the infinity that lies within it.
In the same session, the Ra group says,
“To begin to master the concept of mental disciplines it is necessary to examine the self. The polarity of your dimension must be internalized. Where you find patience within your mind you must consciously find the corresponding impatience and vice versa. Each thought a being has, has in its turn an antithesis. The disciplines of the mind involve, first of all, identifying both those things of which you approve and those things of which you disapprove within yourself, and then balancing each and every positive and negative charge with its equal.
“The mind contains all things. Therefore, you must discover this completeness within yourself.
“The second mental discipline is acceptance of the completeness within your consciousness. 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 smooths part of the many distortions that the faculty you call judgment engenders.”
Many types of spiritual teaching encourage the seeker to seek the light while denying the reality of darkness. This was not Ra’s vision. The Confederation entities in general see the self as a 360-degree, fully circular being. They acknowledge and give respect to the shadow side of our personalities. We all contain the murderer, liar, betrayer and thief. The vision of the Confederation for the spiritually mature seeker is a vision of a whole and integrated human being.
This is a powerful teaching, since it brings us to reckon with our shadow side, to give it respect and to bring it into our own hearts to be loved and redeemed. We find those shadow characteristics and then we ask them to work for us. We ask those dark energies to become our grit and nerve, our perseverance and determination. When we fear our shadow side, it becomes the slavering wolf that threatens us from within. When we work with it, embrace it and ask it to serve the light, it becomes integrated into our whole being.
One way to do this is what we came to call the balancing exercise. As the Ra said, at the end of the day, we can sit down and review the thoughts and emotions of the day. We look for triggers. What triggered us today, either for happiness and elation or for worry, anger or other dark emotions? As we find a trigger, we stop and examine the moment in which we were triggered.
For instance, say we became impatient because we had to listen to a long and boring telephone call from a family member, or because we were stuck in traffic. The technique of balancing would begin with intensifying that feeling of impatience until our awareness was utterly full of it. We would then allow the feeling of patience to come naturally into our awareness until it was equally intensified and we were completely at rest, utterly full of patience. We would conclude the exercise by viewing the two states side by side and validating both of them within us.
Doing this exercise once is informative. Doing it through a number of years yields to the seeker a very deep knowledge of the surface personality of the self. He becomes able to view dark emotions with far more equanimity than before, since he has seen these emotions up close many times. And he has seen them healed and brought into balance just as many times. It does not stop one from being triggered by situations into experiencing dark emotions. However it enables one to be undismayed by them and able to choose one’s responses far more skillfully.
We can see more clearly as we practice this balancing exercise that we truly do contain all the woes of the world within ourselves. Is there war in the world outside? Yes, but surely it starts with the war within our own natures. Is the deceit and lying in the business practices of dishonest corporations and their officers? Yes, but that dishonesty and lack of integrity only mirror our own darker impulses – whether or not we act upon them when they are triggered.
By working with our dark side day by day, we become known to ourselves. We do not hide behind our roles such as Good Parent, Good Mate, and Service-to others Servant of the Light. We know ourselves from stem to stern and can bring all of ourselves into our own open heart, self-accepted and self-healed.
The Ra group goes on to say,
“The third discipline of the mind is a repetition of the first but with the gaze outward toward the fellow entities that it meets. In each entity there exists completeness. Thus, the ability to understand each balance is necessary.”
The beauty of Ra’s teaching is that as we learn to accept ourselves completely, the whole 360 degrees of self, we become able to be compassionate in a holistic way. We understand the chicanery of others because we have seen it in ourselves – seen it, come to respect and love it, and finally redeem it. We become able to accept all of the people of our world, at the soul level, and to love them, sincerely and wholly.
The Ra finishes this train of thought by saying,
“The next step involves observing the geographical and geometrical relationships and ratios of the mind, the other mind, the mass mind, and the infinite mind.”
We never got a chance to investigate the sacred geometry of which the Ra group spoke, but we did begin an investigation of the archetypal mind. And that will be the topic of the next article of this series.
I open my arms and embrace your spirit. Let us all come to know and accept ourselves, one thought at a time; one emotion at a time. Just so shall we be tempered to an ever truer purity and an ever more flexible strength of spirit. Just so may we learn truly to love.