Greetings, this is Austin Bridges welcoming you to the L/L Research podcast, In the Now broadcast, Episode #63. L/L Research is a nonprofit organization dedicated to freely sharing spiritually-oriented information and fostering community. Towards this end we have two websites: the archive website, LLResearch.org and the community website, Bring4th.org.

During each episode, we respond to questions sent to L/L Research from spiritual seekers like you. Our panel today consists of Jim McCarty, Gary Bean and one very special guest, Jeremy Wieland, as well as myself. All of us are devoted students of the Law of One.

Your questions allow us to explore the Law of One and related matters of metaphysical interest. We hope only to offer a resource that enhances your own seeking process. Please know that our replies are not final or authoritative. We ask each who listens to exercise their discernment and be sensitive to their resonance in determining what is true for them.

If you would like to submit a question for this show, please do so. Our humble podcast relies on your questions. You may either send us an email to [email protected] or go to www.LLResearch.org/podcast for further instructions.

Again, I’m Austin and we are embarking on a new episode of L/L Research’s bi-weekly podcast, In the Now. Is everybody here and ready to go?

Yes, indeed.

I believe I am.

Yes, Jeremy is here.

And that would be our special guest, Jeremy, one of the more frequent questioners on this show. I think that he always has the best questions, but today we are discussing a question that actually did not come from him. We have invited him on the show because it relates to what we believe his path has been recently and he’s a very eloquent guy. So we decided, why not have him back on the show to make things a little more interesting.

I get the pressure up.

So, yeah, don’t mess us up, Jeremy.

Our question today comes from Spencer via the Bring4th forums, who writes:

“In prior sessions, Q’uo describes the idea that there is a path of wisdom and a path of the open heart. Buddhism tends to appeal more to those on the path of wisdom and Christianity tends to appeal more to those of the open heart. Also, I believe that Q’uo once said that the path of the open heart tends to produce results more quickly.

In the United States most spiritual seekers who are awakening are on the path of the open heart. However, some of us are unequivocally on the path of wisdom. It is easy for us to get stuck in a rut due to a rather academic approach to spirituality, and it is also easy to become emotionally stubborn because the knowledge of human behavior makes it difficult—makes it more difficult to take social situations and interactions seriously.

Beyond daily meditation and stillness, how can we find balance and gain more of what is commonly found by those who cannot approach spirituality through an intellectual lens?”

So, let’s first get some initial reactions to Spencer’s questions. Let’s directly answer the question he asks at the end, and then I can share some follow-up thoughts with you guys on the dynamic he’s talking about.

So, let’s start with our special guest, Jeremy. What are your thoughts on Spencer’s question?

Yeah, I think this is a question that really gets into some of the things I’ve been thinking about lately—specifically, Buddhism. And I have to say that I, along with him, thought that Buddhism was a much more intellectual path before I started reading about it. I don’t really feel that way anymore. In fact, I’ve been reading this book by a Buddhist nun named Pema Chodron, called, When Things Fall Apart. I would dispute the idea that you have to make a choice regarding the path that you follow, if that’s what the questioner means. I think you need both of the path of wisdom and the path of the open heart.

I think there’s a reason why in the sequence of lessons through the densities, we typically open our hearts before we start focusing on the wisdom path. Now, I know that if you’re a Wanderer you may be here because you’ve already integrated heart lessons and that’s fine. I don’t have a problem with that, but I would just point out that there is a sense, in my life at least, that focusing on the intellect has led to a distraction from focusing on the heart.

And so, I don’t think Buddhism rejects the open heart. In fact, the concept of bodhisattva is a school of thought in Buddhism that is not just on opening of the heart, but on dealing with the emotional energy of all situations, and using that as good grist for the mill.

That’s what I’ve been focusing on lately. So, why don’t I just leave it there and recollect myself.

Yeah, I think that’s actually a good place or a good thing to say initially. I’m not sure how accurate Q’uo’s perception of Buddhism is necessarily and none of us know too much either—though I think Jeremy is probably the most knowledgeable about Buddhism in general. So, it’s good for you to state that up front.

Jim, what do you think about Spencer’s question?

Well, I wondered if he was talking about consciously choosing to pursue the path of wisdom instead or if anybody would consciously choose the path of wisdom over the path of the open heart when we know that the heart is the center that we’re trying to open to get into the fourth density of love and understanding. I am wondering how people make choices if they are aware of what we need to do to get fourth density.

I’m also wondering what really happens when we choose to do one thing or another because in my own experience—way back in the beginning when we had the Ra contact—I chose to ask Ra a question about my balancing. I thought, well, if I’m trying to accept myself and I’m trying to become the Creator and so forth, wouldn’t it be more sensible to get right to being the Creator? You know, I was sort of intellectual and arrogant with that particular question. Ra gently let me know that before you can accept yourself, you have to know what it is you are accepting. They basically told me that I was not doing what I thought I was doing. It was a really nice way of saying it, too.

So, for many, many years I thought that I was pursuing the path of the open heart. But as I look back upon it now and consider the experiences I’ve had in the last couple of years, I can see that I was not pursuing the path of the open heart. I mean, I was trying to, but what I was really doing was an intellectual evaluation of my situation and attempting to move forward—basically in the way Spencer is talking about—with the mind and incorporating wisdom. And, for me, the heart didn’t open up when I tried to open it. It seemed to open because it was time for it to open. There were stages to it and I was not in control of those stages.

So, I’m just wondering how much our choices are really effective. Can we really direct our own growth when we know we have pre-incarnative choices that will, at some point, kick in? Within two weeks of Carla’s passing, it seemed that all a sudden the starter’s gun went off in my body/mind/spirit and I was on another journey, which wasn’t something I chose. I didn’t say, well, now I’m going to just do this. It happened to me. There were three or four other things of that nature that helped me to open my heart.

So, I’m just curious about what our choices really do. Would it be more wise to really pay attention to our catalyst, go with what happens to us, and make the best of everything? Because we have made choices previous to the incarnation that will present us with opportunities to do exactly what we want to do.

That is an amazing question. I wish that we could ask Ra something like that since it would make a great discussion, too. Thank you for that.

Gary, what are your thoughts on Spencer’s question?

So, Jim was pondering at what level free will is really operating because things happen to Jim. My quick, cursory thought was that if the choice isn’t made on a conscious level for the heart to open—but nevertheless it does—then perhaps the role of the conscious mind in that regard is to assent to the change, and to support the change, and to foster the environment within which that change can emerge in the first place. So, you know, maybe your conscious choices were tending to yourself and the environment, and your general orientation as a spiritual seeker. And in that space, the heart could emerge. But, it was just a quick thought and it could be off the wall or wrong.

So, in my reply I want to briefly examine what wisdom is relative to the heart because they are distinct energies. They are, as Ra said, two sides to the same coin. And as Jeremy says, they don’t have to be exclusive paths. You certainly need both upon the positive path. But nevertheless, there is a distinction between them.

I think that the downside to the intellectual capacity is that it keeps experience at arm’s length. The intellect spends a great deal of time analyzing, categorizing, compartmentalizing, and creating conceptual barriers between and around experience. Indeed, the intellect can create a conceptual world that may or may not correspond with what’s happening. All the analysis that the intellect can perform is needed to help the processing and integration of experience. Ra does ascribe to the blue ray the function of integrating one’s experience into the overall self. But, it’s first and foremost the heart that really breaks the self open to experience.

Jeremy sent us that Pema Chodran book, which emphasizes that point as well. It’s really the heart that makes one sufficiently vulnerable to let down the defenses in order to allow the experience to touch the self, to breathe it into the lungs, and to make full contact with your beingness. Once the self allows the self to experience the catalyst—to really just sit with it, feel its feeling tones, and allow it to be without analysis, manipulation, attachment, or aversion upon the Buddhist path—then wisdom can begin its investigation into the catalyst.

But I think that it first has to be brought to the heart. It has to be felt there and accepted. After that, wisdom can then seek understanding and can speak to the various energies within the self or speak to the other selves involved in the catalyst. Like I was saying, the wisdom can integrate the experience and seek out a new balance. However, like Jeremy was describing and Jim hinted at as well, the sequence of evolution where wisdom follows love in the hierarchy of chakras.

The blue ray or throat chakra is empowered, enabled, and activated only insofar as the heart opens and allows that energy—aka your life—to move through it. Thus, love informs and is the foundation for blue ray. Wisdom exercised without the heart leans toward—and eventually becomes—negative wisdom, which is wisdom used not toward unity, but toward separation. Ra warned of this, too, when they said something about the way the intellect or too much order can be negative. But if you start and end with the heart, then that order can be put to positive uses.

I think that’s the gist of what I wanted to say. As to how to get to the heart, I think Jeremy has had a lifetime of trying to answer these questions because he has a really powerful and strong intellect. I mean, we’re all intellectual people, but Jeremy especially has been what you might call a very analytical person. He’s done a lot of intentional and conscious work—with awareness of that tendency—to get into his heart.

But, back to the host.

I have some thoughts that speak more directly to that question, too, but I think I would like to first turn it over to Jeremy to see if he has any initial thoughts that talk about the ‘how’ of getting from the head to the heart.

Oh, well, that’s very generous. Thank you. I really have to say that I consider myself to be sort of a dilettante in all this. I have been reading this book on Buddhism, which is the first book I’ve really dove into Buddhism on. In terms of emotions, it was Homecoming 2015 when I started to really reckon with taking the emotional experience seriously. Listening to Jim talk about his heart opening experience really inspired something in me. That’s a very discrete event for me.

I think that I have very similar notes to what you said, Gary, in terms of how the intellect is a way that can sometimes protect us and distance us from heart-based experience. What I said in my notes was that the two things that I see as a problem with emphasizing intellect and not balancing emotions is that the intellect can be a distraction because of its discursive property. This is similar to the story you told before, Jim, about how you’d be doing work and you’d have these stories going on in your head about what you’re going to do and anticipating things. I do the exact same thing.

So, there’s a distracting quality to it, but there’s also a justifying quality to it. The justifying quality is problematic because it allows us to ignore the emotional charge of experience that occurs to us. We use our mind to channel it into, ‘well, it’s because of this thing’ or ‘it’s because of that thing’ and cage it off in this crystalline structure of thought, instead of really letting it seep into our body and our heart and feeling what that feels like.

I think that’s where the intellect really becomes an impediment to forward progress. I think this is why the balancing exercises that Ra described are so useful. One of the things that stand out to me about their quote on that is when they talk about how once you, for example, are balancing anger and you can sense the randomness of the energy. I think that thing about the randomness of the energy is really useful because there’s something implied in there.

You guys might not get this from it and maybe I’m wrong, but I see them really saying that when you balance this emotion, you separate your thinking about it from the raw experience of the emotion. And then you can experience that emotion untethered and uncontrolled by, you know, discursive thoughts that just keep going on and on and on.

Once you can feel that emotion on its own terms, you have the ability to really balance it. Then, you can freshly think about it and freshly marshal your intellectual resources towards using that emotional energy and accepting it.

So, that’s all I really have to say on that.

That is very insightful, especially that example you just used about the anger and the randomness of it. It’s very related to what I was going to say, so it segue ways into my response to Spencer perfectly. However, I want to share an initial thought on the concept of allowing the anger to be perceived and the raw emotion of it versus the thoughts.

You talked about Ra saying you then realize at that point the randomness of it. Before that point, I think that the thoughts that it generates make us think that maybe it isn’t so random and that there’s some sort of logic to our anger, or that we’re justified. We have a reason to be angry. Then we follow that trail of logic and kind of fool ourselves into thinking that that’s where the emotion comes from.

But then once we allow ourselves to stop that logical thinking and just allow the anger to be perceived for what it is, we realize that it’s actually a lot more random than we’ve let ourselves believe. That relates to my thoughts about Spencer’s question. I think a direct way that people can try to get from the head to the heart is to just put a pause on that rational analysis that we tend to do with our emotions, especially those who call themselves or might see themselves or really are more on the path of wisdom. I classify myself to be similar to this group of people because for a long time I have found it difficult to really get into the heart. I’ve felt so much more comfortable rationalizing things. But I think that in rationalizing things, we are bypassing the root of the emotion.

Seeing emotions as tools of insight that are generated from internal imbalances or biases is a great perspective that Ra gives us. That perspective is one of the most freeing things that I’ve ever learned from Ra. But I will say that when I first learned about this, I would take every emotion I’d experience and say, “Oh, hey, let me just immediately take this into rational analysis and figure out where it’s coming from and what it’s saying about me.” Instead of just sitting with the emotion and perceiving it, I would immediately run with it, start to abstract it, and try to figure out where it was coming from inside of me so I could soothe that portion inside of me where the anger was coming from.

So, I’m not necessarily saying to stop rational analysis of all emotions. I’m not saying to never analyze your emotions again. Instead, I’m saying to honor the emotion for what it is instead of immediately taking it into your rational analysis. Accept the emotion as a part of you and just allow a space for it. Allow it a point at the center of your being as you observe it in love. That’s an internal approach that I think can help people get more into the heart, rather than in the head.

I think that you can also turn this process outward in how we perceive people whom we feel we can serve. It seems that people with that strong, rational capability tend to meet people who might need our help or might seem like they’re suffering. That person’s issues can immediately become an abstract problem for us to solve, which causes us to stop listening to the suffering. We stop paying attention to the suffering itself and instead attack it as a problem to solve. The service then becomes a sort of goal in and of itself. I think that a good way to get to the heart in that situation is again, to pause the rational analysis. Instead of immediately thinking about how we can solve this problem that needs to be solved that’s in front of us, we could pay honor to the suffering that we’re witnessing. We could listen and hold space to the person who is suffering so they can be who they are as an entity. Sometimes that’s all somebody needs as a service. They don’t necessarily need you to fix their problems for them. They just need to express themselves and their suffering and that is the best way that you can serve them.

So, inwardly and outwardly, I think that we can just pause the rational analysis, which really helps to get to the heart. Any initial responses from any of you guys? Gary or Jim, do you have any direct advice about how to get from head to heart?

Well, a thought came to me while you were talking. My first response is to pay attention to your catalyst. We have pre-incarnative choices that will be coming around to us. Our subconscious mind first looks at catalyst and gives us an interpretation of it, which is a biased interpretation that we want it to give us, and then we can work with it.

Then I thought, well, Ra said that not only do we have pre-incarnative choices that are effective in our incarnations, but we can reprogram them during the incarnation if we want to in certain ways. I think that if we are trying to open the heart, maybe besides balancing the catalyst that comes our way, we could—in meditation or contemplation—look at the day that we just had and imagine and meditate on what it would have been like to have responded with an open heart in whatever situation we were in. I think that if we would do this over a period of time it would be like forming an image or a channel of what it would be like to have an open heart.

We don’t know what it’d really look like metaphysically or anything, but we do know, or I think I know, that if we continue to make an effort in that direction, we are adding energy to this image and this concept. We’re burnishing this channel and we’re shining it, making it bright and brilliant. And perhaps at some point then, it would mesh in with pre-incarnative choices or take precedence over pre-incarnative choices.

I don’t know, but I think maybe we could make conscious efforts to reprogram and perhaps even be able to do it.

Thank you for that, Jim. Gary, what are your thoughts?

I have a couple thoughts. First one is I want to amplify just a little bit more about what you were saying, Austin, regarding speaking with somebody who shares something that they are experiencing with you, especially if it’s a problem, which causes the rational analysis to immediately kick in that wants to try solving the problem for the person. To which you advised momentarily suspending that and just being with that person.

I wanted to amplify that a little bit by talking about a workshop that Austin and I attended at the Omega Institute last month led by Charles Eisenstein. This approach that Austin was describing really speaks to the heart of his own approach as well. He had us pair up with one person or in a group of three or four at different points and perform these exercises that sometimes involved basically sharing difficulties that we’ve experienced in the past with each other. Eisenstein advised us not to go into resolution mode when we are listening to what the other person was sharing. Instead of trying to solve the problem for them, we could instead give them our full, compassionate listening attention. The act of listening alone and of just feeling what they’re feeling and listening to what they’re saying holds the space for them so that their own guidance and solution—if a solution is needed—can come through.

If a solution isn’t needed, then perhaps the solution is to simply experience what is being said or felt. That in and of itself processes the life material. Ra calls it experiential data. It creates the opening whereby that experiential data can sink into the being and gears can turn on levels below the conscious threshold. It’s really the heart that is the gateway to allowing that experiential data to come into the self. Otherwise, intellect kind of keeps that at bay.

So, yeah, that was my thought. Back to you, host.

Awesome. Are you guys good to keep going with this discussion a little while longer?

Sure.

I’m good.

Yeah, let’s do it.

All right. I want to move on to something I found interesting about Spencer’s question. He used some phrasing that I think can inform a little bit more about this discussion on wisdom. He talks about becoming emotionally stubborn because the knowledge of human behavior makes it more difficult to take social situations and interactions seriously. I think that’s a really interesting concept. I’d like to concentrate on that word, ‘knowledge’ and ask what you guys think how knowledge applies to wisdom. Is knowledge the same thing as wisdom? To me, it seems like Spencer is perhaps conflating the two things in this statement.

So, how is knowledge related to wisdom? Are they the same thing or are there differences between the two? I’m going to call you out again, Jeremy. What do you think?

Well, what do you guys think he means by ‘knowledge of human behavior’? I’m not sure I understood that.

You know, that’s a good question. I’m operating on the assumption that he means to say that he has insight into why people act the way they do. It seems as though he feels his wisdom or maybe knowledge of how humans behave might give him some deeper insight into why their social interaction is going a certain way, which causes him to only see the distortions or perhaps the surface personality. This makes it hard for him to take social situations and interactions seriously because he can maybe feel as though he sees a deeper level to it.

And that’s really interesting because it’s a very detached way of looking at it.

Right.

My understanding of Buddhism prior to looking into this book was precisely that Buddhism was about that kind of detachment and being able to live a more content life by detaching. So, it makes more sense to me that this whole thing is something that’s worth commenting on definitely.

By saying human behavior, it seems he is talking about being able to recognize a pattern of behavior where he can see the underlying currents. One might consider that the only way you can recognize such behavior is because it is also within you. Or it may be that you are working outwardly with an energetic dynamic that is within you, too.

One way to look at it is to, you know, become emotionally stubborn and say things like, “Well, you should work out your issues, man.” But another way is to see that this is a reflection of what you are either going through, have gone through in the past, or are going to go through in the future. If that seems confounding to you or if it seems like you’re just going through the same stuff over and over again or that you keep dealing with people who are emotionally stuck, then maybe that is a great way to work on your own stuckness.

You know, there’s this story in the book that Chogan talks about where the Buddha is being attacked by the forces of Morah. When they shoot their arrows, swords, and spears at him they all turn to flowers. Chogan says her interpretation of that is that what we consider to be challenging or uncomfortable things or things that we typically tend to avoid or seek to avoid are actually showing us exactly where we’re stuck. In fact, I have never heard a better explanation than that for what catalyst actually is.

The role that catalyst plays showing us our blockages and showing where we’re stuck. We see catalyst as this thing to be overcome or a problem to avoid, but it’s actually exactly what the path is. Actually, this is also a precept of Stoicism, too—that the obstacle is the path. The path are the things that are actually, you know, coming in on you, making you feel small, making you feel rigid, boxing you in, giving you that spiky, uncomfortable feeling that you just want to throw down everything and just run away. That is precisely what you need to work on and it is your best friend.

So, that would be my response. I don’t know if it’s dealing specifically with what he said, but it’s certainly what it made me feel.

I think that it is because what I heard was an approach to using knowledge with wisdom in heart-based ways. Being able to recognize human behavior means you have the knowledge that allows you to recognize that. But it’s wisdom that allows you to apply it in a certain way and to recognize how it is relevant to you.

Exactly. Just like Jim said, until you fully feel it and fully experience it, or until you open yourself up to the fact that you can’t feel really, really good and experience positive things unless you’re able to feel really, really bad and experience negative things—which are two sides of the same coin—you’re going to keep running into this either in social situations or, you know, internally.

Yeah. So, Jim, do you have any thoughts about that or the difference between knowledge and wisdom or how they are related?

Just a quick one or two maybe. I think Ra was assuming that very same thing that Jeremy just said, which is that our problems are our best friends when they say there are no mistakes. That takes into account everything that happens to you in this illusion. We have to remember that this is an illusion and that this is a school. We’re learning certain lessons at the third-grade level. So even though we might think that something that is happening to us is just dastardly or ridiculous or too much, Ra also said we won’t be given more than we can bear. That’s really why the lifetimes went from 900 to 700 to around 100 years now because we weren’t able to use catalyst well on this planet, and we couldn’t bear 900 years of what we’re doing here right now. So, I think that’s in agreement with what Jeremy was saying.

I was also thinking about Don when you were talking about what is the difference between wisdom and knowledge. I think that Don had both. By the time he was 26, he had already been thinking about the nature of life for at least half of his life and asking the big questions about how the universe works and what his purpose and place was in it. He evaluated the situation around himself and decided that, you know, this is an insane asylum. People were behaving very, very poorly here and they were letting their emotions get a hold of them and take them up and down. People would feel really good then really bad as if they were on roller coaster rides. To him, it was as if people were not in control at all and their lives were just a mess.

So, he decided that he would not do that. Basically, he was not going to use his catalyst. His famous saying was, “I’m just an observer.” And he was very, very wise. Although he was the wisest person I’ve ever met, what he did in making that particular choice was cut off the path to the heart. He put a steel cage around his heart. It wasn’t until the very last year of his life that he was able to—well, forced to actually by the circumstances of the energy exchange with Carla and our negative friend intensifying those problems, and initiating and so forth—open the heart. Suddenly, he couldn’t keep from feeling tremendous emotions and it was overwhelming and almost paralyzing.

So, in that regard, the choice that he made to let his wisdom take the lead in his life was something that really got him a long distance, you know. But it couldn’t take him all the way. I mean, who else could have asked those questions to Ra? He had that intelligence, intuition, and wisdom that was just unsurpassed. But then in the end, he needed to be balanced, which was a rough balancing.

I guess that’s it for what I had to say.

Yeah. Ra said that within the dynamic your trio had, Carla represented love, you represented power, and Don represented wisdom. So, I think that’s an interesting thing to contemplate.

Gary, what are your thoughts?

It may be semantics, but I tend to see knowledge as information collecting. For instance, one could have knowledge about art or commerce or mathematics, or any particular field of human inquiry. Whereas another could be very wise without having a great deal of knowledge. They could lead a very simple life that does not have much contact with the complexities and intricacies of our society.

I think what Jim and Jeremy was saying earlier, especially Jeremy, moves more toward what actual wisdom may be. Wisdom is a sort of clear-sided seeing that isn’t necessarily diagnostic of every situation. I mean, the wise entity doesn’t look at the person with blockage and say, “Aha, you are blocked because this and this happened in your childhood and here’s how to fix you.” But rather, I think wisdom moves more in the direction of what Jeremy was describing—that all is the self and all is a reflection of the self. So, the truly wise entity will look at a situation and see his or her mirror and realize his or her responsibility.

There’s a certain taking of responsibility in the wise entity, too, because they see that the unwise may project their own experience onto somebody else and see the other self as the cause. Whereas wisdom would inform the self that the actual cause and genesis of the experience is within and that the other self is just the mirror or the proximate cause. So, turn the attention and look within. This isn’t to say there is not something to deal with on the outer level, but inwardly that’s where the catalyst is really beginning and where the work really is. So, that’s a measure of wisdom as is communicating.

Ra talked about radiating the self without expectation of return. In other words, take the love that you have in your heart and give it outward without contingency on what the other person says or does, or whether that person returns the gift. That is also an aspect of wisdom.

Finally, I want to say that I had actually highlighted ‘take social situations and interaction seriously’ because, like you, Austin, I felt that that was indicative of what Spencer might be thinking. In terms of taking social situations and interactions seriously, that could point to a few different mind states or perspectives Spencer has including what could be a form of condescension. It sounds like, you know, to look down upon what these idiot humans are doing and say, you know, “I’ve figured this out and I’m above it.” Please know that I’m not accusing you, Spencer, of that. I’m just saying that it’s a possibility.

But it could also be indifference or closer to what Don was experiencing—like I’ve seen through the nature of this catalyst and it doesn’t have any hooks in me. I am indifferent to it. I think that is part of wisdom to maybe not get so thrown around in the turmoil. In fact, Ra says that for the truly balanced entity all things are love and an opportunity to love. This keeps you from being caught in the drama per se, which is wise. But I don’t think that indifference itself, if that is where Spencer is going, is necessarily wise.

Anyways, I’m getting into rambling territory. Back to you.

Well, I think it actually brings up maybe the last and final topic that I had. What I hear all of you saying about wisdom sounds like what I would consider the positive approach to wisdom. What Jeremy was talking about especially regarding how recognizing the human behavior can help you relate to that human behavior based on what is inside of you. To me, that is a unifying thing. It brings the connection between you and the behavior, as well as the person who is exhibiting that behavior closer together because you are recognizing the commonalities. And, on the deepest level, you are recognizing that those behaviors are coming from the exact same place within the Creator.

So, I think that this is a positive approach to wisdom. Just listening to you talk about the indifference that can be brought about by this knowledge feels like it might not necessarily be the negative approach to wisdom. It perhaps points the way to the negative approach to wisdom, which can cause the knowledge of human behavior to distance you from that entity or situation to the point where you are so separated from it that you can then control it from a distant, indifferent point, and only utilize it to serve yourself.

So, what I would like to open up to the group, is the difference between positive and negative wisdom. Ra talks about both paths having wisdom available to them. I’d like to know how you feel they may be related or different. Anybody have any ideas?

Quick insert—Jim was the one that was verified to having been bitten by the serpent of negative wisdom.

Yeah, we should probably let that person talk. Jim, can you briefly explain that experience and how you interpreted it.

Okay. We were just about ready to publish either Book III of the Law of One or publish all three books together in one hardback book, which is what Don wanted to do. But we didn’t have the money to do that, so it wasn’t possible. But he kept wanting to anyway. So, I got angry, which was the first and only time I ever got angry at Don.

I said, we don’t have the money to do it and we can’t do it so why talk about it? Let’s just do what we can do. That was a disagreement that lasted about a day. During that time, I was focusing on the thought of what to do. I was not focusing on Don or why he wanted to do what he wanted. I wasn’t showing any kind of compassion toward Don, which separated me from him. I was saying that I had a better idea, which was more workable. His idea wasn’t as good as mine and it wasn’t workable. I held on to the idea instead of holding on to Don, which caused a separation between us.

I think that’s the difference between positive and negative wisdom. Positive wisdom sees a way to make a bond between two people, and a way to share inspiration and information. It’s a way to be together in a higher way. Whereas negative wisdom finds ways to separate, as well as to dominate and control. And so I ended up separating myself from Don for a day as I tried to get my way because I thought my way was the best way. It didn’t take too long after that for a spider to bite me. I think it was either that night or the next night when I woke up with three bite marks on my left arm. Within two weeks I had gained thirty pounds of water weight because my kidneys had been adversely affected along with my suprarenal glands.

So, that was the way that worked.

Yeah, I think Ra talks about that in Session #101.0 if anybody wants to look more into that because it’s a very interesting event that happened.

Jeremy, have you ever contemplated the difference between positive and negative wisdom?

Oh, yeah, especially with respect to emotions like we’re talking about now. I think that negative wisdom is mostly the ultimate protection from feeling bad. The reason why I say that is one of the most poignant terms of phrase in the Law of One material is those of Ra describing themselves as the “Brothers and Sisters of Sorrow”. They drove deep into my heart with that because what I started to realize is that they were maybe saying that they loved us so much that they were willing to feel and really look at the pain that we are feeling. That was how much they loved us.

When you use your intellect as a way to avoid feeling that deeply, you actually trap yourself in that. If you can’t face a particular negative emotion, then you will keep facing that negative emotion over and over again because that is just how the universe works. We think we have a choice about what we can feel, but what we really have is kind of like what the book A Course in Miracles says—you have choice on when you feel it. You don’t have a choice whether to feel it or not. Being a full expression of the Creator means being able to feel the entire spectrum of emotion, which is hard to face.

But we have good resources for that and the intellect can be an ally in that. But you have to use the intellect to take advantage of the full feeling—not just what you want to feel, but all of it. And once you have that basis, you won’t need the separation of distancing yourself from feeling bad and going the full circle of wanting to make other people feel bad and feeding on that tension. You can just accept it all as self. When you feel bad, you feel bad and when you feel good, you feel good and it’s all the self.

That’s what I have to say.

Awesome. Gary, what are your thoughts?

Yeah. Jeremy, I never considered Brothers and Sisters of Sorrow in quite that light before. It’s very insightful to see it as Ra feeling the pain or the entirety of the creation. I enjoyed that.

Ok, here are my thoughts on positive versus negative wisdom. I would say that in essence, negative wisdom is still wisdom, but it’s wisdom without love. Love is completely omitted and the purer the negative wisdom, the less love there is to be had until there is literally zero point zero percent love available.

I imagine that the negatively-wise entity can still have that same clear sight about the situation. But because there is no empathy there whatsoever, there is no desire to relate or to support. There’s no desire to recognize the interconnectedness and the mirroring effect. Rather there is battle and judgment of the other self and the clear sight of wisdom itself. On the negative wisdom path, that clear sight can see the vulnerabilities and weaknesses of the other person, and it seeks to exploit others for the benefit of the self. The negative wisdom is maneuvering and conniving and trying to come out on top and be superior or be dominant, and so forth.

But I think it’s important to remember, too, that in wisdom there is light. This is the same powerful light that the positive entity also uses, but—just to cycle back to where I started—it is without love and empathy.

To conclude, I want to say with regard to Jim’s experience that Jim had this anger towards Don that led to conceptual separation in his mind. He was focusing on that separation instead of their underlying unity. There was an immediate feedback mechanism when he got bit by the spider within 24 hours. I want to say that if I was under the intensity and brightness of the light that you three stood in for the Ra contact, I would be so hosed with feedback mechanisms that rapid and effective. I don’t know how long I’d be able to hold out because I do have a very grumbly brain or mind, which is a work in progress.

Anyways, those are my thoughts.

All right. Well, we are probably coming up on our time. However, I did want to share a quote from Ra session #14.18 that Jeremy and Gary touched on, especially Jeremy. This quote—which isn’t directly related to wisdom, but it is at least inspirational—is when Don was basically talking or asking Ra about why they answered the call. Ra said:

“The general cause of service such as the Confederation offers is that of the primal distortion of the Law of One, which is service. The one being of the creation is like unto a body, if you will accept this third-density analogy. Would we ignore a pain in the leg? A bruise upon the skin? A cut which is festering? No, there is no ignoring the call. We, the entities of sorrow, choose as our service the attempt to heal the sorrow which we are calling analogous to the pains of a physical body complex distortion.”

I think it speaks to the fact that they’re viewing these pains in the body as if they are feeling the pain themselves. They are like the Creator’s brain recognizing a pain in the Creator’s leg and they are seeking to soothe that pain. So, it’s one of my favorite quotes, I think.

Any final thoughts from anybody before we close the show out?

Super briefly. The randomness of red-ray anger was discussed earlier in this show and if you’re interested, there is a Q & A in the December 17, 2016 Q’uo transcript that discusses that.

Awesome. Jeremy, thank you so much for joining us. It was really insightful to listen to you talk about your path of wisdom and heart.

I always appreciate talking to you guys. You guys are wonderful to listen to and it is just a blessing when I can get a word in to actually talk back to you guys instead of just listening passively through the earphones. Thank you.

We really appreciate it, too. Jim, any final words for the listeners?

Yeah. I also want to thank Jeremy for being with us. It’s an honor to have him here because it really livens up the show.

Likewise.

And I would just like to say to everybody who listens to us that we appreciate you being there. We can feel your love. We hope you can feel our love for you. We thank you for your questions, which is what we really live on here. We need your questions. We all need each other to question and answer and help bring each other home.

You have been listening to L/L Research’s podcast, In the Now. If you’ve enjoyed the show, please visit our websites: LLResearch.org and Bring4th.org. Thank you so much for listening and for supporting this podcast with your questions. Also, a special thank you to Spencer for sending us the question and to Jeremy for helping us discuss the question.

If you’d like to hear us ramble on about a particular topic, please read the instructions on our page www.LLResearch.org/podcast. New episodes are published to the archive website every other Wednesday afternoon, Eastern, for the most part. Have a wonderful couple of weeks and we will talk with you then.