Honestly, I’m Not Trying To Be A Radical When I Say, “Legalize It. Now.” 2013-Apr-12 at 16:45 PDT
Posted by Scott Arbeit in Blog.Tags: entheogens, law, marijuana
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From Legalize It, Poll Shows, by Scott Clement, 2013-Apr-04 (my italics):
By 52 to 45 percent more say marijuana should be made legal than not, with support for legalization jumping seven points in two years and 20 points since the 2002 General Social Survey. Last November, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found the public split 48 to 50 percent on whether to legalize small amounts of marijuana for personal use. And 51 percent of registered voters supported legalization in a December Quinnipiac University poll.
The rapid change matches an increase in usage – in the new poll, nearly half of Americans report trying marijuana at some point in their lifetime (48 percent), up eight points since 2010 and also a record high. More people who have smoked in the past year say it was “just for fun” than any medical issue (47 vs. 30 percent), while 23 percent say they smoked for both reasons.
OK, the jig is up. Or the gig is up. Or maybe they’re both up, I don’t really know (really, I don’t). But half of us “puritanical” Americans have smoked the sacred herb. So, the thing… it’s up.
Half of us have smoked marijuana and come to the conclusion that it didn’t invite Satan into our worldviews, it didn’t put poor Billy in an insane asylum (and he was such a good boy before he tried it), it didn’t have everyone in some afflicted small town running around tearing their clothes off and humping each other frantically, or whatever happened in Reefer Madness. (I still haven’t seen it. Yeah… I should.)
Half of us. Seriously. Soon, it’s going to be more than half. Just look at the percentage increases in people who have tried it… the number is only going up.
That’s why I’m not a radical about this.
I have one question for all of you: how high does the number have to go? Is 50% not enough? Does it need to get to 60% for you to feel comfortable legalizing it? Does it need to be 70%-30%? Higher still? Whatever your number is, is fine by me. Mostly though, I just want to know that you have an answer, that you’ve thought about it and you have an answer that feels right to you. Whatever number you have for this is your number.
For me: 50% is enough. We’ve proven that the world didn’t collapse because of it. We’ve seen that some people are more drawn to it than others, which makes it different from every other experience in the world exactly… not at all. We’ve seen that the trendlines are all going up, anyway, so even if you did pick 60% or 70%, it’s not a question of if, it’s just a question of when, so if you’re already reasonable enough to say 60% or 70%, be one more step reasonable and do it at 50%. C’mon. The water is fine. Jump in.
And, again, entheogens are a real thing. These are substances that have a helpful effect on our Awakening (when interacted with sacramentally, rather than recreationally… not that there’s anything wrong with that). Cannabis is one of those substances. I support the legalization of all entheogens, and I understand that we’re not quite at the same place with, say, MDMA, that we are with marijuana, where half of us have tried it, but we can move forward right now on marijuana.
We can get it done really quickly at the state/province/region/sub-nation-sized thing, and therefore bring attention from the local level up to Brussels and to Washington to move this forward.
As for early experiences… I live in Washington State, and I have to tell you… no frantic group humping.
Well, so far, anyway.
And… the kids know who Molly is. And they like her. A lot. The times they will be a’changin’ on that, faster than you think. The Internet speeds all of these movements up now, which is the same thing as saying: Consciousness is raised faster than it used to be because the Internet exists. In three generations we went from printed books and handwritten everything-because-there-were-no-computers-of-any-kind, to we-all-carry-a-computer-on-our-persons-at-all-times (and frequently more than one). Of course the information spreads faster and helps us grow faster.
So… seriously, I’m not trying to be a radical when I say: the numbers for this thing are all in the right direction, they’re accelerating, they’re not ever coming back down, MDMA is coming right behind it, trending in a similar fashion. Let’s just stop the nonsense and admit that marijuana is OK. And maybe even admit that it’s better than alcohol.
Except when you’re trying to get really, really drunk. Alcohol is better at that.
And, of course, I have to get to the punch line, which is, again: cannabis is an entheogen. The spreading of the use of entheogens is a good thing for getting the accelerating speeding-up of collective consciousness that we all want. And, even if that’s not your thing, you don’t have to get in the way of those of us who are playing our fun little game of Waking Up.
Legalizing cannabis will help some of us who are playing that game to raise our vibrations. Simply maintaining a raised personal vibration is a huge contribution to the collective right now. Guilt, and Worry, and Doubt, we have enough. Feeling the Present Moment, staying in Joy and Grace, we all need to start hitting above the Mendoza line with that. Our #1 job is really to make sure we stay positive, that we stay hopeful, that we receive our experience with understanding, and with gratefulness, and with Grace. If cannabis helps you to establish and maintain that, and to retrain your nervous system for deeper and deeper Peace, then you should have it.
And if it doesn’t, or you don’t want to use it, cool. But there’s no reason anymore to be in the way of it.
3-D, 4-D and 5-D 2013-Apr-08 at 02:54 PDT
Posted by Scott Arbeit in Blog.Tags: 3-D, 4-D, 5-D, dimensions
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This is a bit I’ve done only for my close friends and family. (At least, I think so. Maybe I spouted off about it on Facebook too, I don’t remember.)
The terms “3-D”, “4-D”, and “5-D” have been thrown around quite a bit in spiritual circles for the last couple of years. It hasn’t been quick or easy, it’s taken me years, but I’ve tried really hard to make some sense of it all, to have some sort of mental map of what those terms actually mean, and also to know what it would feel like to be inside of them. In other words, the inside view and the outside view. This is what I want to share with you today.
I also admit to a certain desire I have to cor… help others who are using these terms, so that they might begin to use them less stu… more, uh, precisely. Yeah, more precisely. So, sorry about that in advance. I’ll try to keep it in check, I’m just owning it.
If it sounds like it’s going to be an awful slog through a bunch of words, it’s not. It’s going to be a journey through a collection of song titles that I’ll use to illustrate the perspectives!
No, actually, it won’t. Sorry. That would be cheap, I have too much respect for you to do that. Nope, it’ll just be words. Words… words… words. So….
4-D
No one said I had to do them in order.
This one is super-easy. It’s what you already experience all the time just by being in a body. This “real” world, this Earth, is a 4-D experience. A lot of teachers have been calling this the “3-D World”, but, really, it’s not. Our experience has four dimensions to it: height, width, length, and the passing of time. Calling this world “4-D” shouldn’t really be too much of a stretch if you’ve spent more than an hour looking at relativistic physics (and most of you have, c’mon, admit it). It’s space-time. Normal. 4-D.
A short diversion
To explain 3-D (and 5-D) I’m going to recommend watching videos from Rob Bryanton’s wonderful project, Imagining the 10th Dimension. Specifically, I’m going to recommend watching his videos on 3-D, 4-D, and 5-D. You don’t have to watch them to read this, so if you’re in reading mode right now, we’re good. I just want to say… Mr. Bryanton’s videos are excellent for getting a visual representation of how the dimensions might be imagined, and my thinking is very much influenced by his project.
And I’m not saying that what I’m writing is mathematically consistent… I don’t know enough to know if it is. I’m just using this as a way to present a model. I’m not claiming to be talking about Aleph0, 1, or 2. (I reserve the right to do so at a later date.)
3-D
With the preliminaries out of the way… what’s the difference between the 4-D that we all experience every day, and 3-D? In a nutshell, it’s missing an infinity (∞).
Dimensions and Infinity – another short diversion (although, not as short as the last one)
At 1-D, we have a line. It’s an infinite line of no width whatsoever. It goes on for infinity. So 1-D = one ∞.
1-D = ∞.
At 2-D, we have a plane. What’s a plane? Well, it’s a line times infinity. Another way to say that is: if you take all of the lines that could all intersect with each other, you’d need an infinite number of them, and you’d get a plane. So 2-D is 1-D (a line) x ∞ (infinity). 2-D = 1-D x ∞.
2-D = ∞ x ∞.
At 3-D, we have a space. What’s a space? Well, it’s a plane times infinity. If you take a plane, which is infinite in two dimensions, and you make an infinite number of them that all intersect with each other, you’d get a space. So 3-D is 2-D (a plane) x infinity. 3-D = 2-D x ∞.
3-D = ∞ x ∞ x ∞. (Notice the pattern?)
At 4-D, we have space-time. In this model, what is space-time? Well, it’s a space times infinity. In other words, if you imagine a 3-D space the size of our Universe, and then you multiply that space times infinity, so that all of the spaces intersect with each other… you’d get space-time. Time can be seen as just another spatial dimension (again, just a different perspective on it). So 4-D = 3-D x ∞.
Yeah. 4-D = ∞ x ∞ x ∞ x ∞.
And, back to 3-D vs. 4-D… you’ll notice that 3-D is missing an infinity from 4-D. 3-D has one less infinity than 4-D has. And since we know that the infinities that 4-D has are length, width, height, and time, we simply remove time from 4-D, and we get 3-D: a static, never-changing space, with no movement of time whatsoever. Remember on Bewitched when Samantha would twitch her nose and everyone and everything in the room would freeze? That’s 3-D, except in 3-D there’s no nose twitch that “unfreezes” it. It just is frozen permanently.
I can’t even say that it’s frozen, because we’d need time before we could have a meaning for a construct like “frozen” (as opposed to, not frozen, like our 4-D world) and that would put us in 4-D. So it’s not frozen permanently… those terms are meaningless. It simply is an unchanging space, without time.
Now, I don’t know about you… but I’ve never experienced being an unchanging space. At least, not in this body. Therefore, I must not be in 3-D. I must be in 4-D. So please, other teachers, stop telling us that we’re moving from 3-D to wherever else we’re going. We’re in 4-D; we’re just adding other perspectives to that one. We’re not in 3-D. We’ve never been in 3-D.
Another way to look at this (from Rob Bryanton) is to imagine that you were in a 3-D space, and you opened your eyes. It takes time in our Universe for photons to move from a source of light and color and into our optic nerves and brains. You wouldn’t be able to see anything in a 3-D world, because the faculty of sight itself wouldn’t exist: it takes time for photons to move through space to be seen.
So, 3-D = 4-D ÷ ∞. It’s 4-D, but without time, and therefore unchanging.
5-D
You already know that I’m going to tell you that 5-D = 4-D x ∞, so we may as well get right to it. How do we conceive of that?
The answer is simple: we start without the mind.
The mind is going to have a very difficult time with this until it relaxes a bit, so we’re going to avoid going that route for just a bit, and instead we’re going to go directly to the Present Moment.
The Present Moment is the moment that you’re in right now. It’s pure, it’s fresh, it’s the Source of the moments that seem to be piling up in a bin called “the past”, and issuing from a bin called “the future”. The nature of the Present Moment is Peace. In the Present Moment, you rest at the very center of Peace, as the Source. Everything arises around you. The storms swell, and in the Present Moment you remain unmoved from your infinite Center.
I speak of the Present Moment when I speak about 5-D because they’re the same thing. The Present Moment is the source of the infinite 4-D manifestations that we call space-time. From 5-D, all of Time itself arises in the same Moment, because 5-D means (space-)time x ∞. An infinity of times, all available to be experienced. This is the 5-D perspective.
This is the Present Moment. This is the Moment which is Timeless itself, and from which all Time springs. The mind need not apply for a job here… it’s too vast to comprehend that way.
We experience this Present Moment while we’re in the body. We experience it here, on Earth, together. When we experience the Present Moment, our bodies take on a particular feeling-state. Generally, relaxation, slower breathing, and a feeling of peace accompanies the Present Moment.
Therefore, yes, I’m saying that meditation, or whatever technique you like to step aside from thought and remember the Present Moment, is the doorway to the experience of 5-D. Not the mind. 5-D is too complex to be perceived by the mind. Literally, it’s too big. There are too many moving parts. Our minds can’t even begin to grasp the complexities of all of the options on a Starbucks Rewards Card, let alone the entire 4-D Universe and every different timeline it could take in 5-D. Our minds aren’t even in the same postal code of the stadium where that game is being played. 5-D is absolutely, positively, completely, beyond the ability of the mind to perceive directly.
No offense to the mind… the mind is awesome. It’s helping me write this, right now. (Thank you, mind.) So, yay for mind. And I’m not slighting it in the least when I say: the 4-D thing called the “mind” isn’t up to the task of operating in 5-D. It’s just not. It’s silly to even try.
The only way to navigate when you’re perceiving in 5-D is not with the mind. It’s with the Heart. It’s with your feelings. When you’re bringing your 5-D self online (while still having your 4-D experience in the body), you’ll find yourself in the Present Moment, and in the Present Moment the only thing to guide you is your own intuition, your own perceptions, your own feelings. Thoughts are far, far too limiting when we’re truly navigating from a 5-D perspective.
So, to perceive yourself as your own 5-D self (which you already are), slow down, rest in the Present Moment, allow the mind to quiet, and notice what feelings are coming. Notice how the Heart feels. Trust that the feelings in your Heart are, in fact, your window of perception from your 4-D bodymind of what your 5-D self is trying to tell you. Trust this information as the guidance you need to navigate.
This experience of slowing down to perceive the more subtle energies of the Heart is at the very center of mystic practice throughout the history of Earth. Call it Centering Prayer, call it Meditation, call it Sacred Dance, call it Baseball… slow down to receive. So 5-D is not something that’s just for people with siddhis, or special powers, or specific techniques practiced for years. It’s available to every being, Right Now. (And many have experienced friends from the animal and plant kingdoms vibrating from 5-D as well.)
Integrating 4-D and 5-D
Just keep returning to the Present Moment as often as you can. Your 4-D body-mind will start to reprogram itself to match the vibration of Peace you’re experiencing in the Present Moment (this is what we call integration). You don’t have to leave your 4-D body to experience 5-D. You don’t have to use an entheogen to do it (not that there’s anything wrong with that). It’s always available to you.
Everything you need to navigate this world beautifully is available to you in your 5-D consciousness. All of the information and signals and feelings and indications that you need are provided, and they’re experienced through the 5th dimension. At least, that’s been my experience.
The more that your presence includes the sense of Peace and Centeredness of 5-D, the more your bodymind will adapt to flow with those energetic frequencies. It’s like any other practice… the more you do, the better you’ll be at it. And you always know that who you really are is not, could not be, defined by any manifestation within 4-D, since you’re so clearly experiencing yourself from and as your 5-D self.
The 4-D body will change in support of your new vibrational frequencies. So will your life. And you don’t have to do anything other than rest in the Present Moment, and pay attention to the feelings and sensations, as often as you remember to. After a little while, doing that while you’re also taking care of your 4-D life won’t seem all that hard, and you’ll get to walk around feeling like you’re in the Present Moment for more and more minutes every week.
P.S. As for 6-D… you do have a 6-D self… and it’s 5-D x ∞, and so it’s an infinite set of 5-D space-timelines, each of which intersects with every other 5-D space-timeline. In other words, it’s every potential state that our Universe could take in its entire existence, all Time, all Space, and we’re free in our 6-D consciousness to visit other timelines, and to experience consciousness from inside of the experience of any 5-D construct. It’s like being God of the entire (Holographic) Universe. In 7-D and 8-D, we have an infinite number of those Universes, and at 9-D and 10-D we experience only informational patterns that are the precursors of the 8-D Multiverse. (Yes, these are real perspectives that your very own Self can and does take, whether you’re aware of it or not from your 4-D bodymind. Again, you do not have to leave the 4-D body to experience them.) I’ll be writing quite a bit more coming up soon about these.
How to Receive 2013-Apr-06 at 13:33 PDT
Posted by Scott Arbeit in Blog.Tags: guidance, perspective, work
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I’ve had a particularly blessed couple of weeks. Starting with finding out that I was about to be laid off, to actually getting laid off, to writing some fake news (and I’d love to know what you think of it), to following what feels right, it’s been an amazing period in my life.
And now I get to tell you that the transition is done… in these two weeks I’ve landed a great new job, where I get to contribute to an organization that I’m immensely proud to be associated with (and I’ll not say which given the… sensitive nature of some of the posts I write) (including this one). I even get to do it with a small consulting shop filled with great people.
I’m so grateful for all of it.
I remembered today that back in my atheist days I would have attributed this entire experience to meaningless random luck. Or to superior talent, intellect and/or experience. I mean, if I moved that quickly from getting dumped at one place, to landing at a new awesome place, I just would have figured that it made “sense” somehow.
In fact, I know this, because it happened to me when I was 25 and atheist/existentialist. I got fired at one job, and a week later, I had a job at one of the world’s great art museums. (I got to walk around the place on Mondays when it was closed to visitors. It was awesome, by the way.) And I just figured, it was all just billiard balls bouncing off one another, and somehow I ended up at the moment where I could interview for that position, and then I got it, and that was that.
When I remembered that atheist’s view, and I felt into it – in other words, when I felt what the body feels like when I hold that perspective – I realized that I could stop and compare it to how my body has felt during the last two weeks. I mean, I know that the atheist’s story is limited, but how much of it am I still subtly holding on to?
There was still some resonance between the two feelings. There were still ways that I was holding on to the feeling of separation as I received my experience.
So I took a good look at what perspective I’m taking on what’s been going on.
And I can’t help but notice that there’s a little bit of the story about “I’m really good at this” and “Thank God this came along at just this time” and whatever else that comes from some story that there’s more than One thing happening.
So I’m going to upgrade those thoughts. I’m going to fill the places that those thoughts are hiding out with “I’m so being taken care of right now” and with “The vibration of peace attracts peace” and with “Everything that’s arising is arising to help free me up”.
Because, let’s be honest, if you look at the ride I’ve just been on, and don’t think it’s magical and guided, then you still think you’re in control of something. And it’s more than high time that we give that up for good. That whole perspective has had its day.
Here’s what I know: I’m not in control of any of it. I’m just watching it unfold with awe, with gratefulness, with bewilderment (my favorite flavor of “beginner’s mind”), and with as much grace as I can muster. It all seems like I was pointed in one direction, and then Life intervened, grabbed me by the back of my shirt, picked me up, and pointed me in another direction and said, “Now… go here.”
My job is not to control it. My job is to receive it and honor it and experience it fully, and with as little resistance as possible. It’s all magical, it all arises on its own, with no prompting and no effort from me. It’s a lovely hologram, and my soul wanted to be here to experience it and to contribute to it.
By receiving my experience as guided, and receiving it as meant to help me step into Freedom, I stop seeing it as something that I’m doing or that I’m controlling. And then I’m free to play in it, to feel into my resonance and use that to guide my way. All I’m really doing is receiving myself, my Higher self, into the body. I’m feeling the information that my Higher self is giving to me about how to navigate, and I’m honoring it.
No thought is required. No decisions need to be made. Everything is shown.
So that’s how I’m receiving my experience lately. It’s all just magical, isn’t it?
The Dawn of the Integral Age 