Notes for this talk
00:00:30 Ed displays a chart showing twelve levels of development, with names for only the first seven. Below the first seven his hell and above the first seven is heaven. Everyone has all twelve levels; we may be "on" one of them, but we "have" all twelve that we must deal with. Level One is False Personality (Devil, Satan); Level Two is Man Asleep (Adam); Level Three is Mechanical Existence (); Level Four is Man Remembering; Level Five is Man Awakening; Level Six is Conscious Man; Level Seven is Real I (I AM, the Christ). As we awaken at level five we move to level six: "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. (Eph. 5:14). We have no names for five levels above the the Real I, because humanity has not evolved to those levels.
00:12:52 Ed skips to the last Chapter XIX, Time and Eternity, p.142 and says that this material is deep into esotericism, but that he will only highlight what is absolutely vital to evolution. He reads excerpts from p.143-145, beginning with "eternity is viewed as being something here and now", that those who live in the Real I will spend more time in eternity, and concludes with "the more the interior bodies have been developed during life, the more there will remain after death." He concludes that this is important to get us thinking more about eternity than time-passing.
18:21:20 Ed dictates terminology.
00:19:00 Balanced Man: a person who is well developed in four centers: Instinctive, Moving, Intellectual, Emotional. He knows how to express correctly from each center and he knows how to get the centers to help each other to achieve a balanced performance. Is your emotional center helping your intellectual center or in conflict with it? Is your moving center in harmony with your other centers -- intellectual, emotional and instinctive? "Martha, Martha, thou art anxious about many things, but one thing is needful" (Luke 10:41-42). That "one thing" is balance.
00:20:38 Centers in Man: the four main areas from which man functions as a human being: Instinctive, Moving, Intellectual, Emotional. Centers are divided into higher and lower parts. Higher parts of centers express positively and creatively. Lower parts of centers negatively and destructively.
00:21:59 Creating New Force: When a person remembers who and what he really is and makes the effort to not identify with negative states. When a person meets any life situation with Truth, he receives new force or vital energy from the higher centers within himself.
00:23:08 Creative Suffering (as in contrast to unnecessary suffering): All suffering is primarily an expression of energy. When such energy is producing change, purification or growth for a person, such energy expression is creative.
00:24:27 Essence: That in us which comes from our Real I and constitutes our potential for greater growth and development into our Real Self. Essence consists of our real and lovely quality: peace, kindness, awe, wonder, appreciation, real humility, and so forth.
00:25:42 False Personality: This term designates the lowest level of our human nature. This is the level in us that deals almost entirely in pretense, lies and negativity. This is what a person is expressing when he is being least like his Real Self. It consists of many chaotic and uncontrolled opinions, emotions and impulses. It is fragmented and prone to violence. "My name is legion, for we are many" (Mark 5:9).
00:27:20 First Conscious Shock: a self-applied shock to our own consciousness in order to awaken us to greater self remembering and to remind us of the Truth or The Work. Conscious shock is always beneficial, but it must be a result of free choice. Conscious shock is in direct contrast to mechanical reacting which keeps us asleep in the midst of life.
00:29:55 First Force: The force of purely positive and agreeable factors in man's life. This is felt by man by what he wants, what he desires, what he likes, what he hopes to have happen in his life. But first force alone is not creative and produces no real results (because it is one polarity).
00:31:45 Second Force: That which always follows First Force. What we want (First Force) always attracts what something which resists or opposes we want. Something always comes to require further effort or even struggle. This opposition is designated as Second Force by The Work, Jesus called it The Adversary, Unity calls it "a challenge".
00:33:05 Third Force: That power which resolves the conflict between the First and Second Forces. It is that which neutralizes harmful factors, cancels contradictions, explains paradoxes and harmonizes differences. Differences are not to be eliminated, but rather to be harmonized. Third Force creates new vital energy for a person. In Unity we designate Third Force as Holy Spirit.
00:34:20 The Work contains three main areas of knowledge sharing: Theology (about God), Cosmology (about the Cosmos) and Psychology (about human nature). All three are esoteric in Unity. Harry Benjamin's book is primarily about esoteric psychology, but Maurice Nicoll's Commentaries includes much of esoteric cosmology.
00:37:05 The Ray of Creation: This is the basis for the cosmological teaching of The Work. Creation is a process which originates in the absolute and descends in an orderly way in the following sequence: All possible galaxies; Our particular galaxies; our planetary system; Our sun; Our Earth; The moon.
00:38:55 Useless, unnecessary suffering in human beings is not entirely useless and unnecessary; it is useless and unnecessary to the Earth and to the individual person, but it becomes food for the moon.
00:40:04 The Side Octave from the Sun: This is the offshoot from the Grand Ray of Creation, which has to do with our planetary systems specifically and with the life of man on Earth. This Side Octave originates with our Sun and terminates at our moon. In this side octave is the film of organic life which surrounds the Earth. Man has his personal destiny within this side octave, which is different from his cosmic role in the Grand Ray of Creation in from the Absolute.
00:42:16 Useless, Unnecessary Suffering: The worst thing that can happen to any person (except that we "feed the moon"). Unity equates this with the opposite of God's will for man. This is the type of suffering which man does not need but which does create for himself. The energy of this type of suffering does not go into man's creative growth but is drained from him for purposes other than his own benefit. In Bible symbolism, useless, unnecessary suffering is called damnation and suffering in hell.
00:44:06 Conclusions about the definitions and closing prayer.
