The Only Thing That Matters (5 page)

The challenge in human life is that most people do not know this—or
do
know it, but have not yet learned how to shift their point of focus from one well of information to the other at will … much less bring the two together.

What is being said here is that data about Life is held in “memory” within the Totality of You—and that one kind of memory is Physical, while the other is Metaphysical. The first kind of memory we have called Experience and the second, Knowledge. The first type of memory produces Desire (a yearning for more experience), the second reveals Intention (a yearning for a particular
kind
of experience—based on Knowledge, not prior Experience).

As you may have guessed, the first kind of “memory” is held in the Mind, the second in the Soul. The Mind captures, categorizes, files, and brings forward memories of every experience your Body and Mind have ever had. The Soul is the repository of all Knowledge about Who You Are, Where You Are, Why You Are Where You Are, and all other aspects of Everlasting Life. This Knowledge is what has also been called here your Awareness. The terms are used synonymously.

As explained earlier, the
sum
of these two “data banks” is what humans call Consciousness. You no doubt have often heard the term “consciousness raising.” This refers to the increase or expansion of the Mind's database­—its limited storehouse of Experience—to include more of the Soul's unlimited Knowledge or Awareness of Life.

Experience+Awareness=Consciousness.

The level of your Consciousness depends upon how much Experience you have had not only of your physical life, but also of your metaphysical life, the knowledge of which exists in your Soul's Awareness.

When, in any particular moment, your Present Experience (that is, the experience you are now having, rather than your memories of previous experience) and your Present Awareness (that is, the awareness to which you now have given yourself access) are joined together, the Mind's Desire and the Soul's Intention become One.

This is, truly, a marriage made in heaven: the merging of the Mind and the Soul. And
what God hath joined together, let no man put asunder
.

6
Remembering Again

A
POLOGIES IF THIS
is starting to sound a bit like a college lecture in Metaphysiology, but the topics we've been exploring are things you'll want to know about if you wish to live your life focused on The Only Thing That Matters.

Here is one more example of information you'll find it good to have: It is impossible for the human Mind to hold at one time
all
of the Knowledge held by the Soul.

As marvelous and sophisticated as the Mind's circuitry is, those circuits would “fry” if they were exposed in one single instant to the sum of what the Soul knows. It would be like attempting to direct all the electricity serving your house to a single outlet. Or, to use a different analogy, like trying to absorb the ocean with a sponge.

Yet suppose that sponge was rung out at least a bit every so often, releasing some of the water that it was holding? Then it
could
continue sopping up the ocean.

This is a simplistic allegory of how the Mind works. The Mind's capacity is finite. The Soul's source in infinite. The Mind's “sponge” can access the Soul's Knowledge, and can really “sop it up,” but can retain only so much at one time. If there's too much input, the Mind must “ring itself out” to avoid being overloaded. Hence, the Mind “forgets” some of what it once “knew.”

This is exactly what has been happening with you
.

The process in which you are now engaged is a process of retrieving what the Mind has forgotten, or released, of what it knew. For this reason much of what you are now being told (what you are now “remembering”) will seem like “stuff you've always known.”

It will feel as if there's “little new” here—and yet, the “renewal” of your
remembering
will “bring to Mind” information that's good to have your hands around again, because it is going to prove very valuable at this point in your life. And that is another way your Mind works. It knows what information you
now need
, what data you require
in this moment
, and it can reach into its millions of memories (like the countless files on your computer that you forgot were even there) and retrieve it, calling it forward
exactly when you need it
.

So your Mind brings forward what you need to know, and puts waaaay on the back shelf what you have no urgent need for. Or, to continue now with our computer analogy, while your Mind is adding data to the file currently open on its desktop, it is closing other files to make the operating system run smoother.

History is replete with stories of veritable geniuses (Einstein, Edison, Steiner, etc.) who couldn't find their own glasses. (The file labeled G
LASSES
: L
OCATION
has been closed.) They could find the keys to the Universe, but they couldn't find the keys to their own house.

Such a person is often called
absentminded
—and that is a perfect description. Certain data is
absent from their Mind
so that other data—data which they, themselves, judge to be far more important—can be accommodated there.

And so it is that the more you remember, the more you'll forget. How this shows up in your life, how it affects your day-to-day functioning, will depend on which data you choose to retain.

If you decide that the latest sports scores, or the plotline and character names of the latest hit movie, or the best strategies to help you win the newest video game, are more important than the whisperings of your Soul, then that is the data you will hold on to, and the wisdom of your Soul will barely be heard … much less retained.

You will determine the quality of your life by what you pay attention to.

It is precisely
because
the Mind's capacity is finite and the Soul's is infinite that, if the Mind wishes to review the data of the Soul, it will need to do so in bits and pieces. You sometimes call these bits and pieces “lives.”

The Mind brings in the Soul's Knowledge one lifetime after another, gradually turning it into Experience, then storing this Knowledge as “memories” within the Mind—a Mind which travels with the Soul lifetime after lifetime.

(Surprised? Wait. All of that will be explained in just a bit.)

When a person's Mind retrieves data from a previous lifetime (an enormous amount of anecdotal evidence suggests that this is a common occurrence), that person is often called a “prodigy”—demonstrating skills and abilities, wisdom and insight far beyond what present life experience would seemingly render possible.

When, within a given lifetime, that blending of the Mind and Soul of which we have spoken occurs, the Journey on which you find yourself will finally begin to make more and more sense, because you are taking that Journey in a state of expanded Consciousness. Your perspective will have shifted, and greatly enlarged.

Until such a blending of Experience and Knowledge occurs, however, your life will very often (perhaps, most often)
not
make much sense. And if you are using the data of the Mind alone (which the majority of people do the majority of the time) you may do nothing but frustrate yourself trying to
get it
to make sense.

Then you will run from pillar to post, from book to book, from lecture to lecture, from sermon to sermon, from workshop to workshop, and from teacher to teacher seeking answers.

The good news is that you don't have to run yourself ragged like this anymore. You don't have to go anywhere or do anything. Everything you've ever needed is where you are, within you, right now. You've never really “needed” it at all, in the sense of not having it. You've simply needed to access it.

Yes, yes, we know … this is the Mantra of the New Age (and the teaching of Ancient Masters as well): “All that You Seek is Within You.” And so it must be asked: If it is true, why is everyday life on a personal level the way it is? And why is the world in a constant state of crisis?

It is because—here we go again—98% of the world's people are spending 98% of their time on things that don't matter. They are ignoring the wisdom of their Soul, either because they are not aware of it (they are not “aware of their Awareness”), or because they do not know how to
access
what they are aware of when they need to. They “talk a good game,” but they don't play it so well.

If either has been the case with you, it won't be much longer. If neither has been the case with you, you will very soon have remembered the articulations that can help others, for whom it
has been
the case.

Clearly, it is for these reasons that you have come here.

7
Moving Past “Oh No!”

B
Y NOW YOU HAVE ALREADY
accessed several pieces of important data. Here is another: The Journey you are on, spoken of earlier, is a Sacred Journey, fulfilling a Divine Purpose.

Now the words “sacred” and “divine” can be a real push back, we all know. They can produce an immediate groan of “Oh no” from people who don't want to hear about either the “sacred”
or
the “divine.” They present a special challenge to those who once embraced those terms with enthusiasm, but who have since moved away from organized religion and its dogmas.

Yet the journey and the purpose that will be described here bear no resemblance to the doctrines of Standard Brand Theology.
Indeed, that theology would call it heresy.

Talk of a Sacred Journey and a Divine Purpose may also be challenging to people who have never believed in any kind of divine presence at all, to say nothing of a “divine purpose.”