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CHAPTER NINETEEN

Let Us Remember: Images From the Right Side of the Brain

Let us remember, as if in a dream, as from that other side of the mind shrouded in images of imagination, as if in a game or a dance. Let
us seek to see in that oblique way where a direct vision and understanding is impossible, but where we know it nevertheless in a state of
comfort or as in a recognition. Let us say "I know that!" in that secure way where we are in the midst of a familiar place and a sudden
recognition dawns.

We remember virtually nothing of the time of our birth, of when we left our mother's womb, of the time shortly before or shortly after.
We only vaguely remember impressions we may have had in later years, or dream of them allegorically as being in a room with a door
too low and narrow and wondering: "I can't get through that, it's too small!" But a conscious, wakeful memory of the event of our birth
is closed. We can know it only abstractly because we know we are all born and because we exist. Hence, we are born and, though we do
not remember it intimately as a part of our past, it happened.

At the time of our birth, when the energy that shrouds the planet was released once more into another living being, we entered our body
in the present form. We became within this vast existence another living being endowed with organs and functions, a human form that
would grow into our adult size, facial and physical features that would identify us, and a sense of being that would ultimately become our
consciousness and personality. We do not remember the moment when this took place or how we approached the issue, whether with
glee and expectations or with fear and concern, or just accepted being inevitable, a job that needs doing. The material of our limbs, of
our hands and hair and eyes, somehow all came together at that time with its own memory of being, of knowing how to be alive, how to
breathe and how to eat, how to pump blood in our veins, and how to reproduce. It also remembered how to grow and how to learn and
to seek a place in existence, survival. These are memories that already came with us, yet, of them we remember nothing. We also
learned to recognize our parents, to recognize our friends and relatives, to feel kinship with fellow human beings, to become individuals
in a vast family of humanity. The last lesson we are still struggling with, but it is part of the energy of our planet. From the many
different faces of the people of Earth we were released as an individual with our own personality and our own identity. In the event of
our birth, we remember.

Our memory is shrouded by our focus on our being. We could have been born an animal or a tree or remained locked for eons in the
being of stone, but we were not. We chose our being human, here for but a brief spell to work the work that we need to do, and then to
quickly vanish from our present form. We are part of the general energy and beauty of Earth, drawn here by her magnificence. Our
world is so rich in life, it swimming or clinging or flying in virtually every nook of the planet's surface, even where it offers a rather
inhospitable environment. The pressure of life fills the cavernous depths of our man-made cities as well as the depths of caves and
oceans. We all cling so desperately to what must be the promise of a tremendous drama to unfold, for we wish to live so desperately. We
are focused totally on existence. Yet, there is for some even a modicum of leisure or play, and for us humans there is even the leisure of
play in reflection and aspiration and imagination. It is difficult to live; it is work. The pressure of life, of existence pressing on this sphere,
in this corner of the cosmos, in this solidified dimension of reality, has forced us all, plant and animal alike, to focus ourselves almost
totally on the matter of our being. We are and thus we must be totally. The leisure to remember is rationed stingily only to where the
necessity of life can be temporarily suspended, where the demands of the body can be satisfied sufficiently to allow for a small release
from its total hold. It is the price of our ego, of being here in the flesh, in a dimension of matter into which we are born.

Our organs know, our body remembers, the skin and fingers and breasts, the color of our eyes, of our skin, the curvature of our lips, of
our smile, they all remember for they are alive with existence. When we dive into a sparkling pool and our skin tingles all over, we are
remembering. When we look at the beauty of a sunrise or majesty of a sunset, when we watch the sides of mountains bathed in pink
light or see the sea catch fire, we are remembering. When we gaze into another's eyes, or at the work of human hands, or hear the
melody of a voice; when we smell the bare earth or walk on fresh cut grass beneath bare feet or look up at the heavens, we are
remembering. And when we look into ourselves, probe the depths of our soul with meditation or the passion of profound humility, when
we raise our hearts to that which has brought all Creation, we are also remembering. We are remembering that we are human in more
ways than being focused here, and that we are part of an energy of life that is greater than its focus on this planet's existence. We do not
remember that we know these from the inside of our being, but by thinking of them, we are remembering.

We exist at two extremes. At the infinite center of our being is the utmost "I". At the infinite outer limits of existence is the utmost "I
am", being. Being is personality and this personality is reflected by "I am". It is present in all things in existence. "I" and "I am" are part
of every form that occupies our reality. It is more concentrated in the being of a dog or chimpanzee, most in man; whereas it may be less
concentrated in lesser life forms. It may dominate the whale or dolphin, preoccupy lion or elephant, but it nevertheless is present in a fish
or salamander; it is present in every living cell or organ or muscle. It may even be in some measure in the insect or tree or stone. The
energy that is personality is the focus of existence that is solidified in form as the matter of our universe. It is solidified in what appears to
us as inert at the non-living level, and it is materialized as living matter at its greater levels of consciousness. In man, where this energy
has achieved its great expression in terms of personality, it is materialized as a being able with consciousness, as "I am". It is in our being,
as opposed to the being of other living and non-living things, that this personality energy has the greatest focus. Yet, this is the paradox:
Where the non-living and otherwise lesser living things gain their energy of being, their sense of personality, from the utmost "I am", we
are most conscious at our level of "I". All of existence, stripped of ego, experiences consciousness from their positioning and existence
within the infinite interrelationship of the energy of the universe, where their consciousness of being is more a part of the infinite than of
their own individualized cognition; we, on the other hand, are cognizant in terms of the ego, in terms of that independently individualized
personality that has manifest itself in "I". The animal and plant and possibly even the inert world are conscious in terms of everything
else, whereas we are conscious in terms of our own being within everything else, almost to the exclusion of all else's existence. Perhaps
this allegorically was our earliest Biblical downfall, when we had stepped from a paradisiacal support of All that Is into a conscious mind.
We ceased to remember; we became ignorant of "I am" in terms of all existence and only now are again groping for it; we became cruel
and mean in the eyes of existence. And yet, how wonderful that the energy of utmost consciousness nevertheless supported us and
sustained us to the present. We ceased to play in innocence and became serious in our work, in the difficult responsibility we had chosen
to take on. We became conscious in a way that few other creatures could understand, became divorced from the order of all existence,
and in this separation we earned the ability to choose.

The imagery, though powerful, is clouded here, for we are more focused in the ego than in the interrelationship of our being. We are not
part of the natural scheme of things. For example, we refuse to be eaten and we do not have the fur or feathers to protect us from the
cold. Even now we dare to do the unthinkable and demand that we be allowed to choose our own space in time. How bold to step from
all of reality and to choose! Yet, this is what defines us as human beings as opposed to the being of all other things. It is possible for a
dog or a horse to seek freedom; they will escape if caged; but it is not possible for them to state their choice and to stay by it. This is left
to the mind human, to seek the power from the freedom of choice. Perhaps it is also that seeking this freedom, this new energy, that will
liberate the other creatures from their difficult struggles with survival. We would not be eaten, but would not other creatures prefer the
same? We would seek love and comfort, but would not this same love also be a joy to all other living things? We have a job to do,
developed an ego that allows us the freedom to do it, and are positioned to do so. But, in the seeking of choice our focus on reality in
terms of "I", the ego, dimmed for us our memory. We had forgotten our mission, in enslaving or hurting others we had forgotten our
past; in our preoccupation with the comfort of our own being we had forgotten the future. If we could occupy our own space in time, in
the way all other things occupy their own identities, their respective and personal images of personality; if we could be free to choose
within our personality, perhaps we could remember what the focus of the ego had us forget.

From a great distance, from the utmost limits of "I am" into the infinitesimal center of "I", we traveled through space and time to occupy
our present form. From the vast expanses of time of a painfully slow evolution to the vast reaches of space in the creation of the matter
of our existence; we have reached a point in space and time that defines our present being. We are here now. Whatever vast potential
was released at the time of Creation, we are that potential realized in the present. What will we do with it? Where is it going? What have
we done? We are the present of our universe; we are being.

We are born into the matrix of existence that was ready to receive us at birth. The moment was chosen; the parents we were born to, the
time and place, the family and friends to come, circumstances and events of the times, these and all the souls we would meet in our
lifetime had already been preordained for us. We chose them. We chose our reality before we were born and with them we chose to
travel the brief journey of our existence here. For each moment of time in our existence there would exist a near infinite number of
possibilities to respond to our choices while alive here, and for each choice there already existed a near infinite number of responses. It
would be difficult to err in such a system of reality, and that is how we pre-ordained our being. These choices were predicated on our
individual realities, on what we had done before in our personal successes and failures as personalities in the past. They are also
predicated on what it is possible for us to do and on what we choose to do. These ideas of personality need not refer to some great past
universe or some long vanished higher civilization; they are the manifestations of daily existence, of humdrum past lives that struggled in
the ways they knew how, either conscious or unconscious, fortunate or unfortunate. We are engraved in our being with the past. It is on
the proportions of our face, in the manner of our speech, in the way we touch and hold things. These have been built up over countless
generations of existence to the present. Each separate life is so fantastic in terms of its universe that it is bewildering to think of. Because
we are so familiar with existence, we are virtually unimpressed by the miracle of birth and living beings; because we are so focused in the
ego, we tend to belittle life's greatness. Each life, no matter how mundane, perhaps no more glamorous than the existence of a worm, is
in fact great in terms of its total reality. It is tied to an infinity that propels it. It is the realization of the universe's potential as personality
manifest then and there. Our ego has become so familiar with these lives as to almost border on contempt, yet that is but the product of
its narrow focus. For each human being there exists a vast network of existence, for each deed there is a vast energy at work to bring
about that deed, and for each birth there is a vast framework of existences that had already laid the ground for Creation's potential in the
making. There is the magic of our birth and existence, for in it is the miracle of a universe's realized potential in a living being's life span.
In us humans, the living miracle of being is further heightened by our ego's power of consciousness. How we choose within a life span
reflects how we are working to materialize that potential into reality. It is how we remember our past lives. Into this we are born.

We do not remember how we chose our space in time, nor how we were chosen because of our space and time. In past lives we had
realized what were our potentials, energized those parts of reality in contact with our being, and then we died when that energy ran out.
It was a process repeated innumerable times; it is perpetually repeated by all living things; it was repeated by each one of us to the point
of our ego dropping its consciousness of it. We are virtually numbed by our past existences, which is how the ego came into being. In the
quiet of eternal re-incarnations we became powerful as "I!" in "I am". In each successive life time we filled the vacuum left by us by our
previous existence and occupied that vacuum with our new being. The genetic code, the space-in-time requirements, the adjacent
personalities that would be with us, were already all programmed into our appearance on Earth. The energy necessary to once again
motivate these into existence is one we needed to bring with us. We had to energize ourselves into existence to become born; we
channeled the "I" of "I am" into the "am" of "I am"; we energized the ego to become a being conscious of itself. Once so energized, we
were able to bring our personality into being in the form we now occupy. This is done so frequently and so easily as to be utterly
dismissed by our consciousness. It may not be a perfect fit always, but work implies that perfection is not yet achieved. It may not be
that we become who we wish to be, but then the choices we had made in our past lives were our own and their benefits we now reap.
We have the choice to make current ones that will change us in a way desired. In this life, how we will choose is how we will be in the
future. If we recognize a smile on a stranger's face, or see a personality in another's eyes, they are already familiar to us. We had been
before. If an event brings us great joy, or if we are doing what we truly wish to do, or we are where we wish to live or simply be; they
are all indicative of our being as it is constructed for us from our memory. We remember them; we are drawn to our past because that is
where the present was formed, where the choices of our present being were made. We chose to energize our existence with our birth
and, in so choosing, we chose to begin anew where we had left off before. It is because of our present existence that we remember the
past, even if this is not remembered consciously. It is written all over us, it is in our personality, it is in the physical characteristics of our
being. It is in the "I" of "I am", as well as in the "am". But in our building of the ego we had divorced the two. To remember, they must
be once again reunited: "I am!"

Thus we exist within our own creation. We energized our reality; around us is a vast garden of life energized by plant life and animal life
and the subtle existence of matter. From the mechanical wonder of insects to the flowing waves of meadow grass shimmering in a field,
we are surrounded by the adjacent life spans of what exists around us. To see it, to feel it, to experience it is to put oneself's being into
the adjacent being's energy with a special rapport. To lay a hand on a cold stone is to endow that stone with the energy of our existence,
it is to excite the stone's atoms to dance with ours, it is to feel the force of its strength. Perhaps that dance is merrier than we know;
perhaps the life of matter comes to life only with the energy of another living being. So it is with animals, that we either attract them or
repel them. Some even come to live into our homes; we know them. Each thing is born and reborn to begin anew where it had left off
when its energy ran out. It is the soul of each thing's existence. It is what remembers our being when we are born. And it is all in
memory of how we had chosen.

 

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