second life... another helpful analogy

We all understand, just by being alive right now and on the internet, what it means to create a virtual world. If you haven't had the experience of creating an avatar and identifying with it, you can at least imagine what that might be like. Some people enter into business or emotional relationships in Second Life, or they go to school in Second Life. Big corporations have branches in Second Life. I suppose you could even get married in Second Life, if you wanted to.

Working and interacting within a virtual world means adhering to a set of rules established by the world itself. It means accepting the limitations of the paradigm by which the avatar is created.

Into this virtual world we call human life, or physical universe, we project a small part of ourselves. We identify with a body and we accept the limitations it, by its very nature, imposes. We squeeze ourselves into a mind that identifies with the body-appearance—a temporary mind which feels separate from everything around itself.

And most of us, for most of our lives, identify with this mind as though it were the real "me"—as though it were actually the totality of our being. There is nothing really mystical about this, although from the point of view of the human mind it is certainly mysterious. Yet there is always, within the identification with the human mind, a sense of being incomplete, in the dark, and alone. Imagine what the existence of a thought-form—a temporary configuration of energy, like a cloud in the sky, would feel like.

You know that quote from de Chardin: "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." To me this seems like a literal truth.

We are not human. We are having a human experience. This is what ACIM means when it says, "I am not a body, I am free, for I am still as God created me." There is great freedom in understanding this. Fear and worry belong to the virtual body—to its sense of impending doom—to its sense that it is a temporary appearance and dissolving from the moment it is born. It is not who we are.

When you first become aware of the ego—the human mind—it is always as a force for suffering, clinging, resistance, competition. And yet when you begin to see that the human mind, the ego, is the sound of a temporary thought-form struggling to make itself heard, it evokes compassion within the greater "you."

This thought-form is the idea that there can be anything separate—anything not lovingly cradled within the whole—anything not a part of God, of What Is. It's an echo from the flip side of love. Here in this virtual experience, there is the possibility of feeling separate from All That Is—of thinking that you are an actual separate being. This is the experience of fear.

When we identify with the body we fight for our existence because we feel temporary. We compete for resources because we believe they are finite. We try to awaken or become enlightened because we believe that this is somehow a way to make our existence permanent or at least end our pain. We feel tremendous guilt because we somehow get the sense that we are forgetting something—we somehow believe that what we are doing is wrong—that our transgressions in the name of the poor separate-feeling thought-forms are real.

What we have forgotten is that our existence is permanent. We are not human. We are that within which this human experience is occurring.The desire to nail it down and figure it out is a human mind-trait—a spin-off of fear. There is nothing to fear. Any thought that resonates with fear is a human mind-thought. All you need to do is to be aware of this. Just notice it.

In terms of the Second Life analogy, we have gotten so engrossed in the game that we have actually entered into the virtual world and forgotten the 'me' who is sitting at the computer. In terms of this virtual life we call planet earth, we have entered so completely into it that we have come to believe we will cease to exist when this body dies—we have completely forgotten that we are not temporary. We have done this for reasons of our own. Those reasons belong to our one Self and cannot be understood by the human mind within whose limitations we find ourselves.

Any self-tormenting voices within your head are the voices of the dissolving human thought-form trying to make itself eternal. Go silent, turn your attention towards the silence within you. Observe this virtual world. Enjoy it if you can. Know that it's also okay if it's not your cup of tea. The best way to disentangle yourself from the fear reactions of the human mind, if they are getting to you, is to turn your attention to the present moment—the silent awareness within you. It's always there.

Also of importance is to understand that we are not to blame for the coarser aspects of virtual human reactions. Certain types of emotions are simply a product of the environment. By disassociating with the human tendency to judge—by loving and accepting ourselves and others even though we have forgotten who we are and have been jealous or angry or violent or selfish... by loving ourselves "even though"—we release fear. By completely accepting this situation, with all its ambiguity and imperfection, just as it is, we release fear. When fear is released, the focus automatically defaults to love—the memory of who we are.

Comments

[Simon]

So nice to be back here and reading you, Marian. I may not always feel obliged to leave a comment (not that it's ever out of any sense of obligation!), but you do always write such engaging introspectives that one feels a desire at least to say thanks for writing it.

I especially liked, "We are not human. We are that within which this human experience is occurring." Something I know when I can silence myself in front of the computer for long enough, but your succinctness is always appreciated as well.

[marian]

So lovely to have you back Simon, and you must promise to never comment out of a sense of obligation!

[Simon]

Oh goodness, I never do comment out of a sense of obligation. You know, I'm just sayin' that the eloquence of what you say here often inspires a reader's inner grandiloquence. (Which is often looking for an egress anyway.)

[Aileen]

Just woke up and looked you up on my phone, since I've been away. What a gem. I heard Ken Wapnick say that beyond the words we write, we blog to divide or to heal. I feel the peace beyond the words you write, so simply. Thank you!