Article by Doug Esse

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The following is a brief exchange that took place on a Law of One Facebook forum. It just offers a couple of different opinions. I don’t claim to be correct. In fact, I already know I am incorrect.

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Responder 1: I believe it is a mistake to imagine this stage, this lesson, (Unity) been extended to the point a Soul loses all individuality and is absorbed back in the All That Is, as undifferentiated consciousness. I believe this is a mistake Ra is prone to and is confused about, giving us all these conflicted messages about the matter.

Doug to Responder 1: Hi! I’d love some clarity in your point because what you wrote intrigues me. Are you saying that in unity, the soul loses all individuality when it is absorbed back into the All That Is? Or are you saying that Ra is confused about this and that there is some level of individuality that moves into the next octave?

BTW, your English is amazing. I’m assuming it’s not your native language since you are from Greece? How did you become so fluent in English? Impressive

Responder 1: I suppose I am opposing Ra in their view of the concept of unity taken to it’s further extreme of merging with the Godhead past the gateway. I am saying, that the individual Soul is transformed by this lesson of unity, to then go on and embody it in it’s own individualized approach to the larger life. Yes, I had to learn to use english on my own, reading books! lol! that is why sometimes I talk like just out of a book.. 

Doug to Responder 1: Got it. you must be very smart. You even understand nuances in English, which is not easy. I am fluent in Spanish but not natively so. Your English approaches high native levels, in my opinion. As to your interpretation of Ra’s view… I agree with you and I find that this opinion is definitely a minority in the Law of One crowd. I think that some mysterious form of individuation/identity is present at the very highest levels of the One Infinite Creator. There is a Who phenomenon and I think it comes online with the first 1st distortion. Ra clearly says a few times that there are individuated beings at the next octave. In fact, the point of an infinite universe that experiences manifestation is to experience infinite “manyness.” That One and the Many all held within union is the great and delightful mystery of the One Infinite Creator. No?

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Responder 2: Doug–> Advaita Vedanta

Doug to Responder 2: Thanks. What do you personally mean by that term in relation to the dialog?

Responder 2 to Doug: Advaita Vedanta has a very good way of pointing out within the limitations of perceived duality/polarity, what you have eluded to as infinite manyness..

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Responder 3 to Doug: From the Infinite Creator’s perspective the “Who phenomenon” to me doesn’t make a lot of sense. The Creator is all there is, and nothing else.

I think the idea of eternal individual consciousness rises from our desire to never cease to exist. In this way of thinking we are too much stuck with our experience and understanding of time. From the Creator’s perspective all creations (Octaves) exist “forever”, thus and so do individuated consciousnesses within them.

Doug to Responder 3: Thanks for the comment. I can see how what I wrote wouldn’t make sense to some people. I agree that the Creator is all that there is. I’d say, though, that “all that there is” isn’t just undifferentiated white light with no hue or dynamics, to use an analogy. For me, “all that there is,” by which I am assuming you mean “creation,” at its most rooted ontology is relationality, itself, where hues of infinite variety, relate. right? Therefore, Creation, while an illusion from the metaphysical absolute, is and becomes through relationship, no? And is there not a sentience that experiences experience, from this illusion? From my own bias, I wouldn’t use the word “individual” as in “individual consciousness.” I’d use the word, “individuated,” which points towards the mysterious ontological foundation of “all that there is”: the mystery of unity whose quality can be approached by this statement: “not one, not two; but both one and two where all is contained in a unity, full and whole.” One the other hand, it seems that there is a “level” of awareness, if you will, which transcends the Creator. Ra alludes to the two-sideness of intelligent infinity (27.7) wherein one “side” remains undifferentiated, unpolarized in any way, and unmoving. The other “side” contains infinite potential which can be tapped by individuated loci or foci of sentience to create experience. The loci or foci are logoi; individuated sentient entities (“persons” or “whoses“) that operate from the one original thought, which itself, is given animus by the one original desire; both of which, together, give the Great Holographic Who experience of Itself.

Responder 3 to Doug: I like the way you put it The way we see it in Yoga is that what is eternal is reality, what is temporary is an illusion, thus also creations are an illusion. This is just to clarify the conceptual framework I was using.

Every creation has a particular characteristics, presumably to facilitate reaching certain goals that the Creator has. If you look at the “Creation story” in Ra material it goes like following:

1) The first known thing in creation is infinity. The infinity is creation.

2) Infinity became aware (intelligent infinity).

3) Intelligent Infinity became aware of the concept of free will.

4) It realized It was even free to consider the idea of many-ness, that is, more than one. Free will immediately gives rise to many-ness.

5) Intelligent Infinity decided to explore this idea. In so doing Intelligent Infinity became the Creator.

6) The 1st distortion, free will, finds focus.

This ‘focus’ is what is the narrowed down set of experiences from Infinity that can be experienced and defines what the Creator desires to learn and the characteristics of this particular Creation.

Doug to Responder 3: Yes! The way you lay it out is quite similar to how I also conceive of cosmogenesis. Although we use third-density terms because we have third-density minds, I don’t think that it’s metaphysically limiting to point out if there is a Creator, and that Creator has goals (original thought), then there is a kind of mysterious “who” that has these goals. When I’ve studied the field of comparative religions, from my (distorted) way of thinking, I’ve found that the East and West can really compliment each other. From Western’s non-dual perspective, the phrase “what is eternal is reality, what is temporary is an illusion, thus also creations are an illusion,” could be interpreted as something like: What is eternal, and therefore, reality, is that there never was a *time* when there wasn’t creation of some sort. That it’s through the illusion of creation, temporary as it might be, that the notion of “being” is co-terminus with “becoming.” Western nonduality might see how “creations” come and go, are temporary–but the creation-phenomenon, itself (that there is such a thing as creation) is eternal, and therefore real, as is the One Infinite Creator.

This Western nonduality does not negate the metaphysical assertion that there is a “be-ness” which transcends “beingness,” where pure Awareness alone subsists without any distortion, polarity, or focal points that condensate awareness into a locus of consciousness (ie logos). Ra says as much, as I pointed out above. And, of course, one can intuit and experience this point of pure awareness, as is reported by some in Eastern thought.

The Western nondualist stands with one foot in that pure awareness, one foot in the phenomenology of creation, and through free will, overtime positions one’s heart in union with the Creator. Unitive consciousness tied to the pure awareness from whence it emerged results in throbs of delight and joy at the ecstasy of it ALL.

The Western mind leans more into the idea that we–the incarnation of God on *this* side of the veil–are stewards of the Creator’s becoming. It takes embodied love to steward the Original Thought.

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Responder 4: Creation is experience. The creator’s whole purpose in creation is to experience. What better way to get the depth of it than by experiencing multiple perspectives, and for that, creator imbues creation with foci, with logoi. These beings are co-creators and experiencers. The Law of Return pulls creation back to creator for the experience of a new perspective. The perspective is the essence of experience that consciousness retains as it asks what it is like to be in this illusion. It seems quite distorted that the unity with creator should lose those perspectives.

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