In John’s dreams, he is challenged to reevaluate his allegiance to a “big picture” perspective. In this process, he is steered toward an understanding of how what he carries inside himself, in the midst of interacting with the outer world, is what’s really important. That requires being grounded in humility and graciousness even if all around him is in a state of chaos. (At the end of this post there are instructions and a link to download this recording to your computer.)
John: You described it your way, the feminine way, and my dreams describe it the masculine way.
And so I start off just like you do with just kind of a seed image, in which I’m establishing a connection with a bunch of people and, in doing so, I see myself as having a broader application over everything in life.
I see it as covering a large area, and then of course opposite that, I see a single swath as well, and it is better to have a larger connection. What it’s like is, if you visualize just taking a whole great big expanse out in front of you, and if you are just one little swath of it, that isn’t sufficient.
But if you have a connection to a swath that goes this way, and a swath that goes this way and a swath that goes this way, and that way, and pretty soon encompasses the whole area, that’s a better state to be in. That’s more interconnected.
That’s the seed thought. I see that. I see what it’s like to be just singular, and what it’s like then to be mutably interlinked in terms of taking in an overall image. That’s all I see.
Then the dream shifts into a discussion with a number of classmates. I’m sitting around having a discussion with them, and I’m of the opinion that I have a fairly broad approach. In other words, based upon that vibration of that image, where I see myself as having a fairly broad approach to dealing and working with things, and conceptually that makes me feel, vibrationally, that I’m more rounded.
And so I go into the discussion with that as an underlying conceptualization. In other words, that they don’t have the depth, or the dimension inside of them, or the experientiality, or something.
So with that as my frame of reference, in order to try to see where everything is at, I’m asking each student which university they’re attending, because we’re all going to different universities, except I’m going to a big one that has all those swaths and whatnot that takes into account all kinds of things.
The first student I talk to is going to a large university, so okay no need to go any deeper than that. He’s obviously getting the big picture. But I become intrigued by a student who mentions the name of a university that I’ve never heard of, and she acts as if I should know that university but it doesn’t ring any bells to me.
I ask her more about it and she describes it as a campus of only 300 students, but it has 18 teachers. The 300 students would have caused me to dismiss it because it’s not well diversified, but 18 teachers?
So, I have to ponder this, and I’m curious about it, and I’m trying to evaluate this in relationship to the idea that the larger the campus, the greater the overall development. Yet this has 18 teachers. Maybe there’s something about that that I need to understand in the microcosmic or smaller aspect of things.
Then I start feeling this and I realize there’s something quaint about this, in that it seems to be simpler, more innocent, quieter, and offers a more relaxed atmosphere. And then this image all of a sudden progresses into looking at the Eisenhower era. I noticed in my dream he chose a simple name for himself as a means of getting around the kind of confusion that would have been created if you were to look at him in a more complex way, and in doing so he facilitated more of an atmosphere, an easy going, relaxed atmosphere, in life. Things weren’t complicated then.
But in the dream I’m showing that this approach that he took on was not actually how it was. It was something that he was able to permeate out because his actual real name had many syllables in it, and each of the words were foreign, so he had changed his name and then he shortened it up to “Ike” and, had one been compelled to identify with all of those characteristics that would have caused an uneasiness and even raised a lot of questions in terms of what was going on.
So he had adopted something that rang true with how he wanted to carry himself, without the surprises, so in order to instill into the overall environment a sense of stability, and balance, and ordinariness that in that era created a nice even sense of relaxed flow.
The meaning of all of this is I carry a sense about myself that is causing me to see myself as having a bigger picture view about life, and within that is a certain pridefulness because I’m pleased to denote that the awareness I feel is at the same time causing me to feel that I’m able to grasp more of the big picture.
But I am a bit disassociated with what others are going through, as I assume it’s the big picture that’s important. To assume such an air about things, or about being like this, causes me to carry a greater burden on my shoulders, I mean because you get off the ground and how do you get grounded again?
That’s a greater burden because that can lead to collateral damage because you’re not properly balanced. This goes along with the idea that I’m connected etherically to a more transcendent overall consciousness, and so that’s why I buy into it.
When you compare this state to that of a simplicity, where bigger and more expansive is not necessarily better, because you can get the same teaching in the simplicity, I can’t help but notice that the simplicity and lack of a sense of pride that comes from the student that is able to be just comfortable in a small place, that place has just as many teachers, just as much of an overallness.
The significance that I’m finding in terms of looking at the comparisons of the greater expanse, plus then at a bigger university kind of thing that I have a predilection of thinking is more significant and more important, and gives me a greater overall sense of things, is that also there is a tendency to have a pride in that – as if that gives you a greater scope. And in doing so that will cause you to lose a simplicity and kind of a natural innocence and nature.
It can cause you to take on a certain type of self esteem if you’re not careful, because the student who is from the place I notice doesn’t carry the sophisticated mannerism that I’m finding that I am taking on. He’s more accepting. He’s more unassuming and he’s naturally a bit more gracious, although I am more ungrounded because I have this greater expanse and overallness that I feel in my nature.
So, this vibe resonates with how it used to be when the world, now looking at it in another context, in terms of outside of me, this vibe resonates with how it used to be when the world was a simpler place; in other words, when you look at the “Ike” and all of that.
And now it’s more complicated and even the leaders are playing games with the people and whatnot, but back then things were naturally simple and therefore you had more of an unassuming, accepting, and gracious mannerism.
And now it’s hustle and bustle and this student reflects that. He still has a lot of teachers, but the setting is outside of the area of false pride. And at that time of course everyone in the country and in the world were able to be more at ease because life was simpler and not spiraling out of control like it is now in all regards.
So in that sense you could see how this dream that I’m having also is affected by outer events, and so the question that this raises is, what do these outer events – where are they going? Will I have a dream that will tell me what that’s about and why that’s meaningful?
I don’t get there quite yet. I’m looking at a deeper meaning now. I haven’t sorted this out correctly, and I get corrected on this. But the deeper meaning is I start to view this as a warning dream about having a sense about the setting I’m in, that is compromised because I’m taking into account so many variables that I’m compromising an easygoing and gracious nature.
I may be right about doing that sort of thing, in a way, but it does have a tendency to leave you ungrounded and can in that ungroundedness create an airiness that is, I call it, prideful in that it has a collapsable quality to it where it can get slammed or hurt.
This is the opposite feeling of a contraction that one goes through where the heart shrinks. This is the expansive and now I’m finding inside me that something is going the other way and that’s what’s happening in life: instead of things holding an order, they’re running completely helter-skelter in an over effusive sense without any rooting.
It’s an infectious sense of well being that’s not true and tends to create an aloofness that isn’t right because you’re failing to grasp the depths of things and, as a consequence, you’re making life more complicated than it needs to be because you’re out of twang.
You’re creating a separation there that will ultimately cause one to come crashing back down. I know that I am shaped by expansive and contractive energetics in the outer, and I have to admit that I currently seem to be inside of myself as well as noticing in the outer, experiencing this expansive inner wave.
If I’m unable to absorb this so that I can carry this with a sense of simplicity, kindness, graciousness, humility, the greater responsibility and overall complexities I’m identifying with all around me will cause a crash.
Then I go through a bit of a meaning in terms of the outer as what I’m feeling is how the outer world currently feels. Everything feels cornered on a level of common sense, but in the projected overall dilemma there is an expansive complexity that is going to crash soon. I can feel that something is afoot because there isn’t a naturalness anymore. Everything about the outer has the sense of a spiraling that is out of control.
I need to take the spiraling energy that is unsustainable, I need to take this in and in doing so find therein the heartfulness which is getting more and more lost by the presence of such mayhem. I can’t fix the mayhem, but I can reflect a balance that isn’t so caught up and affected by all of that.
If I do not establish such roots, the mayhem will eventually pull me down with it, so in an outer context it is getting harder and harder to find a degree of heartfulness that isn’t getting compromised.
Because things all around me are falling apart and that falling apart, the denial of that, is a false sense of euphoria.
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