“You’re complaining, Karl, about a conscious act of suicide which may or may not be an attempt to deny one’s own responsibility for his present state of being. Aren’t you forgetting that all micro existence is unconscious suicide? It may end swiftly as in a lethal accident, or it may be a slow process of micro aging which results in the long‑term decay and deterioration of the body until some vital part fails completely. All of this deterioration is the natural result of resisting the responsibility and the consequences of one’s own chosen life pattern. This resistance causes all the life stress that Dr. Hans Selye referred to in his book, The Stress of Life.”
“All right,” I said, “I won’t argue unconscious suicide or Dr. Selye’s stress theory, but the student we’re talking about committed conscious suicide since he left a note apologizing to his parents. Now I say that’s a coward’s way out.”
Jon gave me his big grin and said, “According to that French sociologist we studied, Emile Durkheim, there are two types of suicide: anomic and altruistic. The first, anomic, is due to self‑other alienation and is an attempt to escape from a life so overwhelming that the person perceives himself as being completely inadequate to cope with it. This is what I call conscious micro suicide. It is always unsatisfactory to the micro self because when the person wakes up in his astral body he finds that he’s still stuck with a mind that believes it’s not responsible, a mind filled with the kind of unforgiving self‑loathing that the micro self experiences when faced with failure.”
At this point Neda interrupted asking, “But, Jon, didn’t you say that all actions are perfect from the Macro view? How can suicide be perfect?”
“At the Macro level,” he answered, “every negative action is balanced by a positive action and, thus, they cancel each other, leaving perfect balance. From the Macro view one can see that every failure is a success in the long run because it leads to the insight necessary for learning. If a soul has to commit micro suicide, once or a thousand times, in order to learn that there is no escape from its own responsibility for its state of being, then that is necessary and perfect for that soul.”
“I see,” Neda said nodding her head. “Then what is altruistic suicide?”
“A good example of that kind,” Jon explained, “was demonstrated when the Titanic sank. Some of the people aboard went down with the ship rather than deprive someone else of a seat in the very limited number of lifeboats. History is filled with examples of altruistic suicide in which people consciously give up their lives so others can live or profit from their example.”
“Suicide as an example . . . ,” Neda hesitated. “Is that what the members of the Macro society are doing when they permit the Micro Islanders to kill them? Maybe they’re trying to show by their example that physical life is not the ultimate goal.”
“That’s part of it,” Jon responded. “The most famous example of this was the suicide of one of the greatest Macro philosophers ever to be incarnated on this planet, Jesus of Nazareth. He permitted himself to be killed to demonstrate that the Macro self is the master of the microphysical self and that it can even recreate or resurrect a body that has been killed. I think he was also demonstrating his belief that physical existence, while necessary for micro man, is only one very limited perspective along the m‑M continuum.”
“So the evolutionary goal,” Neda added, “is to not get stuck forever at the micro‑physical level, but to journey onward toward ever greater awareness until each soul returns to full awareness of its macrocosmic origin.”
“That’s right,” Jon said, “and that leads us to a third type of suicide that micro man is not yet aware of evolutionary suicide. What the Macro society calls evolation.”
“I think you’ve mentioned that before, Jon,” I said.
“Yes, you’ll remember that when I was in the hospital trying to save lives I was thwarted by some of the patients whose subconscious minds had decided on death,” Jon said. “Remember Bruno who told me that he had incarnated to balance his vibrations. Now that he had accomplished this purpose he was graduating from this life and evolving on to a new dimension. You may recall that our Deltar, Hugo, also planned to consciously terminate his physical existence‑to evolate.
“No one dies until he is convinced at the Macro or sub‑conscious level that he has learned all he can or all he wants to in that particular life. This applies just as much to the baffling problem of crib deaths as to deaths due to cataclysmic earthquakes or tidal waves.”
“Are you saying that the sub‑conscious mind knows what will happen in the future and could avoid an accident if it so desired?” Neda asked.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Jon nodded enthusiastically. “From the Macro point of view there are no accidents.”
“But getting back to evolutionary suicide,” I said, “isn’t that as big a cop‑out as anomic suicide? If you’ve learned your lessons you’d ought to stick around and help those who haven’t.”
“That’s like saying that everyone should stay in first grade forever so they can help teach the lessons there,” Jon replied.
‘But someone’s got to teach them,” I protested.
“There has never, in the history of our universe, been a shortage of teachers‑only of students willing to learn. As the Macro philosophers have said‑when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Ask and you will receive is another way of stating this Macro truth. It reflects back to prepotent desire and predisposing belief. If you desire something more than learning or if you don’t believe that you can learn, or that you deserve to learn, you’ll have to wait until your desire and belief are greater before you succeed,” Jon explained.
“I still don’t see how you could tell the difference between a cop‑out suicide and evolutionary suicide,” I said, shaking my head.
“It’s a question of motive, Karl,” Jon explained.
“Was the motivation for death to escape the past or to embrace the future? A cop‑out suicide is escaping his past and/or present‑an evolutionary suicide is embracing his future,”
“That’s a hard one to handle,” I complained. “Wouldn’t a person tend to lie to himself about his desire to escape life?”
“Sure, that happens a lot,” Jon answered. “In each life there are lessons that must be learned, but if you lie to yourself about having learned all there was to learn in first grade, then commit suicide, you wake up right back in first grade. You see, in this planetary schoolroom it’s impossible to be a drop‑out for very long. You can’t run away from your own greater self.”
“Micro man views physical life on this planet as the final stage, rather than just a preparation for experiencing the next dimension. With that sort of philosophy he naturally tends to think that suicide would end it all. He becomes the victim of his own micro philosophy.”
“Then is suicide a sin or not?” Neda asked.
“It’s hard to generalize about suicide, Neda, since all death is either conscious or unconscious suicide,” Jon replied thoughtfully. “As for sin, there is only one sin, and that is to deny the perfection of our macrocosmic oneness with all that is, was, or ever will be. But even that is only a sin from the micro view. From the Macro view there can be no sin, for all is purposively and evolutionarily perfect. The key then, is to accept the perfection of what is by responding to everything with loving acceptance, thereby freeing yourself from the bonds of anxiety, fear, and condemnation which bind you to physical existence. Then, and only then, is evolation possible.”
“Ok. If I was Macro I’d know who was living by the rule of loving acceptance and who wasn’t, and I’d know everyone’s motive for ending their life. Then I’d be able to tell if it was suicide, as we popularly think of it, or evolation. The problem is, I’m not Macro!” I protested, “So I still don’t know how to tell the differences!”
“Remember that monograph we read back in Cultural Anthropology? The one on that Indian tribe whose old people, when they were ready to die, just said goodbye to everyone,
went up on a hill, and died?” Jon asked.
“Yeah. Kind of like your Hugo’s plan to . . .’ I began.
“That’s it exactly, Karl,” Jon interrupted. “If you use anything to do the job with, you committed escapist suicide. If you wrapped up the details of your life then just laid down and died, that’s evolation.”
That’s as close as Neda and I could come to a total recall of that evening’s conversation.
It was Jon’s comments on evolation, combined with our dreams of him, that ultimately modified my view of Jon’s death by broadening my perspective.
I still miss Jon terribly. But Neda reminds me that nothing is terrible from a Macro viewpoint, so I know what level I’m at.
However, I can remember Jon saying that our level of awareness is constantly fluctuating, and that in one twenty‑four‑hour period an average micro person like myself can run the gamut from micro awareness to low level, or even high level, Macro awareness‑the latter occurring mostly when we’re asleep and dreaming.
I’ll end this epilogue with such a dream.
It was the last of a series of dreams I’ve had about Jon. In most of them we just talked in our usual manner, but this one was different. We know it was symbolic because Jon had told us that 2150 has neither graves nor tombstones since discarded physical bodies are vaporized.
In this dream Neda and I were standing with Jon before a great tombstone upon which were engraved the following words:
Author’s Statement
In closing I would like to say that the ultimate purpose of this book‑indeed, of all my publications!‑is to encourage the development of a unified, harmonious society for the earth’s Aquarian Age.
I will leave you with the most hopeful words ever spoken:
“Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened.” (Matt. 7:7)
With Macro love‑
Joyously!
Thea Alexander
C.I. Data Excerpts
C.I. ON MACRO PHILOSOPHY
Macro philosophy is a system for relating all things from the smallest (micro) to the largest (macro). Its basic tenets are that all things are not only related but macrocosmically one, and that what is, is perfect.
Things are only separate and divisible from micro-limited viewpoints.
Macro philosophy envisions a microcosmic‑Macrocosmic continuum (m‑M continuum) in which neutrons, protons, and electrons are indivisible parts of ever larger physical bodies such as man. Continuing, we can perceive man as an indivisible part of a third planet called Earth. Again enlarging our perspective, we can perceive this planet as an indivisible part of a solar system which is, in turn, an indivisible part of a galaxy which is an indivisible part of . . . and so on.
Man feels pain and loneliness and experiences sickness and death to the extent that he:
1) feels separate and divided from self/others/universe/God (the Macrocosm).
2) denies the perfection of what is.
3) refuses to accept exclusive responsibility for all that he experiences.
Why does the feeling of separateness cause anxiety? Because anything or anyone that we perceive as separate, foreign, or alien to us is a potential threat‑potentially anxiety producing. To the degree that we feel oneness or union with anything or anyone we can feel comfortable, accepting, and loving‑the opposite of anxiety.
From a Macro perspective, all human suffering, fear, hate, pain, and disease are the result of lack of faith that all is one‑all is love‑all is what you might call God‑all is perfect.
This doesn't mean that negative thoughts, feelings, and actions don't exist. It points out that they are the products of unbalanced micro thinking.
All the great religions of the world have proclaimed that "As you sow, so shall you reap" (cause and effect). Macro philosophy presents this in terms of the consequences of negative and positive thought patterns. If you are afraid that something will happen, it usually does because that's what you've spent your thought energy on.
The wise man in Proverbs 23:7, over 2,000 years ago, stated that "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."
Macro philosophy holds that a negative thought produces a negative feeling and a negative experience, while a positive thought produces a positive feeling and a positive experience. No thought is ever forgotten. All our thoughts reside in our subconscious mind (what the ancients called the heart) where each negative thought continues to produce negative feelings until it is balanced or cancelled ( + and ‑ = 0) by a positive thought of equal intensity or strength.
Negative thoughts produce anxieties (psychological pain) such as fear, anger, frustration, guilt, depression, sadness, etc. We try to avoid negative feelings by denying their existence. That is, instead of recognizing that we cause our own negative feelings by thinking negative thoughts, we try to avoid our negative feelings by using psychological defense mechanisms such as repression, projection, and rationalization, to name a few.
All defense mechanisms are designed to reduce or eliminate psychological pain by reducing or eliminating our awareness of our uncomfortable feelings. Thus, we reduce our self‑awareness to tiny micro perspectives. One very common technique is to shift the responsibility for our discomfort from ourselves to someone else or something else.
MECHANISMS FOR DEFENDING THE MICRO SELF
Acting‑out
Reducing the anxiety aroused by forbidden desires by permitting their expression
Compensation
Making up for frustration in one area by over gratification in another or detracting attention from a weakness by emphasizing a strength
Denial of Reality
Protecting micro self from an undesirable aspect of reality by denying its existence (ignoring it), often by getting "sick" or over involvement with job or hobby, etc.
Displacement
Discharging feelings (usually hostility) on people or objects less dangerous than those which aroused the feeling
Emotional Insulation
Withdrawing from emotional involvement to protect self from hurt
Fantasy
Gratifying frustrated desires by imagining their achievement
Identification
Increasing feelings of worth by identifying self with illustrious person or organization
Introjection
Adopting values of others to avoid rejection
Isolation
Prohibiting self from feeling the pain caused by hurtful situations, or separating incompatible attitudes into logic tight compartments
Projection
Attributing one's own unethical desires to others, or putting blame on others for one's own difficulties
Rationalization
Attempting to rationally prove that one's behavior is justifiable and deserving of approval
Reaction Formation
Preventing expression of dangerous (socially unacceptable) desires by over emphasizing their opposite
Regression
Retreating to earlier level of development which demands less mature behavior and/or lower level of aspiration
Repression
Blocking painful or dangerous thoughts from consciousness
Sublimation
Gratifying frustrated sexual desires by substituting nonsexual activities
Sympathism
Gaining sympathy from others to bolster feelings of self‑worth
Undoing or Atonement
Atoning for immoral desires or actions by causing self to suffer
The consequences of reducing psychological pain by using these techniques of self‑denial are, from the short term (micro) point of view, successful in reducing psychological pain. In other words, they do work. That's why we use them. However, they are only temporarily successful because they reduce our awareness so much that we can conveniently forget that, from the larger (Macro) perspective, all our feelings are caused only by our own thoughts‑never
by anyone else's.
Perhaps the most important consequence of psychological defense mechanisms is the inevitable development of psychological stress which wears and tears the body down until it becomes sick, ages, and eventually dies. Research in this area was first developed in the 1930s under the leadership of Hans Selye, M.D., who summed up his research by stating that if there is no stress or resistance, there can be no disease, pain, or death.
The ultimate consequence of using these techniques of self‑denial is greater pain (psychological stress), because they never eliminate the cause (negative thoughts); they just temporarily reduce the result (negative feeling).
A dramatic example would be the case of alcoholics or drug addicts which were so prevalent during the latter half of the 20th century. To reduce psychological pain they knocked out (denied) vast portions of their minds to temporarily gain relief from their feelings of discomfort and were rewarded by pleasure feelings. But the causes were not eliminated, and when the alcohol or drug wore off, the psychological pain was always greater. So long as they refused to accept responsibility for their own discomfort they were doomed to remain addicts until the pain became so great that nothing reduced it. Then, and only then, were they ready to accept responsibility for their own negative thoughts, to ask for help, to learn a larger perspective and grow beyond their pain to a new life philosophy‑a more Macro perspective‑a new truth.
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