Our normal waking consciousness...is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the flimsiest of screens, their lies potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We might go through life without expecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus and at a touch they are all there in all there completeness...No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded.
William James
James was a philosopher and a psychologist (we do not see that combination much anymore...do we? One field leads to science ...the other to something else). He was the first educator in America to offer a psychology course. I would have loved being in one of his classes.
He was a thinker that explored the non-physical, quanta, consciousness, as well as the human mind.
Ram Dass, in the below linked podcast, brough this human and his words back to me in his discussion of the interplay between who we are in separate physical and psychological forms and who we are in universal consciousness. Reminding us that we need to find peace and harmony in the reality that we are in this world but not of it.
The objective is not to deny your uniqueness or your separateness, [but to also honor your unity.]
[Karma yoga is all about] honoring what is...do your dharma...play your part...do your best
See any situation on more than one plane simultaneously
We can partake in the route of karma yoga by saying, "Whatever the givings of my life, may they become the route of my liberation."
We need to not only accept the situations in our lives, the what-is-ness of it, but to honor it for its ability to take us to the dimension we often do not see or acknowledge behind the "flimsiest of veils"
It is all grist for the mill. You use it all...
Then he reminds us of the fact that we are souls here to evolve in this Earth school ...using the situations we have been given or find ourselves in as part of the lesson plan.
The life experiences of your incarnation are your curriculum
Imagine getting free by living life
And what does being free mean?
Being free means not having aversion or attraction [to what is.]
Karma yoga, he explains, will help us to honor this incarnation...and allow us into who we are as physical, psychological beings as well as spiritual.
If you have a perspective that you are not just this physical, psychological enitity...[you will] want to simultaneously live in your unitive nature and in your separateness.
We can be fully present with "the heart breaking" and at the same time hear the wisdom part saying, "Ah...so" ....which allows for change and metamorphosis
We need to allow the human heart to feel its pain while we cultivate the part that is not caught up in the human drama.
Sigh! I want that. What about you?
Ram Dass/ Be Here Now Network(February, 2026) Ram Dass on Cultivating a Spiritual Perspective. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5emps9sT1FI
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