Arkashean Q&A Session -- 094
PETER: But you know, there are intrinsic things to one's personal soul as to what they feel, you know, is correct and what isn't...
PAUL: ..The path to wisdom is narrower than the narrowest thread of life that lies within the wise man's heart...everything's within and everything else is just a guidepost...
PETER: That had something to do with a camel in the eye of a needle...! [Laugh]
PAUL: It's easier for a rich man...
PETER: It's easier for a camel to go through...
PAUL: It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to go to heaven.
CLARE: Yeah.
JORGE: Actually...the actual translation is the eye of a needle is the archway in the old city and a camel can't pass through thirty wide inches...
JAY: A camel has thirty wide pieces of yarn that can't pass through a needle...it's not a camel, but it's been translated like that, it's a gamul which is a big piece of ..
CLARE: Oh, gamul, I've heard that...
JORGE: There was, there was an archway that was called the eye of the needle that a camel could pass through.
JAY: Ah, okay.
SUZANNE: Two more lines.
PETER: Two more lines. Yeah.
SUZANNE: "I strive not to diminish from the bushel...what does that mean?"
CLARE: It's an agricultural thing. [Laugh]
SUZANNE: Okay. "I strive not to defraud the temples of their obligations, what is that?"
JAY: Go back to the first one.
SUZANNE: "I strive not to diminish from the bushel?"
JAY: Yeah, there's tons of levels of that. Taking too much attention from the group, taking things that don't belong to you from the group, taking away the riches of the group, harming people. Yeah, like don't buy and sell light if you are selling a pound of something, make sure it's a pound. It you're selling or buying a bushel of wheat, make sure it is indeed a bushel, don't steal just because it's easy to get away with it.
CLARE: Speaking slanders...
JAY: Slander, anything that breaks the group down or the whole, not only the group...
SUZANNE: Oh, okay.
PETER: Taking your personal concerns over the whole...
PAUL: That's the one about first consideration...
CLARE: And demand first consideration...
JORGE: 'Cause you want credit for something...
CLARE: Right.
SUZANNE: Okay. "I strive not to defraud the temples of their obligations." Is that just ...
PETER: About that...what did you say?
SUZANNE: "I strive not to defraud the temples of their obligations..."
PETER: Well, they have their truths, their obligations, their responsibilities and we're not here to judge what...how good, how bad or how inappropriate they are...It has to do with judgment.
SUZANNE: Oh, okay. But remember, the human body is also a temple of its own kind.
CLARE: Therry said it also had to do with serving two masters, you know, you can't serve Caesar and you can't serve the spiritual side and you have to...when you have to hear the call, that's what he told me...when you hear the call, you should honor that, you know, the spiritual side if you are called to stop for a moment, you know.
PETER: Say that again?
CLARE: "I strive not to..."
SUZANNE: "Defraud the temple of their obligations..."
CLARE: "...temple...right...temple of their obligations."
PAUL: All I know you were supposed to give X number of coins or X number of lambs...
SUZANNE: That was tithing, right?
PAUL: I don't think so...just like you're supposed to give 15 minutes a day...
CLARE: That's what he said. If you feel called, you should stop...
PETER: It says their obligations not yours.
JAY: Right.
PETER: Why would that relate to you dividing your allegiance to two different gods?
JAY: Well, there's...
SUZANNE: Go ahead...
CLARE: No, I was just thinking out loud...
JAY: If you think of it, that the temple has its obligations, the things that it's supposed to be doing.
CLARE: Render on to...
JAY: You're not supposed to be defrauding that or cheating the temple or the thing from fulfilling what it's supposed to...
PAUL: Cheating the obligations that are due...
CLARE: The what?
PAUL: Like defrauding the temples of their due...
PETER: Okay, I guess it'll...
JAY: Well, yeah, this says more the obligations or the laws that it imposes upon you. For example, it says, we live a celibate life whatever...versus the law in general society doesn't have that. It's a temple or monastery obligation. You're not supposed to go against those if you're part of it. I mean, you don't...
PETER: Yeah, but you're talking about them, theirs and so to me that, that...
JAY: The temple's obligations...
PETER: No, it says ah...
CLARE: "Try not to defraud the temple of their..."
PETER: "Temple of their obligations"...Okay.
JORGE: Possessive...
CLARE: Yeah.
JAY: In other words, the Cloister has a whole different set of rules that general society or at least the way that I'm interpreting it and you're not supposed to be tricking the Universe...
CLARE: Getting around it...
JAY:...You're not supposed to be doing things...
PETER: Okay, I see.
JAY: ...you know that...of the limitations that are placed upon you by the Monastery or something.
PETER: Uh-hmm.
JAY: I mean I could be very off, but...And that gets into serving two masters.
SUZANNE: Yeah, but we use that too so...those of us that are not in the Cloisters...
JAY: It's a pattern.
PAUL: Any interpretation that you have then, it's almost guaranteed to be correct, if that's the purpose of it.
SUZANNE: [Laugh]
CLARE: 'Cause that's your personal Maat...
PAUL: And anyone who reads it is going to have to sit there ...
PETER: Yes.
PAUL: and ...and if that's what it means to you, that's good enough...
CLARE: Think about what it is...
PETER: There are many levels, many definitions and levels to what's being said here. "It's a complicated thing, this thing, truth." Who said that? It sounds like a Shakespeare line.
WENDY: It could well be!
CLARE: This thing of truth...
PETER: Yes.
JORGE: We live in a holographic Universe...
PETER: [Laugh]
SUZANNE: That's Star Trek.
JORGE: All the patterns of the whole are contained within the sub-species of it...Therefore anything...there's symbolism in virtually anything that you look at...you can find symbolism in it, because all the patterns are there, all the laws are there for interpretation and it's subject to that same thing...
CLARE: Uh-hmmm.
JAY: That's why it's so amazing that any communication takes place at this level 'cuz every word someone says we put our own interpretation to it, based on every experience good and bad we've every had.
CLARE: Uh-hmmm.
JAY: People think people are saying things that they're not or they didn't intend to...
CLARE: Uh-mmm.
SUZANNE: Huh?
[Laughter]
JAY: Wombat? What's a wombat?
WENDY: Did Jesus say render unto Caesar what is Caesar's at any time?
PETER: I don't ...It's supposed to be...
CLARE: Yeah, it's in the bible.
PETER: I don't know.
JORGE: Well, it makes sense...
PETER: ...if uhh that's exactly what he said.
JORGE: Well, I mean it makes sense to me. I mean that's something to me that's obvious.
WENDY: You mean that would be like us paying our taxes in this government even if...
JORGE: And it's also you have to live in the mundane and yet still learn the spiritual...
CLARE: The higher levels...
WENDY: Yep.
JAY: Yeah.
WENDY: It's very easy to be holy on top of a mountain...
PAUL: Actually, it's probably not. It might be easier to be holier at the bottom of the mountain, but I would think that it's probably not that easy...
WENDY: A lot easier! Let's put it that way.
CLARE: Yeah, I think so.
PETER: Yeah, how would you know? When's the last time you've been at the top of the mountain and holy?
CLARE: From Las Vegas.
PAUL: I don't know, I don't know what's being holy.
SUZANNE: I have a question that's kinda related to that...
PAUL: You have to put yourself beyond all temptations.
SUZANNE: But it's kind of tangential, how do you know what vows you took with Arkashea?
PAUL: If you don't know, then you're not capable at the current time period...
SUZANNE: Oh really?
PAUL: When the time is right for you to know them, you'll know 'em.
SUZANNE: Okay.
PAUL: If they're hidden, that means they're supposed to be hidden from you for whatever reason.
JORGE: Which could mean that you have to still need to take them, you need to reaffirm them or you need to be in touch with them or you need to deflect them and rationalize them away.
PAUL: See, like for example, let's say, whoever's taken a ceremony this life is sworn to obey Pharaoh. You die and you're reborn next life, are you going to remember that? If you don't remember it on some level, then basically you don't have any obligation to do so because you have different, whatever, you know...you can only deal with what you're aware of. If you do remember it, then that means that it's still applicable until that lifetime. You have enough continuity that you're responsible for them, you made the vows once and it carries over 'cuz you remembered.
SUZANNE: Yeah, but we have different levels of ceremonies so...
PAUL: I'm only talking about those ones that you do, the uhh Vigil of the Lone Pine, for an example, but it doesn't matter, it applies to all of them.
PETER: Yeah, a vow is a vow, a ceremony is a ceremony, if you don't have the remembrance of it, or it's been suppressed, then you can't address it. It's not there, so you don't know, until things happen where you know, your current condition allows it to be brought forward or you initiate something to bring it forward...
JAY: That doesn't necessarily mean that you're not under the influence of that vow...
PAUL: Or not consciously...
JAY: Right, exactly. Yeah, consciously you...
PAUL: You may have a harpie forever maybe...
PETER: But you will suffer as a result but you won't know why.
SUZANNE: Oh-h-h...
PETER: Which most people feel... "Why am I suffering? I don't know, what did I do?"
PAUL: You can try to find out.
SUZANNE: How?
PAUL: You have to do your meditations and you have to properly ask the Higher Forces that you want to know whatever it is you want to know...The same way you find out anything.
SUZANNE: But that could be more pain though.
PAUL: If you want to astrate then you have to do your meditations and seek the wisdom.
SUZANNE: Oh, but if you find out the answer isn't that more pain?
PETER: Sometimes.
SUZANNE: Oh, okay.
JAY: Yeah, but at least you have a chance of dealing with it. If you don't know why you're being harassed...or like a harpies bothering you, you don't know what to do, whereas if you do at least know what's involved, sometimes you can deal with it or at least understand why you're being harassed.
PETER: And the blockage of all that may lie in your fear of it all.
SUZANNE: May what,sorry?
PETER: A blockage of any of that information usually lies in the fear.
SUZANNE: Oh okay.
PETER: So you have to look beyond your fear to access that information typically.
PAUL: All lot of times, it's like what Jay said, it can still affect you. For example, all the people who ended up here, they may well have been aware that have taken vows in a past life. Maybe they don't...aren't aware of it like that but they know that there's something here that they want.
SUZANNE: Uh-hmm.
PAUL: Or they feel like, gee, I want to be here but I really don't. I mean like in my instance, I didn't really want to come here. I wanted to go and have fun, but I wasn't happy doing it. So there's different ways to be aware that you've taken vows.
SUZANNE: Uh-mmm.
JAY: He was going to buy a condominium.
PAUL: Condominium...You know Jay makes up a lot of stories.
PETER: [Laugh]
JAY: It's true. He called the Farm, he was thinking about buying a condominium.
PAUL: So from that you know that I was going to buy a condominium.
SUZANNE: No, that's my story!
JAY: That was his downfall. He turned around at that moment. He'd hit rock bottom.
PETER: [Laugh]
PAUL: I'd be rich from my condominium.
JAY: You would've burnt out. So you're the one who knocked the ant hill down?
JORGE: No, I just uh...I think, I think I probably took it and threw a fire cracker in there...
JAY: Those stupid stuff.
PAUL: It's all part of life. You know I asked Therry...
JAY: I used to step on lizards, there were hundreds of them walking up and down the road into the bushes and I'd just squash 'em.
PAUL: And you know what, you're probably going to do that again, next life.
JAY: Probably.
PAUL: 'Cause I asked Therry that, I said, "You know, Therry, when I look at my life, I could see almost every mistake I made before I joined the Monastery. I was such an idiot as a kid. Am I going to be all-wise next lifetime?" He said, "Probably not."
JAY: Yeah, right.
PAUL: If you're a kid, you're stupid, he says it goes with the territory. It's very, very difficult to be wise as a young person.
JAY: Sure unless you're....
SUZANNE: I think I was...!
JAY: When I was seven years old I had this dream with giant lizards trying to stomp on me and from that moment I never tried to kill another lizard.
SUZANNE: Oh really?
PETER: I wouldn't take it at total face value like that if that's going happen...you might have some insights next life or you may not have it...
JAY: I'm into cats and dogs!
SUZANNE: I did it to a lizard once and to a frog once but then afterwards...
JAMIE: Was it alive?
SUZANNE: No, no, no. The frog you had to dissect it in biology class, they tell you to dissect the frogs.
WENDY: Therry always uses the analogy of the playpen. And you watch these little kids, they're kicking each other and they're throwing things, they're making mudpies, they do all the things that children do and if we go up a few levels and we see a new playpen or different playpen that needs building. Well, they're going to rebuild it and start all over. It's like watching kids but from a different point of view, just a different level.
CLARE: Yeah, they're building that wall they're building.
WENDY: They're building a wall! And I think kids doing fights with each other.
CLARE: Yeah, right, you stay away and I'll stay here!
JAY: Yeah.
WENDY: Yet we're here watching Man in his own bloodshed and gore and carnage and suffering beyond any kind of understanding...
PETER: Yeah and all along it's just a sandbox!
WENDY: They're just playing and they're just having fun.
JAY: Yeah, like Tom's favorite medicine. Look, he's getting in the car! He's screeching, he's slamming the door...his girlfriend's mad at him! He's tearing off. That's as bad as we are. [Laugh]
PETER: [Laugh]
SUZANNE: Where did that come from?
CLARE: You don't get it?
JAY: How stupid we look down here. "Look, he's getting mad, he's getting mad, he's getting mad, look at him!!!" You know, from up there, it's like the biggest insanity but from down here, it's real.
CLARE: Yep!
JAY: Just so you know, they think I have a horrible sense of humor too up there too, so it's okay.
JAMIE: Really?
PETER: Are we at a good stopping point or you want to continue?