Session 7 — July 2008

Frederick asks whether the Wonders have done a series on how group consciousness works.

They have discussed consciousness in a single recording but never a dedicated series, and offer to create one — noting that the benefit comes mainly from the questioner's questions, so he should attend.

They dictate the titles of a ten-session series called 'An Exploration of the Group Consciousness Perspective': Defining group consciousness; Exploring the movement within; Digging deeper; So you think you have it — guess what; How did you get there; What's yours is mine, what's mine I don't know; Playfully exploring using practical examples; Choosing to move outside of the limitations of separation; Creating a consciousness that allows group; and a final session, 'This is the key, the door is coming next.' It is to be presented as a workshop rather than a retreat, over three or four days rather than the usual two, because of the movement of consciousness involved; if roughly 20 people attend, three additional sessions will be given at the start for participants only, with titles revealed then.

The practical detail left to Frederick is finding the money to get there.

Frederick asks why real estate prices in his country have not fallen despite a political crisis and rising interest rates.

The Wonders answer: fear.

When the fear of losing is greater than the fear of paying, prices hold up — people worldwide are more afraid of not buying a home than of buying one, since they see everything rising and no end in sight.

The forming world consciousness reads this not as another passing recession but as long-term pain, so nobody wants to sell unless they cannot afford to keep, while everyone wants to buy before prices rise further.

A correction will come, but not for a while, because fear is too great.

Oil, having reached nearly $150 a barrel and sitting around $135, remains far above its true value, inflated by fear; it has eased only because people are beginning to weigh the fear of not having enough oil against the fear of using it, walking a tightrope.

Prices will drop like a stone only when consciousness chooses a different direction and humanity says it will not play the game any more.

Too many are invested: people earning $20,000-$40,000 a year are in the stock market trying to get rich, so speculation has multiplied and these small speculators, feeding on each other's fear, now hold commodity prices up, where formerly large speculators followed the small buyer's lead.

Frederick reflects that his old pride in sensing where things were moving before others has become a limit; the Wonders tell him he has not lost that ability but should not let pride get in the way — he should use his awareness and simply feel the energy of fear around him, which has been increasing exponentially for almost two years and is in a self-feeding frenzy like piranhas.

They give a high probability that it will self-destruct within a year to a year and a half, because most people cannot sustain fear at that intensity for long.

Frederick describes having instantly known his current home was the one, and now, after viewing many houses, never getting that feeling; he wonders whether requiring the feeling is a limitation.

The Wonders say it is a limitation, but that he is looking for something to last the rest of his life rather than a temporary home, and is waiting for the universe to line everything up.

More importantly, he has been looking in the wrong direction — at places he would have to settle for rather than what he wants — driven by fear that prices are not coming down and he had better find something.

That is why nothing gives him the sense that this is the one.

Their advice is to shift his expectations: just because the world is afraid does not mean he must be, and a contracting world is the perfect moment for him not to contract.

If he sees himself as always self-sufficient, he can choose freely whatever the circumstances — when everyone is crying that the sky is falling, that is the moment to sell umbrellas.

But if he is afraid of getting the house he wants, he is only selling umbrellas cautiously, no different from the others, merely shouting less loudly.

Frederick says he has been practising commanding the mind, including telling it to step out of the way during sleep so the body can regenerate, but he worries that observing is itself done through the mind.

The Wonders reply that the mind is the most brilliant tool he ever created and will observe if directed, but it is not the only part of him that can observe: observation comes from the self, and he is a physical, emotional and spiritual being as well as a mental one, so those parts can observe too.

Rather than observing only mentally, he should use his physical senses and the rest of himself.

Asked whether he can remember without the mind, they point out the body remembers its own circumstances and knows when it has been harmed without being told.

As a practical test of whether the mind stayed out of the way during sleep, he should simply ask on waking, without thinking about it, whether he feels more rested; if yes, there is a high probability the mind did not interfere, and the more he observes his state of rest on waking, the more he can command the mind to keep producing it.

Asked whether acne has an emotional component, the Wonders say it varies by individual; in his case the mental and emotional components are so minimal that focusing on the physical will clear them, though he has plenty of other emotional work to do.

Turning to that, they ask what he sees when he looks at himself emotionally — a strong, whole, sufficient person, or someone lacking.

He answers that he has moments of lack within a life of sufficiency; they disagree with his self-assessment and say he is not yet connected to himself emotionally, though he knows himself mentally and has explored emotionally more in recent years.

Their practice for him is to keep asking 'how do I feel about this?' about whatever is in front of him, then how he feels about that answer, and again, digging down to the real sense of who he is — which is the sufficiency they have always spoken of, an awareness that he is sufficient in all moments with nothing lacking at any time.

Frederick describes something that is not physical feeling but more a knowing; they confirm the knowing feeling is what he is aiming for, but warn that the mind can convince him a knowing is present when it is only thinking about the feeling.

He has many moments of genuine knowing and lives by it a good deal, with much thinking running alongside; the mind is an amazing tool not to be discarded, and the skill is knowing when to command it and when to let it go.

The Wonders suggest Frederick avail himself of the series from the Abundance Retreat, which he already owns, saying it will affect even the idea of birthing a child, and remark that not remembering is a good state since remembering means living in the past — choose in the moment.

When he says he feels no need to express himself in words, they ask what question he could ask if he had no limitations at all; they already know the question but insist he speak it, since speech is an extension of himself and an unspoken question makes the answer useless.

He asks: who am I?

Their answer is that he is the brilliance of himself — a brilliant energy, at one with everything, quiet, peaceful and relaxed — even if his personality is not yet that way, though he reports increasing moments of it.

That is who he is; everything else, including fear, is an expression of it.