In his article on Law of Attraction, Steve Pavlina writes the following:
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The idea that other people have intentions is an illusion because other people are just projections. Of course, if you strongly believe other people have intentions, then that’s the dream you’ll create for yourself. But ultimately it’s still an illusion.
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This is a most intriguing concept to me, yet one that I have much difficulty accepting; at least in the way that Steve phrases it.
The way it reads is that Steve is telling us -- or ME, rather, that I am the only conscious person within the universe that I perceive around me. That everyone else is simply a projection of my own consciousness, without free will, and dependent upon my thoughts to dictate their behavior within this very realistic dream we call physical reality.
If this is true, then Steve Pavlina is nothing more than a character concocted by my imagination within this "great cosmic dream" that I -- assumedly "God" -- created within my mind for the benefit and amusement of the personality you all know as "Rocket Surgery." Of course, in Steve's concept, none of you are actually there even reading this since you're all projections of MY mind, the only one that exists or matters. And any responses to this post will also be fabrications of MY mind which, I suppose, serve the purpose to solidify MY illusion that you are all real people and NOT the projections that he/I claim you to be.
At the end of his/my article, he/I say....
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I too am just a manifestation of your consciousness. I play the role you expect me to play. If you expect me to be a helpful guide, I will be. If you expect me to be profound and insightful, I will be. If you expect me to be confused or deluded, I will be. But of course there’s no distinct ME that is separate from YOU. I’m just one of your many creations. I am what you intend me to be. But deep down you already knew that, didn’t you?
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Okay, now... that's what his/my concept SEEMS to be saying. But since all this is merely an exercise in cosmic mental masturbation, allow ME -- the only REAL mind in all reality, to offer a different take on the concept.
I can wrap my mind around the idea of there being only ONE great cosmic consciousness, and that all reality takes place within the mind and imagination of that same entity. I just have an awfully hard time with the idea that you are all projections of MY mind. And when I say MY, I mean the self-aware personality currently typing at this keyboard; not the OCC. Or OUCC. I don't have to spell out the initials. You're me, after all, so you know what they stand for.
Anyway, I think that perhaps I would like to interpret the above quotes another way. Maybe Steve is correct, but thinking about reality in this manner certainly tends to distract from what I believe to be a quite purposeful illusion.
While it may be true that AT A MUCH HIGHER LEVEL, I am in reality the OUCC, it seems to me to make more sense that I am ALSO a sub-category of consciousness created who-knows-how-long-ago as one of countless projections of the OCC for the purpose of experiencing reality through one of countless unique perspectives. I believe that the person known on this board as Rocket Surgery is no more or less "real" than each and every one of you, and that each and every ONE of us is a unique "point of EXPERIENCE" of the greater OCC.
I spend much of my time editing non-linear video. All video is captured to the hard disk from a SINGLE tape recording. From there, it is broken into "clips" which are in turn broken down into "subclips" for the purpose of better focus on the content thereof. Yet each clip and subclip, although assigned its own filename/identity, is in reality just a part of the ONE master tape.
So, am I the "master tape" of the universe? No. I am a subclip which contains a very small part of the whole picture. Each of you is a seperate subclip -- some no more than a frame or so different from me -- but still uniquely you when viewed from that perspective. You are not a part of me anymore than I am part of you, yet we are all connected to each other for we are all a part of the Master Tape that gave birth to us all.
The only way that I can sort of "buy into" Steve's perspective is by looking at reality through the "all things happen at once" filter, where I accept that Time-Space is a creation of the OCC in order to put events within a framework that they may be more closely studied by the OCC through the perspectives of we subclips -- er, physical human beings, to wit:
All Things Happen in the now, the present, and since Time has no meaning to the OCC, then He/She/All-That-Is has already experienced every other life I see around me, and is currently focusing on MY -- Rocket Surgery's -- particular experiences. When this personality "dies," the OCC will then shift focus to some other POE and experience that persective fully -- perhaps that of my wife.
So, basically, as John Lennon once put it.... "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together..." My wife is also self-aware just as I am, only at a different time from the OCC's perspective. The OCC's focus is not limited to physical time-space, therefore the OCC can focus completely through each and every one of us in turn... but from our perspective the OCC is focusing through everybody at the same time.
Like time travel in the movies, you can visit yourself in the past. You know its' the same consciousness in both versions of you, but you experience only one of them at a time, even though both occupy the same point in time-space. So the OCC is like a time traveler in that respect perhaps.
Each one of you "feels" like the current focus of the OCC because YOU ARE! As am I. The OCC is not only the ultimate time traveler, but is in actuality, a TIME-SPACE traveler, able to occupy all spaces (POE's) at any point in space-time it chooses. It's indeed all happening at the same time, but to the OCC, it's ONE at a time.
That's all I got for now. Any thoughts?
~ RS