The Underside — We all have it!
Yes. We all have it but don’t notice it: — the other side of the stone we are, lying on that mossy earth. Handle with care!
One never knows what other-earthly stuff will be found on the underside!
We come away, sometimes, wondering where that uncomfortable essence is coming from. Why did a conversation come off badly? Why isn’t this painting working? It’s a great day — why do I feel agitated? What is WRONG?
OR, We come away, sometimes, wondering why there was something so special about the conversation, or the art session or the day? What made this so special — so mysteriously wonderful? Are we in LOVE?
Zukav’s book Seat of the Soul tells us that we carry along unfinished business trying to manage our lives without having accepted a sixth sense into our lives! We hear, see, taste, feel, and smell — senses that are built into our physical equipment for life and survival.
Zukav affirms that these five senses are critical for our physical life and are the instructors that teach us how to manage our lives on earth, but reminds us that they die when we die, since we don’t need them any more once we are gone. But how and when to use these tools to the best advantage is not enough for a happy soul! He presents a sixth sense as something we are given but don’t really know we have until we accept its presence. He calls this sixth sense, among other things, a Life-Force. This is something we are endowed with before we are born and after our lives are finished! It is the often dismissed matter of the soul he is speaking of. (But Zukav believes the soul goes on and is incarnated in a different personality in order to “finish up” the work of completion.)
This sixth sense we playfully mention when we have a hunch, or a hesitation to judge. When we intuit. When we “just know” that something is a certain way.
SHORT LITTLE ANECDOTE: East Coasters camping through the Midwest, my husband and I and the the kids, (c. 1960), were “free camping” where there were no parks. In the wide open spaces, we had found roadside areas where our little tent would fit without disrupting anyone. (Once on a wee traffic junction “park” where we were surprised to find people waiting for the bus when we woke up the next morning!) That was years ago.
But there was one place that was perfect — just a beautiful lookout over a beautiful valley rimmed with trees — quiet and remote. Our little tent in the glade? Perfect!! We did not camp there. We had a bad sense about that place. It gave us the creeps. It seemed like a place where something evil had happened. We were spooked! We moved on, even though our first five senses thought it the very best kind of place in the world to camp.
This is not a superstitious kind of feeling. We were not “Ghost Busting” or anything. In fact we were in touch with that sixth sense, I believe, because safety for our little family was a concern and something “was not right” about this place. “Something” was telling us to move on. Something STRONG.
We were used to calling this sense God, the Holy Spirit, being Christian believers, and trusting Him to lead us.
But another family might have called it karma, or bad vibes, or creepy. Or they might have camped there!!! In any case, we will not personally know what it was — but the sense of it was like a person’s sense of being watched. You look over your shoulder.
Reading this Zukav book is stretching my brain again. It is taking me into areas of study that I have skipped over or discounted because they didn’t fit into my understanding of life/goodness/reality.
Zukav is persuasive. Persuasive enough to be ferreted out by a curious Oprah, of all high-profile people, to do interviews on her program. To tell you the truth, when I read about Oprah on the cover I sort of automatically gave the prospective book a few minus marks, thinking it was one of these book-promotion deals where I was supposed to rush out and buy something.
It was my first five senses acting out old experiences and choosing to spit out something that didn’t fit my “taste.”
ABOUT ME: I am not an easy sell. I am really put off by sales pitches. I think that the harder something is pitched, the more likely it is to NEED a pitch because it can’t stand on its own merits. My touch,taste,feel,hear and smell experiences have taught me that most things are not all they are cracked up to be — I am a skeptic. (But I am not a finished soul yet. A finished soul would run it all through a sixth sense more readily to see what is truth and what is fiction.)
I am on page 69 in Zukav’s book. I am beholden to Miles Ciletti, (one of our old friends from Cowbird) for recommending this book. It certainly is dipping into the same spheres (some call them deep, some call them cosmic) as Plotkin’s book, and the book on Boundaries which I also read recently.
We humans call it metaphysics, I think, these days. We are being brought “out of our minds” into somewhere other-worldly. Is this New Age philosophy? I have kept clear of New Age philosophy because many of its proponents seem airy and magical to me — not the stuff of reality.
And yet… Where did we get a sense of God anyway? Surely not from the Beaver Cleaver-ish household of the 50’s where people my age grew up. We considered Dr. Spock a Baby Expert — — not a Spock from the starship Enterprise. That was fictional, and we KNEW IT.
So the skeptic goes snooping around in metaphysical books now, and sees her old friend CS Lewis’s arena — he being a true and vital Biblical scholar and sensible Christian — and see where the heavenly and the metaphysical mesh, as it were!
I’m just starting this book. I’m not marking it up. I want others to read it and I know my markings are intrusive to those who venture into my marked up books.
This little book has a study guide in the appendix. It has exercises to help you get in touch with the concept of a sixth sense. It is really a pretty pragmatic little piece of work! And I will read on!
SGHolland ©2017
(October 15 2017 my son’s fiftieth birthday!)
