First, “it matters not” doesn't mean that nothing matters! Elias is clear that we will still hold preferences and opinions. The true metric of the “it matters not” is no conflict. This does not include a lack of compassion and empathy or denial and dissociation from our needs or those of others, but a state of equanimity, balance, and harmony that affects those around us.

“If you are inquiring as to, ‘What matters, Elias?’ – for I have expressed to you all so very often of what matters not! – I shall express to you, what matters is you and your perception and your viewing of self, for in this, as you allow yourself acceptance and trust, you offer yourself freedom, and within this expression of freedom, you are affecting of ALL of consciousness.” [session 683, August 20, 2000]

This also means that the action of acceptance can help us to widen objective and subjective awareness, and even engage the remembrance of essence while physical. These are all potentials within the action of the shift in consciousness.

(Intently) “This is what you move into now within the action of this shift. You move away from your judgments of good and bad and you move into the acceptance of belief systems and the recognition that they ARE belief systems, and in this you neutralize their affectingness. IT MATTERS NOT. (Brief pause)

(Very intently) “If I shall express to any of you, within all of my engagements with you within physical interaction, any quote that shall be remembered, it shall become ‘It matters not,’ for your expressions are merely those of experience. You are immensely – underline immensely – vaster than your comprehension of yourselves within this one particular physical focus, and this vastness of self is available to you. You are not limited to the understanding of only this one focus. You hold ALL of essence within you. It is NOT a being outside of you. Your relationship with yourself is not a relationship which is engaged with some elusive entity that floats about outside of you. Information that you allow yourselves to connect to is NOT outside of you. ALL of the information is held within you.

“I have expressed many times that the only difference between yourselves and myself is that you do not remember and I do. You have chosen to be forgetful, that you may create within physical focus a purity of experience and a fullness of experience in physical aspects. Therefore, you have CHOSEN to be forgetting of all of essence and the vastness of yourselves. I no longer occupy physical focus. Therefore, I hold the remembrance, but you now move into this action of this shift in consciousness and you now offer yourselves the remembrance also.” [session 302, July 26, 1998]

Elias also uses the straight little sapling metaphor to express the idea of “it matters not” as the state of accepting self and others. However, it is easy to misinterpret the meaning of “it matters not”:

CURTIS: “I’ve been incorporating the ‘it matters not’ energy and trying to see things from a larger perspective, and it’s made me kind of wishy-washy and ambiguous about things, and not really...”

ELIAS: (Strongly) “I am understanding, and let me clarify. This is a misunderstanding and a distortion of what I have expressed throughout the entire time framework of this forum. I express to you, in the acceptance of a belief your expression shall be that it matters not, for you have removed the judgment. I have NOT expressed to you that nothing matters, which is quite different. There is purpose. There is experience. There is exploration. There is interaction and cooperation. The expression that it matters not is merely the identification of the removal of judgment, not that there is no matter.” [session 1368, June 07, 2003]

So how does our straight little sapling relate to a forest full of saplings? In other words, how does this metaphor scale up into interactions with others?

ELIAS: “Caring and concerning are not the same. Concerning is the judgment and the comparison, and it disguises itself – you disguise it – in many different manners that you deem to be good: ‘I am concerned with this individual for they are very unhappy and they are not accepting of their situation,’ or, ‘I am concerned with this individual for they are very ill and they are very sad,’ ‘I am concerned with this individual for they are generating choices that may be harmful to themself or to another individual.’ It matters not. (Emphatically) Not that nothing matters!

“‘It matters not’ is an expression of no judgment. These are their choices. You may recognize that they are not YOUR choices and they are not your preferences, and therefore you may choose not to generate similar experiences; but they are generating these experiences, and regardless of whether the individual may objectively express that they are unhappy with their choices, they are generating them. They may not like their choices and they may not even want their choices – for you may generate many choices that you do not necessarily want – but they value their choices.”

BALBINA: “And if they ask, ‘Help me’?”

ELIAS: “If an individual is inquiring and requesting your helpfulness, it is your choice in how you shall be responsive. I express to all of you that your most helpful expression is to be accepting of their choices without judgment, not to be fixing.

“If they are requesting input of information and you are genuinely paying attention to yourself and you are genuinely wishing to be compliant with their request and offering genuine helpfulness, the manner in which you may respond is to be supportive. And how may you be supportive? To share your experiences. Not to instruct, not to teach....” [session 1398, July 19, 2003]

Will every straight little sapling necessarily agree, then, with every other straight little sapling, given the many permutations of intent, desire, orientation, and so on?

“The type of intrusiveness that I am speaking to you of is the type of intrusiveness that devalues, the type that attempts to block choice, the type of irresponsibility that perpetuates trauma, that devalues the expressions regardless of whether you agree. I have expressed many times, you may be accepting and not be in agreement; you may be accepting and cooperating with each other and not agree with each other and not LIKE expressions of each other. But to intentionally express an energy to any other individual of devaluation of their self, to intentionally disregard the value of another individual is intrusive. And you do not necessarily devalue each other in violence, contrary to how it appears.

“You devalue in expressing ‘it matters not,’ in a distorted context. I have been expressing this term of ‘it matters not’ from the onset of my interactions with all of you, but I also have expressed the definition that I am not expressing that nothing matters. But in the expression of ‘it matters not,’ it is the lack of a judgment, the recognition that there is no judgment in association with certain choices or any choices, but not that choices do not matter, merely that they are not judged. But obviously they do matter, for the choices that you engage set your directions, and if you are incorporating certain choices in certain directions you may be expressing intrusiveness.” [session 1532, March 20, 2004]

If there are things that really do matter, like purpose, experience, exploration, interaction and cooperation, then is it even possible to attain the perspective of “it matters not”? Or is this metaphor also a koan, an intentional paradox meant to force the rational mind towards a wider awareness, a transrational perspective?

Elias recently outlined what I believe to be a simple solution to this relativistic, Zen-like paradox. He talks about being accepting while holding to individual preferences and opinions. For instance, since the belief system of duplicity isn’t going away during this shift in consciousness, the nature of duplicitous preferences and opinions aren’t going away either. There will always be some perception good and bad, beautiful and ugly, true and false, etc. But these beliefs are being redefined, morphing into something else along a spectrum of narrow worldviews to wider, more inclusive, less marginalizing worldviews.

“The expression of acceptance is the recognition that there are no absolutes, that you incorporate beliefs, they exist, and you recognize and allow yourself the choice of your preference in the moment, knowing that your preference is not absolute, is not truth. It is your preference in association with your beliefs in acknowledgment of them in the moment.

“This is what is meant, as I have expressed to you all previously, that you may be accepting of beliefs and also continue to express your individual opinions and preferences, which I am aware that as I have offered that information for the most part individuals either do not incorporate an understanding of that concept or do not hear it, period [my emphasis]. For your automatic association is that you shall eliminate the one belief system of duplicity and therefore you shall allow yourselves the ability to accept all of the other belief systems.

“No, you shall accept the belief system of duplicity, recognizing that you shall continue to express a good or bad in association with your reality, but knowing that that is your individual preference and opinion and that it is not truth and that it is not absolute, and therefore generate the acceptance of difference, recognizing that you choose your expressions and what you want and how you shall explore your reality in the manner in which you prefer, and that other individuals also generate the same. And in that expression, you each create differently.” [session 1124, July 05, 2002]

Since we are not doing away with the belief system of duplicity, conventional religious and scientific definitions of good and bad, beautiful and ugly, true and false are also being redefined. We can begin to see how the belief system of duplicity exists all along, but gradually widens its embrace to include diverse, relative definitions that aren’t fixed in stone tablets or based solely upon empirical facts. This is not a utopian vision either, but a practical view of the shift in consciousness, and how it may manifest more fully as enough people widen their awareness; we may well witness less conflict, dis-ease, war, crime, and other behaviors on an unprecedented global scale.

Again, as Elias points out, there will always be purpose, experience, exploration, interaction and cooperation that fuel our personal and collective value fulfillment. As always, it begins and continues within each of us in the Now.

“If you are inquiring as to, ‘What matters, Elias?’ – for I have expressed to you all so very often of what matters not! – I shall express to you, what matters is you and your perception and your viewing of self, for in this, as you allow yourself acceptance and trust, you offer yourself freedom, and within this expression of freedom, you are affecting of ALL of consciousness.” [session 683, August 20, 2000]

Thus, the shift in consciousness is also a process of collective emergence. It includes the birth pangs of new worldviews – integral worldviews – that are able to hold multiple, diverse perspectives in clear focus that see self and others, and all our choices, preferences, and opinions as unique and valid, though not as absolutes. As we straight little saplings widen our awareness, for the first time we grok that all our truths are at best true but partial – true for us in the moment, but subject to change with time and experience.

ELIAS: (Intently) “This is what you move into now within the action of this shift. You move away from your judgments of good and bad and you move into the acceptance of belief systems and the recognition that they ARE belief systems, and in this you neutralize their affectingness. IT MATTERS NOT. (Brief pause)

(Very intently) “If I shall express to any of you, within all of my engagements with you within physical interaction, any quote that shall be remembered, it shall become ‘It matters not,’ for your expressions are merely those of experience.” [session 302, July 26, 1998]