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  Session 2867 (Group/Brattleboro, Vermont)  

“Attachments to Your Genuine Identity”

“Interconnectedness”

“Defining Independence”

“Defining Vulnerability”

Participants: Mary (Michael), Ann (Vivette), Anna (Elise), Axel (Ricarro), Bill (Zit), Brenda (Leonora), Brenna, Cat (Munya), Christine (Lurine), Daniil (Zynn), Deborah, Denise (Azura), Elaine, Ella (Bella), George (Bethette), Hernan (Hernan), Howie (Namaya), Inna (Beatrix), Jeremy (Opan), Jim (Marion), John (Rrussell), Julie (Fontine), Ken G., Ken M. (Oba), Linda B. (Robert), Linda (Ruthanna), Lynda (Ruther), Magdelana (Michella), Marcos (Marta), Marj (Grady), Melissa (Leah), Natasha (Nichole), Pat B. (Fryolla), Pat W. (Treice), Rodney (Zacharie), Saige (Seadae), Sandra (Atafah), Shelly (Angelic), Susan (Catherine).

(Elias’ arrival time is unknown.)

ELIAS: Good afternoon! Welcome! This day we shall be discussing attachments. Are any of you aware presently of attachments to your genuine identity and what they are?

RODNEY: Everything!

ELIAS: (Laughs) In a manner of speaking, but some are more significant than others. One very significant aspect of this shift in consciousness which is occurring presently – a movement of your individual shifting, which is also being evidenced en mass – is moving into a recognition of your genuine identity. What is your genuine identity?

Your genuine identity is that you stripped apart from all of the attachments that you think of as being a part of your identity, but they are not. And what is an attachment to your identity? An attachment is associated with your experiences, with what you have learned and what you have been taught. Some of these factors of what you have learned or what you have been taught, and also what you yourselves have generated in relation to your own experiences, become attachments to your identity.

One simple example that would be associated with experiences – most individuals generate experiences in regard to relationships, and you generate associations with those experiences. I have defined previously that associations are the assessments that you generate in relation to any experience. You do this with every experience; you create an association. Some are more obvious and stronger than others, but with every experience, you generate an association.

With that evaluation of your experience, you generate an assessment of whether the experience is good or bad. Therefore, an association is an assessment with the attachment of good or bad in relation to an experience: “I kissed a girl, and it was good.” (Laughter) The kiss is the experience; the association is the evaluation of the experience: “The kiss was good.”

Now; in relation to experiences and associations, many times you generate repeated experiences or you generate experiences that are very similar to each other: “I kissed a girl several times, and each time it was good.” (Laughter) In that situation, what you are doing is you are reinforcing the association. In that situation, the association becomes stronger and stronger – not that you always engage thinking about the association, but it is registered. Your body consciousness stores all memory; therefore, all of your experiences are stored in memory with your body consciousness. If all of your experiences in memory are stored with the body consciousness, so also your associations, whether the experience was good or bad.

In this, some associations and experiences become so familiar and so much a part of what you do that they become attachments to your identity.

JEREMY: Would this be in relation to shrines, that you talked about previously?

ELIAS: It can be, but not necessarily. They can become shrines, but they do not begin as being shrines. They are attachments.

In this, an individual may express that in regard to relationships they are an individual that enjoys being very playful. That may not necessarily actually be a part of the individual’s genuine identity. It may be a part of their experience. It may be that in their experience, repeatedly what they enjoy most of all in relationships is to generate playful relationships or to be silly or to be very active. That may or may not be an actual part of the individual’s genuine identity, but it most definitely will be a part of an attachment that is formed from the individual’s experiences.

Or “I am not very accomplished at relationships; I do not function well within them; I always seem to generate disruptions and cannot seem to create a lasting ongoing relationship.” This may not be the individual’s genuine identity, but it is their experience. Therefore, they generate an attachment to their identity and express that that is them: “This is me; I cannot generate a successful relationship.” For, the individual’s experience is that they have not been successful yet in attempting to generate a relationship. That is not who they are, but they may begin to generate this addition or this attachment to their identity – which is actually a part of their experiences, not necessarily who they are. That is an example of EXPERIENCE being an attachment.

There are other types of attachments to your identity, elements that are learned or that are taught. Learned is not always taught. You can, in your terms, learn without being instructed. An individual may generate a perception and an assessment of themself that they are clumsy. For in their experience, they generate a tendency to perhaps not pay attention very closely to what they are doing, and perhaps they generate an awkwardness physically. Therefore, in that, they LEARN in relation to their body consciousness, and they generate an assessment, and with that assessment, they attach to their identity: “I am not physically coordinated.” That may not necessarily be accurate or correct, and it may not be a part of their genuine identity, but they have attached it to their identity. Now the individual associates “This is a part of me. This is a part of who I am.” No, not necessarily.

One very large attachment that will be being addressed to that you all share is the attachment that is the gem of yourselves and of your societies. This gem is very precious; you ALL very much value this gem. This ATTACHMENT is independence. You all want independence. You all value independence. You all want to be independent, and you will sacrifice for independence, for this is a very prized gem. And what do you equate independence with? Freedom.

This term “independence” is almost synonymous to you with freedom. I will express to you presently, independence is NOT freedom and bears little resemblance to actual freedom. Independence is binding. For with independence, it incorporates its own tentacles, which create its own attachments. With independence comes responsibility and control and right choices. These are the foundation of independence. If you are independent, you must generate right choices. You must be responsible, and you must be in control of that independence to maintain it. And the maintenance of independence is an ongoing job! How do you perceive the term “job”? Work. Independence is a job. It requires considerable energy to maintain.

In this, let me express that whatever the attachments are that you generate so very strongly with your identities, we are not discussing this subject to eliminate it. It is not that independence is entirely bad, for there are many aspects of independence, or any attachment, that are beneficial and that do serve you. But there are also aspects of attachments that are binding and that are obstacles and that are a hindrance.

With independence, one of the obstacles and one of the hindrances is that independence is a moving away-from. You do not become independent-TO, you are independent-FROM. Independence is the action of moving away from some aspect of your reality. Generally, what you think of that you are moving away from is some type of obstacle or some type of restriction – but independence is a restriction. For one of the largest restrictions that is expressed in independence is that it discourages interconnection and it discourages receiving. For, why shall you receive? You can do yourself. Why shall you be interconnected? You can be yourself. You can accomplish yourself. There is no binding or holding upon you if you are independent – but is there?

If you incorporate a home and you maintain this home for you are independent, this home now is your responsibility, and in that, those three factors are very much in play. When you are independent, all that is within your environment, all that is within your focus is within your charge. Whatever you associate with your independence is within your charge. You are responsible for it. Therefore, you are also in control of, and therefore, you must generate right choices in relation to what you control and what you are responsible for. What are those right choices? This generates tremendous confusion and conflict for many individuals, for it is a continuous struggle to decipher what are the right choices to engage in my independence.

When you are entirely independent, you are less likely to allow helpfulness from other individuals. You are less likely to allow receiving gifts – unless the are warranted. But if they are not warranted, if they are merely offered freely with no reason, that is not entirely necessary. “It is not necessary for you to offer me a gift! I can offer myself a gift! I do not need from you. I can care for myself. I do not need help, for I can solve my dilemmas.” And even when you do allow for helpfulness, you allow that when you are more in the direction of desperate or when you perceive that you entirely cannot solve a problem yourself. Then you will engage or enlist helpfulness, on your terms.

Therefore, there are many aspects of independence that are actually binding. But it is not merely independence; that is one attachment. It is a very LARGE attachment. It is one that all of you share and that all of you view as a very precious gem, but there are many different attachments. The point of this subject is to understand that who you are is not necessarily what you do. Who you are is not what you have learned. It is not what you have been taught.

Another example: an individual may, in their genuine self, generate a direction in their own free-flow of their expression that they incorporate no actual preference in relation to relationships and partners. Perhaps the individual naturally expresses in a manner to not necessarily couple themself, and perhaps the individual in their natural identity and expression, if allowed, would generate many relationships with many individuals and would not necessarily couple themself with any. But that same individual, in relation to what they have learned and what they have been taught, may reach an age of early 20s, shall we say, and shall move in a direction of seeking out a partner and couple themselves with this partner with the plan and the idea of being coupled, engaging a family, incorporating a home, generating a particular career. This is what the individual has been taught, what the individual is “supposed to do.” Many individuals do engage these types of actions and are comfortable with that and are moving in a natural direction, but many are not.

This is merely one example, in which that individual may generate those experiences and may choose those directions and may not necessarily be entirely comfortable. They may tolerate what they are doing – I would not necessarily express that they accept it – but this is what is expected, this is what they expect of themself, this is what you do, and therefore, this is what I shall do. And they do, and they may be safe. They may be, at times, neutrally comfortable. The individual may at times generate a genuine comfort in moments, but overall they are existing. They are not honoring their genuine self. They do not even know who their genuine self is. For, what they see of their genuine self is all of the attachments.

Now; what is the point of being aware of the attachments? The point is when you know and you can identify these attachments to your identity, you can also recognize this is not necessarily actually me; this is what I do or this is what I WANT to do, not what I MUST do. Attachments create the have-tos, the musts, the shoulds, the should-nots. The genuine identity does not incorporate the shoulds, the should nots, the have-tos, the musts, the musn’ts. Those are not associated with your genuine self.

Now; this is not to say that you do not choose those aspects, those expressions of attachments, or even that you do not want to choose some of them – you do! There are aspects of all of your attachments that you prefer, that you actually like, that you want to express. Therefore, they are not necessarily bad, but they are limiting if you are not aware of them. How many individuals discount themselves very strongly and then justify it, expressing, “But this is myself; this is who I am; I cannot change that.” Yes, you can. For your genuine self is not as limited as the attachments that you place upon yourselves.

These attachments can either be a very hard encasing shell that you cannot shine through, or they can be adorning decorations. They create interesting and wondrous and curious patterns that you shine through. But in many situations, they are the hard shell that is not allowing you to express yourselves genuinely and freely in who you actually are.

Some individuals are naturally observers and are comfortable and naturally express not engaging. But they may be within the midst of a group of individuals, and other individuals may be pressing to engage. Therefore, they do – for they should, SHOULD be speaking with other individuals. But that may not necessarily be your genuine self. Therefore, what SHOULD you be doing? And why SHOULD you engage in a manner that is not natural to you?

Some individuals are naturally flamboyant, and they may be in a group of individuals that want them to be quiet! (Laughter) Very well, why should you be quiet? It is not your natural expression.

In that, yes, you do interact with each other, you do generate guidelines in groups, and you do generate guidelines in behaviors. But in knowing what your natural movement is, what your natural expression is, you can also choose with whom and where you interact. If you are not naturally an individual that enjoys being quiet, you will not choose to be in situations in which you are expected to be quiet. If you are an individual that is naturally quiet and not as interactive, you will not choose to be in situations in which you must be interactive and engaging. If you are aware of your own independence, you can choose how to express that – not to your own detriment but to your benefit, how you can be interconnected, not alone.

How many individuals present here have experienced moments in which they feel very alone? If any of you were to express to myself that you did not (chuckles), I would express to you that you are delusional! (Laughter) Ah, yes! And when is it, generally speaking, that you feel most alone?

KEN G.: When I’m discounting myself.

ELIAS: Very much so. When you are judging yourselves, you feel very alone. When you perceive you are generating a wrong action, you feel very disconnected and alone, for no other individual would understand and no other individual incorporates your experience. Therefore, you are very alone. When you cannot decipher what you perceive to be a significant problem that you are generating, you feel alone.

You are NEVER alone. I would express, although there are no absolutes, this would be the closest absolute. It is almost not possible for you to be alone. For you are consciousness; therefore, you are always interconnected. Whether you allow yourself to recognize that and acknowledge that or not is a different situation, but you are NEVER alone.

Now; this is not to say that what you feel is not very real. It is. Is it valid? No. Does it matter that it’s not valid? In many situations, not always. Do you care if it is not valid in many situations when you are feeling very alone? No. Can you ask yourself, “Is this feeling valid?” Yes, you can, and can you express to yourself, “No, this is not necessarily valid”? Does that generally matter to you at that moment? For, you are feeling what you are feeling. No, it generally does not matter to you that it may not be valid.

LYNDA: Wow, I didn’t know that you knew that. (Laughter) But you do! Thanks.

ELIAS: In this, what is significant to remember is that although you are each very unique and individual and perhaps even somewhat independent, you are not alone and you are not one thread by yourselves. You are a fabric that is all interwoven, and distance or time is not a factor in this fabric. Physical proximity matters not in this fabric. You cannot be separated out from it. And when one thread in that fabric turns dull, the whole of the fabric begins to stop shimmering. When one thread of the fabric glows, the rest of the fabric shines also.

It may not SEEM to be this in your individual experiences, but the reason that it does not SEEM to be this is that you become so very caught in your own web of attachments and isolation and independence, which creates this perception of disconnection. But you are NOT disconnected. Yes?

PAT B.: As you talk about independence, I keep going back to the idea of our country, our country having the Declaration of Independence and what we were pushing away from. As we are pushing away and we think that we are so separate and we have such a great responsibility being the United States of America, we’re actually pulling ourselves away from the rest of the world in our independence, separating ourselves.

ELIAS: And what do you do, as your country? Those three factors are very much in play, are they not? Right choices, responsibility and control.

PAT B.: Exactly, and that’s where we are right now. That’s where so much of the world is looking down on us, because we have separated ourselves, putting ourselves on a pedestal because of our independence.

ELIAS: Correct.

PAT B.: So everything you’re saying here, I’m relating to as a country...

ELIAS: And you do that individually!

PAT B.: ...not just as individuals but in mass.

ELIAS: Yes, very much so.

JOHN: I think you can see that internally in the health care debate, as well.

ELIAS: Very much so. it is very much being reflected in more of an obvious manner now, for you are addressing to it now.

PAT B.: And we stand behind the Declaration of Independence and who we are and what we are, and we’re not getting our freedom. What we’re doing is we’re separating ourselves and becoming more responsible to others.

ELIAS: Correct, and more disconnected rather than interconnected.

Freedom is gained and expressed in interconnection. This is where your freedom lies, in being interconnected, in knowing that whatever you may not necessarily generate an ability to do another individual does and complements you. Therefore, you are accomplishing. And whenever, in your very realistic terms, you fall, there is another to help you up, for you ARE interconnected.

When you generate an action, it is not merely theory or hypothetical that what you do is felt a world away – it IS. It IS affecting. What you do that you perceive is merely your own individual small experience and does not touch any other individual, and that no other individuals benefit from what you are doing for they do not even know what you are doing, they do. They may not know your name, they may not know your face, but they feel your energy.

Energy is a very real expression. It is as real as your physical bodies. It is bigger than your physical bodies, and it is freer than your physical bodies and your intellect, for it knows no boundaries. It can move in any direction and span any distance. Your energy, being in this room presently this day, reaches to the farthest extent of your universe that you cannot even see. But it is present.

The point is what you do with that energy. You are EACH – I cannot emphasize this strongly enough, whether you believe it or not, which we shall also be discussing, what you believe – EACH of you incorporates equal strength to any society. However strong you perceive a collective to be in a society, each of you individually is equally as strong and incorporates equal ability to accomplish.

Another example of a current situation in your reality with your economy, with your global situation and in this particular country, there are individuals – are there not, Catherine? – that regardless of what the economy appears to be or how many employments or jobs there are not can create the precise job that is wanted and doing precisely what you desire to do. Correct?

SUE: Correct.

ELIAS: Correct, regardless that the society around you is expressing doom and gloom and that this is not the time framework to be engaging certain actions, for it is all very negative.

You are equally as strong as your government. Regardless of how many individuals incorporate that mass, your one individual self is equally as strong. It is equally as strong as any society, and you can accomplish whatever you choose to do, whenever you choose to do it. It is merely a matter of removing some of your own obstacles – your own cliché of “moving out of your own way” – and in that, your own way is your own attachments, allowing them not to be such very strong incredible clamps upon you, but rather flowing materials that are decorations rather than boxes that trap you, that allow you genuine freedom in your interconnectedness.

How many times have I expressed to all of you that in relation to manipulating energy, if you want to accomplish a particular action in manipulating energy how much easier and more efficient and more quickly you can accomplish that if you pool energy? All of you are familiar with that term, pooling energy. What is that? That is interconnected. You accomplish much quickly, much more efficiently, effectively and stronger when you are interconnected than you do when you separate yourselves out to be alone. (Quietly) And you are not alone.

Another point in this which is also connected with what we were expressing in relation to feeling alone and when you feel alone and questioning yourself is “is this valid?” Does it matter if it is valid? What is significant is what you believe in that moment – not what your beliefs are, but what you believe in the moment that you are experiencing. This holds for whatever your experience is, but it is very important in moments when you are uncomfortable, you are distressed, you are disconnected, you are feeling alone. What are you believing at that moment? For whatever you believe, you trust; you do not question. You very strongly, almost implicitly trust what you believe. Therefore, it is significant to question yourself: “In this moment, what do I believe? What do I believe is occurring? What do I believe about myself? What do I believe about my world, about other individuals?” For, that is what you trust in that moment.

Also, paying attention to what you believe can very strongly but very easily reinforce your recognition of trust. We discuss trust considerably and frequently. Trust, in some capacities for many individuals, can be somewhat elusive: “What is trust? How do I know that I am trusting?”

One manner in which you know you are trusting is to ask yourself what you believe, for you do trust that and how easily you express that. It does not incorporate much effort or work. In whatever you believe, you merely believe it, and that is a very strong example of what you trust and how you trust. If I believe this, I trust it. This is a manner in which you can evaluate with yourselves how you are trusting, what you trust, what you do not trust, and a manner in which it is easy to define what you are trusting and what you are not trusting in relation to yourselves also: “What do I believe about myself? What do I not believe about myself? Those are what I trust and what I do not trust about myself.” They can be very telling, but they can be very helpful in you generating more clarity in relation to your genuineness, who you are and what choices you want to engage, rather than merely engaging automatically.

We shall break. We shall continue, and I shall open the floor for your questions.

ALL: Thank you!

BREAK after 54 minutes.

ELIAS: Continuing! Now we shall open to your questions.

JEREMY: Well, as we all know, I love to talk, but I’m going to do something a little bit different this time. I’d like you to address possibly how vulnerability and people at large viewing it as a weakness, how that works into independence and the openness that vulnerability creates that people fear, yadda-yadda. Now you take the floor. I’ve already done my song and dance.

ELIAS: (Laughs) Therefore, your question and subject matter is “how vulnerability associates with independence”?

JEREMY: Yes, in the sense that if you’re independent you have a strength to yourself, but if you’re vulnerable and you’re relying on all these other individuals, that creates an openness that most people view as a weakness.

ELIAS: Very well. First of all, it is a matter of defining independence and recognizing that dependence is not actually the reverse of independence, that dependence is an entirely different expression and is not actually related to independence, contrary to what you think of it.

Dependence generally is expressed in individuals that are significantly to severely discounting themselves and their abilities, and generate the perception that they cannot accomplish actions themselves. Therefore, they turn their attention outside of themselves for approval, for abilities, and in that, they move in a direction of reliance upon other individuals to be generating actions for them in relation to their tremendous self-discounting.

Independence is an entirely different subject, for individuals can severely discount themselves and also continue to be independent. Independence is more an action in which individuals generate this perception of what you term to be self-reliance. In that, this is the reason that individuals prize this expression so very much. For in one manner of speaking, it does allow the individual to show, in a manner of speaking, their abilities, to express their abilities. Therefore, that would be the aspect of independence that you would term to be good or beneficial.

But it is also generated in extreme, and therefore creates the situation of disconnect and not acknowledging that interconnection – not merely with other individuals, but interconnection with All That Is, interconnection with all of your environment, with your world, with your universe, with consciousness regardless of how it is manifest. You are interconnected with it all. You are interconnected with a mountain, with a stream, with the air and with the universe as you see it or as you perceive it – not merely other individuals, although other individuals are a significant part of what you are interconnected with.

Now; in relation to vulnerability, that can be expressed in either situation. In actuality, vulnerability would be less expressed with individuals that you would term to be dependent. For although surfacely they appear or they present the facade or the camouflage of being more vulnerable, in actuality they are not. These individuals generally are expressing more shielding and therefore more boundaries, more of blockages, more walls in relation to that factor of interconnectedness. They allow less interconnectedness. Regardless that they surfacely are enlisting other individuals for what appears to be helpfulness, what they are doing is they are enlisting other individuals’ abilities and their expressions, and substituting them as their own.

In this, they are not expressing a vulnerability or an openness, for generally speaking they do not want other individuals to see them. They want to be hidden. They do not want you to see their vulnerability or their openness, for that merely would enhance and emphasize what they are already discounting within themselves – a lack of their own abilities, or how they perceive them.

In relation to independence, it can move in either direction. If an individual is genuinely recognizing their interconnection with other individuals and with All That Is, they can be expressing a genuine vulnerability and openness and not be threatened, for they are also expressing confidence and a satisfaction within themselves. When they are comfortable themselves, then it is easy to allow that interconnectedness with other individuals. Generally speaking, when you are uncomfortable with yourself, you also block that interconnection with other individuals, which also lends to that feeling of aloneness.

In this, if an individual is expressing independence in relation to the attachment in the manner that we were discussing, that can create a block in relation to vulnerability, for the individual can be closed within themself and not allowing themself to recognize that interconnectedness with All That Is, and therefore, they are generating considerable energy merely maintaining their own independence and not allowing for that openness and that interconnectedness.

Vulnerability is not a negative. It is not an open invitation to be hurt. Vulnerability is an expression of openness that allows you to gain. It allows you to receive. Contrary to religious beliefs that express “giving is much better than receiving,” I would disagree. Receiving is the ultimate gift that you can offer to yourselves, for there is so much richness in your reality that receiving is merely an action of allowing yourself to absorb that richness, to participate with that richness. It is not always that it generates the action of giving a thing to one another. Receiving is an action of allowance. It is yourself allowing yourself to connect, to draw-in from outwardly.

We discuss considerably how important it is to be paying attention to yourselves and to be aware of what is occurring inwardly with yourselves, but you are not participating in a reality in isolation. You are not one individual that occupies the entirety of your earth. There are many, many, many, many, many of you, and you all are interacting together, and you all affect each other, as I expressed previously. Whether you are objectively aware of it or not, you are affecting of each other in manners that you would not even generally comprehend, but in this, in an expression of independence, knowing that you are interconnected and in that interconnection that other individuals are not set upon being intrusive or hurtful to you.

This is also a significant point in relation to vulnerability. Individuals are leery of expressing that openness and vulnerability, for you do automatically associate that that creates an open door for any other individual to be hurtful or to be intrusive or to take advantage. No individual can be intrusive, hurtful or take advantage of you unless you allow them to do so. Generally speaking, when you allow them to do so, you are already projecting an energy of discounting yourself, which is drawing that action to you. Long before another individual approaches you in some manner that is distressing or disturbing or hurtful or annoying, you have already been projecting that energy within yourself and are drawing that, are attracting that to you. Therefore, you create it.

In this, genuine vulnerability is a genuine expression of openness. When individuals express that they are hurt or they are intruded upon, they are not expressing an openness. Openness requires a prerequisite of acknowledgment of yourself, of your worth, a recognition of your own value. An expression of vulnerability, in your terms, in which an individual is expressing, “I am being very open,” and the individual thusly experiences some hurtful action, no, this is not a genuine openness; this is a false openness. It is a facade. It is what you think you are being, being open: “I am allowing this other individual to interact with me.” Allowing another individual to interact with you is not necessarily being open. You are continuously allowing other individuals to interact with you.

If you were to actually look at, visually see, your own energy fields while you are interacting with other individuals, that would indicate to you if you were actually being vulnerable. If your energy field is being held very close and tight to your body consciousness, no, you are not being open or vulnerable, although you may express that you are for you are allowing another individual to interact with you.

There is a significant difference between allowing another individual to interact with you and being open to that other individual interacting with you, which you all are familiar with in generating situations in which you may be engaging a conversation with another individual and you are allowing the other individual to express themself in their opinion, and within you, you are expressing to yourself, “Well, that is your opinion, and you may have it, and I care not. I disagree with you, and I am not actually listening to you – but you can express yourself. I will not receive it, but I also will not stop you from expressing yourself. And I will express to myself that I am being accepting, for I am allowing you to express.” No, you are not being accepting, and no, you are not being vulnerable. You are not expressing openness. You are merely allowing another individual to express. Are you receiving? No. That is not vulnerability.

When you are confident within yourself, you can afford to be vulnerable, for you are not generating the fear of the threat that there is some hurt. For there is no threat of hurt in genuine vulnerability, in genuine openness, for you are already aware that if there is a hurt, you are creating it, not the other individual.

Now; let me emphasize a point in this – not to say that hurt is not very real, it is, and not to say that feeling hurt is wrong or bad; it is not. Individuals feel hurt many times, even if they know that they themselves are creating that and it is not the fault of another individual. There are time frameworks and situations in which you may present to yourself a significant difference between yourself and another individual, and depending upon that difference and depending upon how invested you are in your own guidelines and your own perception – not that this is wrong; it is not – you may feel hurt, for an aspect of you may grieve in that difference. That is not necessarily generating a judgment of wrong in relation to what the other individual is expressing. What it is expressing is an acknowledgment of your own difference and that the difference itself grieves you, for many times significant differences with individuals creates barriers. It creates a type of separation. Therefore, that is unnatural, and your genuine self knows that.

Therefore, you may feel hurt, but it is not the type of hurt that you define or that you are accustomed to defining. It may feel the same in whether you blame another individual or whether you blame yourself: “I did this to myself; I created this.” It matters not; the hurt is the same, and the hurt is real. That is not a result of vulnerability. For, vulnerability and hurt is an action of threat. There is no threat in genuine vulnerability, for you recognize that no outside source can generate hurtfulness to you unless you allow that; therefore, there is no threat. But hurtfulness can be expressed in your own recognition inwardly of that grieving of separation and a lack of connection when you generate significant differences.

I will express again, this is not bad, and we are not generating utopia in this shift. You are not eliminating all of your feelings, and you are also not replacing all of the feelings that are uncomfortable with all pleasant, joyful feelings. One of the reasons is the very nature of yourselves, your human species. As humans, discomfort is motivating. You strive and strive and strive for comfort, you attain it, and you become complacent with it. You express continuously over and over to myself, “How can I maintain comfort continuously, always, and never experience any discomfort?” Disengage from this reality! (Laughter) For this reality incorporates emotion.

JEREMY: That kind of verges on a creative dilemma, right?

ELIAS: How so?

JEREMY: Well, you create a conflict, but it’s more a beneficial conflict. It’s not a conflict that needs resolving so much. In fact, the resolving would kind of dissipate the creativity that blossoms from it, so it would be a creative dilemma.

ELIAS: Not necessarily. It is dependent upon the individual. Yes, conflicts do blossom into new information and new explorations and experimentations. Are they comfortable? Not necessarily.

NATASHA: Can you stay open during the conflicts?

ELIAS: You can, yes.

NATASHA: How do you recognize that you are open during the conflict or during the discussion or during the conversation and you are disagreeing with your opposite? How do we know that?

ELIAS: You can disagree and not be threatened. When you notice in a conversation, in an interaction in your disagreement, that you are expressing any aspect of defense, you are no longer open, for you are now engaging a threat and you are expressing to that threat with defense. And defense can be expressed in many different capacities.

Defense is not always expressed in the capacity of what you would perceive as protecting yourself, although that is what you are doing. But it can be expressed in a very aggressive manner. You can be motivated to be expressing more strongly in an attempt to convince another individual of your opinion or your point of view or to instruct them in what they do not understand or what you perceive they do not understand or to correct them in what they are interpreting wrong. Any of these expressions are a defense; you are defending your position.

When you are defending your position, you are not being open. You are not being genuine with the other individual. You are not being vulnerable. You are protecting; you are shielding; you are blocking the other individual. You are not allowing yourselves to receive. What you are doing is you are projecting, and generally speaking, you generate that harder and harder and harder until the point that one individual, either yourself or the other, concedes. And in that, you draw stalemates.

NATASHA: Another question that I had previously, how do you make yourself recognize interconnectedness?

ELIAS: That is an excellent question. I would express that it is, for most of you, initially not very easy, for you are manifest in this reality individually, singularly. You are housed in one individual body, and that creates this illusion of separateness. You each incorporate qualities and expressions and identities that are uniquely you. Therefore, that also creates the appearance of another separation and less of an interconnectedness. But energy, once again, is boundless, and although you each incorporate your own unique qualities and expressions and identities in this reality that are individual, your energy is not necessarily individual.

NATASHA: It’s not?

ELIAS: No. Energy is energy, and energy is a product of consciousness. It is a manifestation of consciousness. Consciousness cannot be separated; therefore, energy is not separated. Therefore, what you are interconnected with continuously, always, is energy, and it is not bounded, regardless of space or time. In that, regardless of opinions, regardless of qualities, of talents, of abilities, it matters not. Your energy is all connected.

I will suggest to all of you to experiment. I have suggested previously that you experiment with physically viewing your energy fields, individually or with each other. Beyond viewing energy fields that are more associated with your individual body consciousness, I would suggest an experiment that you can each engage, in merely viewing energy. You will begin to see that regardless of what you are viewing the energy around, be it a chair or plant or your floor or a creature or any object, it blends with all other energy around it.

Your energy is very similar, in a manner of speaking, to your air. Can you find or discover one area in your reality that there is no air?

NATASHA: What about a vacuum?

ELIAS: You can create a vacuum, but there is some aspect of air in the vacuum also, even within space. It is not necessarily air that you breathe, it is not necessarily air in the configuration that you are accustomed to, but it is present. In that, you cannot necessarily touch it, and unlike energy, you cannot necessarily see air unless it is colored with some other gas. You need no gas to see an energy field or to see energy at all. It is visible without any colorance; it colors itself.

ELLA: If I focus on anyone in this room, I could perceive an exchange of energy without necessarily seeing anything?

ELIAS: Yes!

ELLA: But I could use the other senses...?

ELIAS: Yes, even without visually seeing – although you can visually see it, also – you can feel it. In this, you can experiment with energy, how interconnected you are, in FEELING energy, and experiment how many times you bump into other energies.

You can feel, if you are paying attention, when you approach any other manifestation. You will bump into its energy. It will be very brief, for immediately they absorb together; they merge. But there is an initial tap that you can feel, if you are paying attention, in which you will notice that you are colliding with another energy. In that, you will also notice how very quickly they merge and intermingle together, just as any other gas mingles with your air and creates patterns.

ELLA: Elias, I would like to ask you, we have observed the trend of what you are discussing right now already for a couple of sessions, so obviously a time has come where you are leading us somewhere. While we are on our journey, still many of us would value what you describe as self-reliance, and there is nothing wrong with it?

ELIAS: Correct.

ELLA: What you are saying is that maybe we could notice and find the balance between self-reliance and still be interconnected?

ELIAS: Yes!

ELLA: Is there anything, other than what you just described as that experiment, that you are suggesting for us to do or to notice other than what you have just given?

ELIAS: Listen to other individuals. Pay attention. Question other individuals’ experiences. You will begin to recognize that they are not so dissimilar from your own. As unique as you each are, you are all interconnected, and that shows itself in your experiences and in the similarities in what you do, in how you perceive, in how you feel. Even in situations in which you can present yourself with an individual that you would deem to be extremely mentally disturbed, an individual that you perceive incorporates no conscience, that can express the most heinous actions and not feel remorse, even those individuals feel similarly to all of you in some capacities.

ELLA: So you’re saying to focus on similarities rather than on differences, as much as possible?

ELIAS: As an experiment to recognize that interconnection more, not necessarily in general. I am not expressing the power of positive thinking, and I am not expressing that you entirely consume yourself with positiveness and that therefore you will all recognize your interconnection.

ELLA: Actually, I didn’t mean it this way. I’m just saying that lately – we are all different – but there is a sense that I could value those differences and find similarities almost as a common denominator...

ELIAS: Yes.

ELLA: ...rather than focus on “you are different; go away.”

ELIAS: And a complement. Yes, you are correct.

HOWIE: Elias, I was wondering if we could get a few moments of elaboration revolving back to the idea of attachment and similar related ideas which I have found in culture, that say attachment or all attachment leads to suffering. In that respect, there’s also the piece of “detachment,” which might be what you were describing as moving away from. That’s something I’m not clear on, and aversion or avoidance and how this all plays into participation or not.

ELIAS: Aversion, avoidance, detaching, these are all actions that individuals generate to be isolating. They are motivated by or stem from the individual discounting themself, not accepting certain aspects of themself, viewing certain aspects of themself as bad or wrong, and therefore not wanting to connect for they already view themselves as being wrong or bad.

Generally speaking, this is another commonality that you do when you perceive yourselves in a particular way. You automatically assume that every other individual will know that too, or will perceive you in that manner also: “I am viewing myself as bad or not adequate, and therefore when I present myself to other individuals, that is what they will see also; that is how they will perceive me.” Or, “If I do not generate this action in a particular manner, other individuals will perceive me as not adequate or as wrong or as not good enough.” The individual themself is already discounting of themself, and therefore, once again, that is the energy they are projecting. Therefore, that is what they will draw to themselves. They will create that attraction, and in many situations, they will match it.

But surprisingly, there are situations in which the individual may be discounting themself but also may incorporate enough value of themself, regardless that they can be discounting themselves, that they will not necessarily reflect from other individuals that they are wrong or they are bad or that they are not good enough. They may reflect to themselves the entire reverse, in which individuals genuinely do appreciate them and express that, regardless that they may not be feeling very well about themselves in any particular time framework.

But once again, that is associated with their experience at that time, what they are experiencing themself, and how they are generating their own judgment of themself in that time framework. Which yes, that does move in conjunction with some attachments, for it may be an individual is judging themself or discounting themself in regard to a relationship or in regard to their employment, and perhaps their opinion and their perception of themself is that they are not generating adequately or not enough in whatever they are doing. There is an aspect of that that is an attachment of either what they have learned or what they have been taught – more so more likely what they have been taught – of how to perform and what is acceptable productivity and what is not acceptable productivity. Therefore, that aspect of the attachment plays into their own discounting of themselves and their own feelings that they are already generating, and it exacerbates that and creates that being expressed even more strongly.

Another point in relation to this is you all are aware that each of you incorporates your core beliefs, your core truths. Most of you have identified what your core truth is, which we have established is your guideline.

Now; that, in this focus, in this reality, is a natural movement. It is not your identity, but it is a natural movement for you, and in that, many times your own natural movement with your own core beliefs or core truth can become intertwined with attachments also. An individual may incorporate a core truth of responsibility and also incorporate an attachment of responsibility. An individual may incorporate a core truth of respect and also incorporate an attachment of how respect is expressed and what it is. An individual may incorporate a core truth of roles or image, and also incorporate attachments that emphasize those. And that can become tricky, for in that, it is a matter of evaluating and discerning “what have I learned in relation to this subject, what have I been taught in relation to this subject, what are my experiences with this subject that influence me, and what is my genuine expression of it?” And there are differences.

An individual may be a naturally supportive individual. That may be an actual natural element of their genuine identity. They genuinely naturally express supportiveness, but they may also incorporate attachments in relation to personal responsibility. That can become confused in being supportive or being instructive to other individuals, for you are incorporating personal responsibility for them and they are not accomplishing well enough, for they are not generating adequately enough and they cannot generate their own choices well enough. Therefore, it is your responsibility to generate the choices for them. That is personal responsibility for other individuals; but you also may naturally express a supportiveness of other individuals.

Some individuals naturally express in their genuine identity actions and expressions of participating and giving. Other individuals may view that individual and express, “This individual incorporates difficulties and problems for they are always giving to other individuals. Obviously, they are not focusing their attention upon themself.” Perhaps not; perhaps they are. And perhaps this is a natural expression that the individual does.

It is a matter of evaluating within each of you. What are you naturally doing? What would you naturally do if you allowed yourself? What would you NOT naturally do if you allowed yourself, as opposed to what you do for this is what you have learned and what you have been taught and this is what your experiences suggest to you? More so, what would you NOT do if you allowed yourself permission to not do?

KEN G.: Is this what you referred to in the past as impulses, or true impulses?

ELIAS: Impulses move in conjunction with that, yes, for impulses are promptings that you present to yourself without thinking and many times without feeling. They are inner promptings. They are not necessarily thought of logically. They are not planned; they are spontaneous. Many times, they are in response to what you may be presenting to yourself.

You may present to yourself an interaction with another individual that is very uncomfortable, and you may generate an impulse to remove yourself. Whether you listen to that impulse or not is a choice. Generally, depending upon the situation, I would express that the impulse may be ignored for it is not what you have learned and it is not what you are taught: “That is rude.”

KEN G.: Are true impulses always from genuineness?

ELIAS: Yes.

JEREMY: So when you ask for impressions, for people to give their impressions about things all these years, is that your way of saying not to listen to the attachments but to listen more to that genuine identity, like through the interconnectedness of that?

ELIAS: Somewhat. That would be somewhat different from impulses.

Impressions are knowledge that you incorporate that you are not necessarily always objectively aware of but is available to you, and that you know but you are not always thinking of. Therefore, impressions appear to you to be more spontaneous. In actuality, they are not, for you already possess the information. It is merely a matter of listening to the information that you already possess.

Impulses are promptings. Those are actions, and those are generally spontaneous. They are not planned. They are not already stored, so to speak. They are not an action that is calculated, in a manner of speaking. They are inner promptings in a moment in association with whatever probabilities you are engaging in that moment and whatever is the most beneficial to you in that moment, which is also another reason that generally many of you do not listen to them. Your thinking overrides them, and your intellect expresses that you know more than your impulses.

PAT B.: Where does a twinge come in?

ELIAS: That would be very similar in certain capacities to impulses, but twinges can also be associated with intuition or impressions.

PAT B.: Whenever I have a twinge, I usually can look at it and say I made a judgment.

ELIAS: It is information that you already possess, and it is being brought to your objective attention. You prompt yourself, in a manner of speaking, which could be termed to be a twinge, in which there is information that you know.

PAT B.: It’s always a judgment? Every time you have a twinge, are you making a judgment? Or am I wrong there?

ELIAS: Not necessarily, for I would express that for the most part whatever you are expressing you are attaching some type of a judgment to. That is the difference between the belief system of duplicity and the other belief systems. Duplicity is the one belief system that attaches itself to ALL of the belief systems. It attaches itself to all actions and all that you do, whether it be...

PAT B.: And a twinge is part of that duplicity.

ELIAS: It can be, yes.

LYNDA: I swear I’m not feeling responsible, but we have to close up.

ELIAS: Very well!

KEN M.: Quick question before we go?

ELIAS: Very well.

KEN M.: I would ask if you could give us an assessment of the collective energy that we all as humanity are experiencing in this communication wave, just a brief assessment of how you would describe the overall energy. Basically, just how are we doing? (Laughter)

ELIAS: Intensity, some confusion, tremendous anticipation.

KEN M.: I was thinking that word intensity, exactly. I feel it’s dissipating, myself. That’s just my own feeling. I feel a kind of dissipation. It doesn’t seem like it’s...

ELIAS: Presently, it is not escalating, but it is not necessarily dissipating yet, either.

KEN M.: Understood. Thank you.

ELIAS: Very well. To you all, my dear friends, in tremendous affection and lovingness and great appreciation to each of you, and great encouragement to each of you in all that you are accomplishing – regardless of what you think you are accomplishing! Until our next meeting, my dear ones, au revoir.

GROUP: Au revoir! Thank you.

Elias departs after a combined total session time of 1 hour, 51 minutes.

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