Agreements and Choices

Dr. Paul Helfrick has graciously allowed me to use his introductory remarks to the Elias digest that covers agreements and choices. Paul is in the forefront on the work being done on the Post Modern Mythology and is the creator of The Elias Forum and New World View, both of which appear as permanent links on this blog. And so, straight from sunny Castaic, California….. Heeeeere’s Paulie!!!

This is a challenging Digest because it deals with very deep themes such as the relationship between aspects of subjective and objective awareness, free will, murder and other acts of violence, life after death, purpose, intention, meaning, suffering, compassion, and more. According to Elias, we hold two main types of complementary awareness: subjective and objective. Objective awareness is our perception in physical terms, or what he calls Regional Area 1. But our subjective awareness is nested with Regional Areas 2, 3, and 4 and further inward and plays a major role in our perception in Regional Area 1. But how?

Well, that’s the sixty-four skillion dollar question, because it deals with the mechanics of reality creation within at least four Regional Areas, three of which (2, 3, 4) have been reduced by modern sciences to nonexistence, since they cannot be perceived and measured consistently by the five outer senses. This is what emergent postmodern sciences are exploring with the intent to reap practical benefits in terms of personal and collective health, abundance, relationships, and fulfillment. So far, researchers like William Tiller, and theorists like Ken Wilber, Amit Goswami, Christian de Quincy, and many others are probing the quantum edges of Regional Area 2, and outlining ways to go even further.

Within Elias’ cosmology, subjective awareness works in harmony with objective awareness and plays a role in all reality creation. But just how much? How much say does subjective awareness get? Where does subjective end and objective begin? Is there really such a black and white borderline or dimensional veil? Elias has provided several examples of pre-birth or involutionary choices made solely by subjective awareness, with the intent and value fulfillment of potential objective awarenesses fully considered.

For example, our orientations, thought-emotional-political-religious focus, essence family alignments, essence fragmentation, counterpart relationships, babe essence, dispersed essence, and more are all choices made before our physical births. But are these subjective limitations imposed by what objective awareness perceives as an outside agency, or raw potentials enfolded creatively and joyfully for objective experience?

Given the richness of subjective awareness and its ability to make choices within Regional Areas 2, 3, 4, and further inward, it’s easy for our objective awareness to feel dwarfed by the immensity of what our physical perception arises from in subjective terms! Therefore, the relationship between subjective and objective aspects of essence is a very, very important area of exploration and personal growth.
Elias also distinguishes between choices and agreements, which is why I’ve chosen to include both in this Digest. Namely, choice exists on subjective and objective levels, of course, but there is a distinction made about essence agreements (subjective awareness) which impact physical lifetimes (objective awareness).
Subjective agreements are involutionary or pre-birth choices because the outer ego has yet to develop. Elias says, “they are quite complex and extensive.”

For instance, when Elias talks about the subject of murder, on small or large scales, there is clearly something deeper occurring that allows for what we know as murder. This includes rape, assault, robbery, and other innate violations, too.
So we really need to ponder what Elias means when he talks about choices in relationship to agreements. Choice defines which probabilities we will objectively experience. Objective awareness includes free will, then, and it’s a very powerful tool, but it can become atrophied through excessive cultural conditioning in terms of belief systems and arrested development.

Subjective free will occurs in what Elias calls agreements. Objectively, we experience them as impulses, which Elias defines as “an automatic response urged by essence.” So there is a communication system or what Elias calls avenues of communication between subjective and objective awareness.

Most people would never admit they actually chose a debilitating accident or dis-ease, and yet, according to Elias, this is exactly what we do. But who chooses? Subjective or objective awareness? Or both? Is this just another unbridgeable dualism, like the modern Cartesian body/mind split?

An important part of our growth and fulfillment, then, is to learn why accidents, dis-ease, and other challenging experiences are chosen in the first place. Elias introduced the concepts of periphery and a> href="http://eliasforum.org/digests/uo.html">unofficial information to help us do just that. Further, it’s possible to know what agreements exist within essence by engaging the remembrance of essence. This is part of what Elias calls the shift in consciousness. Through learning to work with altered states, dreams, out-of-body projections, impressions, inner senses, and impulses we can begin to pierce the veils of separation between objective and subjective awareness that we’ve purposefully chosen for the purity of the physical experience.

In purely physical terms, this is as an evolutionary widening of awareness. However, Elias uses the word “choices” instead of “evolution” to indicate all growth and fulfillment because it is his stated intent to help redefine conventional thinking in these areas.

With adequate introspection, we can begin to notice how various automatic responses are actually choices based on our belief systems, which may lead to unhealthy and unpleasant behaviors. For example, anger is an extreme form of frustration, an emotional communication from subjective to objective awareness. If left unchecked, frustrations can build into anger that becomes violent. And it can go even further into chronic violations, like serial rapists and killers.

So learning to notice, identify, recognize, address to, and accept those automatic responses that serve to limit our growth and fulfillment in very important. I call this practice NIRAA (pronounced nigh-rah) and it’s Elias’ way to work with our automatic responses to make informed choices that promote growth, abundance, healthy, fulfilling relationships with self and others.

Another related concept is that reality creation doesn’t require a thought process, which is merely a translating mechanism between subjective and objective awareness. Thoughts can be more or less accurate translations of subjective urges. When they become more and more distorted, we experience confusion and the hamster wheel of repeated behaviors that often serve to arrest our growth and fulfillment. So the NIRAA process is not limited to noticing unhealthy thoughts or changing beliefs, but ultimately bridging the gap between subjective and objective awareness.

So learning to notice, identify, and recognize what we objective DO and CHOOSE is the first step. With practice, NIRAA leads toward accepting beliefs and neutralizing their ability to arrest our becoming. Agreements, on the other hand, are the stuff of essence and remembrance. Engaging periphery, unofficial information, and widening awareness are all a means toward the end of engaging the remembrance of essence while physically focused. This is closer to the perennial notion of enlightenment, but that doesn’t imply a finished or end state, just an ever opening flower of choices and becoming.

(Bill) In the next blog I'll condense the agreements and choices information and give examples.
Bill Marshall