Just Published!

Traveler’s Guide to Real de Catorce and the Peyote fields of Mexico 

You can get to Real de Minas de

Striving is what animates the swirl of the thought forms in the akashic records – what we take as time.  Striving is the real cause or source of what is going on; moreover, this constant change and flux is completely random and chaotic.  For example, it has nothing whatsoever to do with competition for scarce resources, as the materialists would have it.   So to try to conceive of it at all we focus on arbitrary levels, and divide the lowest (most “recent” or “closest”) levels of movement – those relating to humanness – into four, which are the Four Faculties or moods.  But this is merely a convenience to enable us to get a handle on the unspeakable. 

All any sentient being is at any given moment of time is a set of tendencies this way and that; and the force which makes them appear to be a single, separated, being which persists in linear time is death.   Death is what keeps separated beings separated.  First there’s birth, and then this happens, that happens, and the other happens; and then there’s death.  That personal history, or album of thought form snapshots, is made of death; that is to say, the collection of thought forms apparently taking place in linear time – which separated beings perceive as their lives – that matrix of individuality, is just death.   That’s all death is:  the sequencing of an arbitrary collection of thought forms.   Many of those same thought forms are bound up in other collections of other deaths and those are what we have termed probable realities (Body of Fate).  Death is what keeps these thought form collections or lines of memory separated.  

 The real movement or emanation lies beneath the thought forms.  Although it seems to Mr. or Ms. Sentient Being that they persist in time and space, in fact they are in a constant flux.  All there is at any given moment are tendencies this way and that, like schools of fish that momentarily are oriented in the same direction.  The tendencies this way and that we apprehend as the moods which inform the moment (mold the thought forms which sentient beings create, i.e., the events which happen to them in their lives).  These tendencies in turn are influenced by the complete pattern of evolutionary memory of all the thought forms which have ever existed and ever will exist; namely the akashic records. 

(excerpted from The Great Wheel, Copyright © 2007 by Bob Makransky.  All rights reserved).
More of Bob Makransky’s articles are posted at:  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagicalAlmanac/files 
 

Magic, for example, is a wholly different way of organizing basically the same thought form material as materialistic science.  A master magician can fly, read thoughts, communicate over long distances, etc.  A materialistic scientist can also do some of these things, but he needs a machine to do them.  He needs the prop of a machine thought form to perform these dream tasks because in his conscious, accessible memory humans can only do these things with machines.   But there are other possibilities of memory, other lines of memory which can be accessed, in which these feats can be performed as acts of intent, or magic, but still within the basic context of human memory.  And there are other levels of memory which can be accessed (that of cellular and even molecular feeling) which are even weirder.  But all these memories press upon, or shape, the present moment.  The Wright Brothers, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, were all reaching out along one particular line of memory; but they were influenced by other lines of memory (the racial memory that humans – albeit magicians – can fly, communicate at a distance, see in the dark, etc.).  Which in turn is based upon memories of other possibilities of experience.  The whole thing is a turning wheel, with wheels within wheels.  And although it’s evolving, it’s not going anywhere in particular.

The collective memory of the human race forms and informs each new thought form created by any individual human; and each thought form gives a little tug to the direction that collective memory is heading in, just as each drop helps fill a bucket.  Memory is an anchor that holds us back in a sense, but also stabilizes our experience – grooves it – by providing us with a feeling of familiarity.   Without an underlying feeling of familiarity, everything would be truly bizarre.  Familiarity is what ties everything together for us, gives us a sense of continuity, etc.  Familiarity is to memory what importance is to mind – it stabilizes it.  Without a feeling of familiarity everything would be like new every instant.  Even a baby has a sense of familiarity to stabilize him, otherwise he’d be completely disoriented.

 Master magicians, unlike average people, have no sense of familiarity.  They find every minute totally disorienting.  They just don’t freak out about it as an average person would since they’ve gotten used to it.  They’ve learned to operate without a sense of self or center, in an environment that is totally unfamiliar.  In other words, they have familiarized themselves with the unfamiliar.  They use familiarity just like everyone else uses familiarity, to steady themselves, to provide a springboard to action.  But they don’t cling to familiarity and go bananas when they find themselves in a thoroughly unfamiliar and disorienting situation.

The world is completely new, startlingly new and unrecognizable, every instant.  To us it seems that this present moment is similar to a moment ago.  But this is a falsehood:  every moment is a whole new ballgame, with completely different rules.  Familiarity is a gloss or lie we tell ourselves that what is happening at this moment bears any resemblance whatsoever to what was happening a moment ago.  It makes us focus upon the features of reality which seem to persist – the thought forms.  Thought forms have no persistence either:  what they have is a little built-in tape recorder saying over and over “I persist!  I persist!  Look ma, I persist!”  Listening to this tape recording occupies our total attention, so that we never look around and notice that nothing persists, that every passing moment is utterly baffling and ineffable.   Familiarity is the basis of our sense of separatedness. 

(continued …)

The part of the akashic records which is available to us as humans is accessed by the faculty which we call memory.  We can access these thought forms in one of two ways:  dynamically (sequentially, as we do in everyday life) or statically (all at once, as we do when we recapitulate our life memories at death).  But actually the entire body of the akashic records is not only available right there at every moment in time, it is actually pressing on it.  It’s not creating it per se (it is the action of mind to create thought forms) but rather the weight of the akashic records  provides the general form or matrix out of which mind can finish shaping a thought form.  Mind doesn’t start from scratch but relies heavily upon memory to create thought forms.  There are realms in which memory doesn’t exist:  we can access these in moments of ecstasy, but we can’t create thought forms in these moments.  Even as low a level of ecstasy as climactic orgasm is so “now” that there’s not enough room (separatedness) for much memory to bear upon it.
 
Mind is guided, or nudged along, by memory, and at the same time it imposes a temporality or linear march of time on memory.  Mind cannot exist without memory (it cannot organize something in sequence if there is nothing to organize); but memory can exist without mind (the thought form bank exists as a whole and can be experienced as a whole in lucid dreaming, after death, and even in very poignant moments in waking consciousness, without any sense of temporal sequence or “time”). 

To say that the akashic records are pressing upon each new moment is to say that the thought form we create at each moment of “time” includes our memory of what one-cell creatures feel; which led them to evolve into more complex life forms – animals, vertebrates, mammals, primates, and then into humans – with the memories of all those feelings; as well as all of the feelings we have ever felt in all of our own incarnations as humans; together with the feelings we felt at each moment in our present lifetime and all of its probable realities.  All levels of memory, striving, hope, aspiration, fear etc. come to bear upon each new moment in our lives, help to shape it out of material that is familiar.  Life isn’t a zing-zing-zing from one incomprehensible scene to another – it has an orderly progression to it, which is what we mean by the principle of mind.  Mind is thus a more specialized facet of memory. 

Look at it this way:  the inverse square law (gravity, magnetism etc.) is a fabrication.  It doesn’t describe anything that is really going on in the universe.  It wasn’t even true of anything until Newton came along and made it true.  Of course, Kepler, Copernicus etc. were also pushing that idea along, it didn’t start with Newton.  He didn’t conjure that thought form up out of thin air, but based it on things other men had done before him.  That’s what is meant when it is said that memory is the shaper of thought forms on which mind puts the finishing touches.   The future pulls the past along:  it was just as much Newton trying to do what Newton tried to do which influenced Kepler to do what Kepler did, which called upon Copernicus to do his thing, as it was the other way around.  Humankind was pushing along in the direction of making an inverse square law describe a certain type of light fiber, on which it had pasted the thought form of “gravity”.  But it could have just as easily pasted other thought forms on that same light fiber, and organized other bodies of thought forms (other evolutions or bodies of memory) to describe the same phenomenon.  

(continued …)

            Now as I beheld the living creatures, behold one wheel at the bottom hard by the living creatures, at the four faces thereof.  The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the color of a beryl; and they four had one likeness; and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel within a wheel.                                                      – Ezekiel I:15 – 16 

Pisces 12:  A very large disk consisting of circles of light with dark grey interspaces.  These circles resemble wheels within wheels, which I find on closer examination to be spiral, all revolving.   – The Degrees of the Zodiac Symbolized by Charubel, Fowler London 1907 

    What these seers were seeing and trying to describe is the organization of the universe (the thought form part of it anyway); namely, the akashic records:  swirling spiral chains of thought forms; infinite lines of scene after scene after scene stretching to infinity, in an infinity of sequences, which from a distance resemble whirling helical cones made of filaments of living light – light which glows with awareness, which exudes awareness.

                 The image given to William Butler Yeats was that of two interpenetrating gyres (conical spirals) twirling this way and that; the image given to me (and also to Busteed, Tiffany and Wergin) was that of wheels within wheels, and wheels upon wheels – i.e. cycles within cycles within cycles, all spinning this way and that.   But in fact these images are merely images, because there is NO order or regularity in the universe.  Our perceptions are orderly and regular, but that has nothing to do with the actual universe, which is utterly chaotic.  Our perceptions are of order and regularity, but – contrary to popular opinion – they are not perceptions of the universe.  For example, what we perceive as the linear sequence of time is actually the shift of attention between different levels of memory.  

                 The reason the spirits suggested these images (gyres or wheels) is to represent time as something other than a straight line.  These models of time are no more correct than the well-ordered continuum model because the universe, being utterly chaotic, cannot be modeled except by chaos.  Nonetheless the gyre or wheels-within-wheels models are closer to the truth than the linear model because they are more representative of what is actually going on than is the linear model.    The linear model describes time in waking consciousness, wherein all we are dealing with is a single sequence of personal history and future (Will); but this model fails when we go beyond that and enter the realm of dreaming, wherein we are considering all past and future lives and probable realities (Mask) – the totality of our being rather than one particular ramification of it (Will = this present lifetime).  Thus the gyre and wheels-within-wheels are more inclusive or encompassing models of time than is linearity.

(continued …)

           Another ritual which can be used in conjunction with or apart from the daily earth ritual is the burial ritual.  You use this one whenever you are especially burdened, ill, careworn, or depressed.  The earth has an infinite capacity not only to heal but also to absorb and dissipate negative energy, and every sort of spiritual and emotional heaviness as well as chronic illness.

           It helps to fast the day before this ritual.   Dig a trench two feet deep and somewhat longer than your body.  Line the trench with sawdust or leaves so you will have a soft bed and pillow to lie on, and make sure your face will be shaded from the sun.  Disrobe and wrap yourself in a sheet with only your face exposed (the sheet serves as a protection against e.g. ants).  You can smear insect repellant on your face, neck, and hair to keep bugs away.  Then lie down in the trench, get comfortable, and have someone cover you with a layer of earth up to your neck with your head sticking out.  Have someone visit you every hour or two in case you need a drink and to make sure you’re okay.    If you have to pee, just do it. 

If you are very sick or in desperate need of lightening up, you should remain buried for 12 hours (dawn to dusk) the first time you bury yourself, and for at least 6 hours on subsequent burials (8 is better).  Average people only need four hour burials to tune themselves (there’s not much point in doing it for less than four hours at a stretch).  How long and how frequently you bury yourself depend on how sick or heavy you were to begin with:  you come to “know” when it’s time to bury yourself again. 

 Although this ritual may seem to be an odd thing to do, you might just find that being buried is one of the most enjoyable experiences you’ve ever had.  The earth herself is your hostess, and she will do her best to comfort, nourish, and entertain you.

Another way of making intimate contact with the earth is to walk around barefoot as much as possible. If you live in a place where you can’t walk around barefoot, maybe it would be worthwhile to move to a place where you can – it is that important.  Wearing shoes cuts off most of the healing energy and sense of rootedness which the earth would otherwise give us through our feet.

 These rituals aren’t immutable – you can alter them at will to suit your own taste and convenience.  What is important is your seriousness of purpose, the strength of your desire to communicate with the earth, and your willingness to pursue this intent in a deliberate fashion – to make it one of the high priorities in your life.  Then your success is assured:  you will find a true sense of worth and belonging in the world which doesn’t depend on what other people think of you.

(excerpted from Magical Living, Copyright © 2001 by Bob Makransky.  All rights reserved)

More of Bob Makransky’s articles are posted at:  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagicalAlmanac/files 

To subscribe to Bob Makransky’s free monthly ezine, send an e-mail to:  MagicalAlmanac-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

 
 The salient feature of magical training is learning to use the world around us for validation, rather than the devices of people; to come to appreciate more the gurgling of water in a stream, the whisper of the wind in our ears, and the healing warmth of a tree, rather than the approval of people.  All of our unhappiness in life stems from our trying to live up to the expectations of people, and our having forgotten what ancient humans knew:  that we are first and foremost children of the earth, and that she loves us from the bottom of her heart.

 The earth isn’t insensible, as we’ve been led to believe.  She is vibrantly alive.  She can heal us, soothe us, and provide us with a sense of complete and unconditional acceptance.  She can nurture and protect us even more than our human mothers could possibly do.  We don’t have to feel at odds with the world, like alien interlopers in a hostile environment.  The earth is just busting to cuddle us with her love, if we would only make an effort to reach out to her.

 We do this simply by 1) acknowledging that she is alive, sentient, and capable of communicating with us; and 2) acknowledging daily our debt to her and thanking her for all her gifts.  Try doing the following earth ritual every day: dawn or sunset are the best times, but do it whenever you conveniently can.  Go out to a place in nature (if possible), take off all your clothes (if possible), and prostrate yourself face down with arms outstretched above your head pointing in the direction of the sun.  Begin to breathe out (exhale hard) all your angry, frustrated, depressed, negative feelings into the earth to be buried, and inhale the healing, soothing energy of the earth.  Feel it fill your body with warmth on the inbreaths as the negative energy dissipates on the outbreaths.  Then, when you are calm, kiss the earth and thank her, knowing that from the earth you have come, and to the earth you shall return.

 Even if you don’t feel anything out of the ordinary while doing this exercise, keep plugging away at it, and at some point you will realize that the earth is “talking” to you.  Some naturally talented people pick up the thread the first time out; however, most people have to do it on faith for a while until the establish a clear telepathic / intuitive communications link with the earth.  At that point the earth herself will give you instructions and tell you what to do; you’ll just “know” it.  For example, one thing she might have you do is to gaze at her. This is accomplished by slightly crossing your eyes but keeping them relaxed; calming down your thoughts; and staring without focusing at whatever feature in your field of vision most attracts your attention.  The earth can give you all sorts of information in this way.  If you do the earth ritual at dawn, try gazing at the vapors which rise from the earth in the early morning, since these are full of messages.

 Everybody’s experiences with the earth ritual are different, so about all that can definitively be said on the subject is, be prepared for some surprises!  If you carry this ritual out in good faith and with the expectation of ultimate success, then in a few weeks or months you’ll get it working as described.  The only trick to making magic work is patience – long continuance of the same ritual act (repetition of the same desire).

(continued …)

A central part of self-healing is understanding what lessons you are seeking to learn from your illness.  The events in your life don’t “just happen”; they happen for a reason, and understanding that reason is the beginning of taking control of your life and turning your situation around instead of wallowing in self-pity.   Asking your own subconscious for information is called “Active Imagination”.  This technique was first devised by Carl Jung in 1913. 

The easiest way to get this information – what lessons your illness is trying to teach you – is by asking for it in your dreams.  Just before you go to sleep at night, ask with all your heart (determination) that you learn what the purpose of your illness is; what it is that you are seeking to learn from this experience.  You should get the answer either in a dream, or else upon awakening.  It may take more than one night’s supplication until the answer comes, so be patient and just keep up the asking every night until the information comes to you.

Another way to find out what the lesson of your illness is, is by means of automatic writing (this technique also will usually provide more complex and detailed information than dreaming does). Choose a time when you are relaxed, alert, calm, and will not be interrupted. Lie down or sit, as you prefer, with a pen and notebook in hand (although automatic writing can also be done on a typewriter or word processor).  Writing down both your questions and the replies as they come in the form of a dialogue, ask your body to please talk to you.  For example, you might start this way:

Me:  “My body, could you please come and talk to me?  I am really trying to be open right now, and I want to hear what you have to say to me.  I am trying to understand why I am sick; won’t you please come and talk to me about it.  Etc. etc.”

This is just an example – you should ask your body to talk to you using your own words and sentiments.  Keep writing, keep on coaxing, until you begin to feel an answer forming in your mind, and then write it down.  The trick to making this work is to not stop writing.  That’s the purpose of the writing – to focus your attention on the act of writing, like when you’re taking notes in a classroom, so that there’s less room for doubt, hesitation, fear, etc.  Keep on writing, even if you’re just writing the same plea over and over again.  Do make it heartfelt – not just done mechanically – and eventually you’ll start getting an answer.  It really is so simple and straightforward you won’t believe it.

Note that when a person does automatic writing for the first time, the answers tend to come out sort of inchoate and constipated.  Don’t worry – just push it right on out and don’t worry about whether it makes sense or not.  Usually in automatic writing a few words or phrases spring into your mind at a time, a little faster than you can write them down, though sometimes you might get whole blocks or paragraphs at once.  You might also see memory pictures pop up before your mind’s eye, or get flashes of dream-like scenes as you write.  Record all of this because it’s all relevant.  Something might not make sense at the moment, but it will eventually if you keep a written record of it.

If nothing comes to mind in response to your entreaties; or if all that comes to mind is gibberish; then you are blocking.  Your conscious mind might say, “This isn’t working.  I’m not doing it right.”  or  “There must be some trick to this!”  in its effort to subvert the process.  Don’t fall for that ploy!  Keep trying, keep on writing, even if all you get is gibberish.  Only trust can open you enough to write automatically; otherwise you tangle yourself with doubt. If you find yourself blocking, try switching to your non-dominant hand.  Keep on writing, and at some moment your conscious mind will relax its grip and you’ll start writing automatically.  Then, simply write down what your body tells you, asking any questions you like along the way.   You might be surprised by the answers!   The biggest surprise will probably be that you, yourself called your illness to come – that it didn’t “just happen” to you; and for what reason you did this to yourself – what you are trying to learn from this experience.  You can also ask your body for specific information as to diet, exercise, etc. to speed your healing process along.

Here is an example of active imagination done by a woman who was experiencing bleeding in the second month of her pregnancy:

Woman:     “My body, can you help me get in touch with the thought form which controls my uterus?”

Body:     “Yes.  You will be having bleeding all through your first trimester, but it does not mean that there is anything wrong with your baby at all, or for that matter that you have placenta previa.  It is your body’s way of expressing unhappiness.  I know it seems very weird to you and that you’ve never heard of anything like it before, but you are not the first woman to have this complaint.  In fact, if you would like to talk to your uterus, I suggest you do so right now.  You might be surprised.”

Woman:     “Uterus, would you please talk to me?”

Uterus:     “Yes, I will be happy to.  You can hardly believe the incredible work that I am being called on to do.  I know you take it all for granted – like the most normal thing in the world to do.  Doesn’t every woman have a baby?  But it still doesn’t change the fact that I am being forced to do a lot of extra work with which you, frankly, are not helping me.  For example, I could use more herbal teas.  I know you don’t like them, but I do.  Make an alfalfa-raspberry mixture every day and drink three cups.

 “Also, eat meat or drink that iron tonic for these first three months.  I  just  need  more  physical help in  what I’m doing.  You should be eating the chard that is wasting in the garden.  Right now make the children eat what you want, not what they want.  Drink more water.  Put brewer’s yeast in your yogurt.  And rest.  I just need it, that’s all, and you’ve got to accept it.  Rest at least two hours during the day.  If you feel ashamed of this (which you do), too bad;  I don’t, and I’m the one who is doing all the work.  Otherwise I get overtired; I just do.  Maybe other women don’t need two hours of rest, but you do.  For your gestation you need oodles and oodles of meditation and dream experiences.  Do you think that the Virgin Mary ran around all day long?  No, she contemplated the stars and the moon – just as you should do.

 “So if you’re too stupid to know what you should be doing, I’m not; and I talk with blood whenever you get out of line and think that this thing of gestating a child is done on some sort of automatic pilot while you go merrily off to play.  I need your conscious support and awareness.  You help me and I’ll help you.”

**************** 

More of Bob Makransky’s articles are posted at:  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagicalAlmanac/files 
 

Thought forms are homunculi of awareness:  living beings which are no less real than we, their creators.  However, thought forms are much simpler entities than humans.  They don’t have the rich emotional tonality of humans; in fact, they are limited to one emotion each.  They are not stupid, by any means, and in fact can be extremely perceptive and pithy within the narrow scope of their own prejudices and points of view.  Precisely because they are so simple – being pure concept – they can see things much more clearly than we humans can.  Thought forms don’t have much depth or dimension, but they do have the same passion for life which characterizes all living beings.  In other words, thought forms can be considered to be conditioned patterns of behavior or reaction, positions which are being defended, which have a logic, a rationale, and a will to live all their own. 

 The personalities of individual thought forms – their feelings – mirror different facets of our own personalities (by definition).  If we tend to be sassy and flippant, our thought forms will also tend to be sassy and flippant.  If we tend to be gloomy and morbid, our thought forms will be gloomy and morbid too.  Most of what we mean by, or can point to, or consider “ourselves” is just a random collection of thought forms.

 Observe that thought forms serve needs in our psyche; that’s why we create them in the first place – to respond to some need.  The problem is that our needs change as we go along in life, but our thought forms don’t.  They are capable of modifying themselves to adapt to the vicissitudes of changing circumstances, but they won’t modify their basic purpose, and their basic purpose is to keep themselves alive (important to us).

Banishing thought forms gives us a space, a free moment, in which we can make a sober, reasoned decision about how we’ll react to a given stimulus, instead of being compelled to react out of some stock set of neurotic reactions which may not be appropriate to the present situation.  

You can use any banishing ritual you like to banish a thought form; or just make one up.  The point is that the ritual should be done with true repugnance for the thought form and a complete determination to stamp it out.  You may not feel any immediate difference after banishing a thought form, but within a day or so of you’ll feel more detachment in the area ruled by that thought form.  Banishing thought forms gives us a pause in there instead of a blind, thoughtless, headlong rush to react.  We can watch ourselves as we react; we become consciously aware of what we’re doing as we do it. 

            (excerpted from Thought Forms ©2000 by Bob Makransky)

More of Bob Makransky’s articles are posted at:  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagicalAlmanac/file

 The basic unit of mind is termed a thought form.   A thought form can be considered a homunculus of awareness:  an observer / observed duality.  The observer and the thing being observed arise together.  For example, if a tree falls in a forest where no being can hear it, it does not make a sound thought form.  There can only be a sound thought form if some being is hearing it.  Although we believe that we are separated from what we are observing (seeing, hearing, smelling, etc.), the fact is that this is indeed merely a belief.

 This is actually a very difficult point to grasp – that things don’t happen outside of us, as seems to be the case, but rather we and the things that happen to us are but two sides of the same coin.  It’s like that optical illusion which can be viewed as either a vase, or else as two people facing each other.  Which is it:  a vase, or two people?  In the same fashion, there is no world outside of ourselves, but merely a belief we have that there is an outside world there impinging on us.  Things don’t happen to us; rather, the things that happen are us.  The world outside of ourselves is merely our reflection. 

 This is easier to understand with regard to dreaming.  While we are dreaming we believe that what is happening to us is real; but when we wake up, we realize that it was just our projection, no matter how real it appeared to be while we were asleep.  Similarly, the world we experience when we are awake is also just our projection, and it is only our belief that it is real which makes it seem real.

 Whether we are awake or we are dreaming, things seem to happen to us.  The “things” which happen to “us” are thought forms.  In order for mind to operate there has to be both “things” there, and also an “us” to which those things are happening (separation between that which is happening and the being which is experiencing it).  When we are listening to sounds or are otherwise attentive to the now moment, we are aware of the continual changes going on around us.  By contrast when we are thinking we shut out our awareness of the world around us and focus on a self.  Either we are thinking about the past or the future; but in either case we frame our thoughts in terms of a self to whom things happened in the past or to whom they will happen in the future.  This focus upon a continuing, abiding self who has a personal history and will have a personal future is what creates that continuing, abiding self; or better said, creates a sense of a continuing, abiding self, because in fact the continuing, abiding self doesn’t have objective existence.  All that exists is a stream of thought forms. 

Although they arise and fall from moment-to-moment, thought forms create a false sense of continuity because of our inattention to their momentary nature.   In other words, we do not usually notice the fact that we are not the same person from moment-to-moment.  On the contrary, we believe that we are continuing, abiding beings.  Thought forms are our sense of there being a detached, moment-to-moment observer – a self – which abides and which is experiencing the unfolding of an external reality.  In point of fact “we” are a myriad of thought forms which are just passing the baton of attention from one to another.  This passing around of attention is what appears to us to be the unfolding of events in linear time.  It seems to us that there is a sensible progression from moment-to-moment only because we choose to believe that there is a sensible progression from moment-to-moment – just as in dreaming things make sense even if, from the point of view of waking, the unfolding of events is completely bizarre.  It is merely our belief that we are continuing, abiding beings in the midst of unfolding events which makes it so. 

(continued …)