In this next excerpt from an Oct. 18, 2017 reading, we start out by looking at various notions of our bodies – the Hindu notion of panchakosas or five sheaths; the Spiritualist notion of astral bodies, mental bodies, etc.
For that matter, our notions as lightholders that we’re a physical body, a lightbody (Merkaba), etc. There are many views of our various bodies. How do they all fit together?
They don’t, Archangel Michael says. They just represent what we can understand at the moment. The truth is that our bodies are more fluid and integrated than what we’re comprehending.
Metaphors like the Babushka doll have some overall usefulness to help us get to a much more accurate view of things, like stepping stones.
He invites us to experience ourselves, rather than simply think about ourselves. I know what he means from as far back as Cold Mountain days.
And you know me anyways. First intellectual knowledge. Then experiential knowledge. Then realized knowledge. So my ears perked up.
I find it remarkable that the night before my reading I couldn’t think of what I was going to ask him and yet the reading itself has yielded so much material. It was clear to me by the way he was speaking that he meant it not only for me, but for lightworkers.
This part of the reading was so rich for me that I added my comments between the lines. There’s just so much to say about the points he raises.
Thanks to Linda for our reading and Dana for our transcript.
From Archangel Michael in a personal reading with Steve Beckow through Linda Dillon, Oct. 18, 2017.
Steve Beckow: Hindus speak of Panchakosas – five sheaths. Spiritualists talk of the astral body, mental body, causal body, buddhic body, etc. And you speak of a mental and an emotional body. I’ve never heard anybody else as far as I’m aware, use those exact terms [mental and emotional body] in that way before. And I’ve wrestled with it myself.
[“Mental body” for me, who was raised in British Spiritualism, means the Fifth-Dimensional body, the body associated with the Mental Plane of the afterlife. Michael uses it to mean something completely different. I think his use of it is pretty close to our everyday notion of “the mind.” And I do live in the mind. No doubt about it.]
Can you tell me in your view, what are the bodies we assume as we progress through the dimensions? I can’t say they’re hierarchical anymore, because they’re not. But as we evolve.
Archangel Michael: As you progress, think of it in this way. It is a further delineation, definition and integration – but we will get to that part – of who you are. So in this, let us make it very simple.
There are not sheaths, as one would think of it, between your bodies. You know that.
[As experiential and realized knowledge, yes. Not as intellectual knowledge. I.e., in the experiences provided by Cold Mountain Institute, Zen, est, enlightenment intensives – yes; in the knowledge provided by science – no. But I’m definitely interested.]
Just as the dimensions are fluid so that you can move through them, so the layers of your body are also fluid.
[I think that what he says here is designed to be “gotten” not only by the mind but even more as an immediate experience. Experience the fluidity of the layers of the body, he appears to be asking.]
Now with the development, shall we say, of illusion, the awareness of these various layers – and we are not decrying any of the explanations that are given because they have helped billions of people to understand that they are so much more than simply their physical self – but in reality there is a fluidity between all of your bodies.
[Not fixed, but fluid. Experience fluidity. Realize fluidity is the invitation.]
And when the Plan of the Mother is unfolding, that seal that is around your enormous body, your Seal of Solomon, will in fact be dissolved. It will no longer be necessary.
But let us go back particularly to a discussion around the mental and emotional bodies.
Now part of this construct has been born and is reinforced by the separation – think what I am saying; it is supposed to be fluid – but there has been separation of the humans insofar as this, “I feel this, but I think that,” goes.
Now you, beloved one, and we have talked of this, have a tendency to live – your home base has been – your mental body.
[Not in the Fifth-Dimensional mental body on the Mental Plane of the afterlife but in what we commonly consider “the mind.”
Remember that as far as I’m concerned as a cross-cultural spiritual scholar, I can only get these matters satisfactorily verified by beings such as Archangel Michael or the Divine Mother.]
You have taken great pride and comfort in having this, almost a refuge.
But what you have seen over the past several years is that that fluidity between your emotional body and your mental body, that imaginary layer, that sheath, has dissipated and you are living more in your emotional body – but not so far as either/or.
[All very true.]
You have been experiencing the fluidity between these various bodies and at times it causes you great consternation because you don’t know which way to lean, rather than finding the balance between the two: That it is not either/or.
I am not living in my emotional body and I am not living in my mental body. I am finding the supreme balance in all of this.
I have to put a bookmark in here and interrupt.
Do you notice how we’re back to the same point again in the reading: Balance, balance, balance. I am not just this; I am not just that. I am all of it.
I hold within my own collective consciousness the memory of all of it. I’ve experienced all of it. And I bless it all.
Equilibrium, equanimity, serenity, calmness, balance is what’s being emphasized over and over again in this reading.
Another theme is that what he says here can’t just reside with us as intellectual knowledge. It has to progress to experiential and then realized knowledge to really have an impact on us.
In this case, he wants us to adjust our vision from our bodies being fixed, to our bodies being fluid. … But even that statement isn’t the whole truth. It’s just as much as we can comprehend at the moment.
Archangel Michael: Now, I do not wish to diminish the value of the variations of these layers that you have for your mental body and your emotional body but let’s talk about the mental body. It has extraordinary value because in that – and this is going to become even trickier – are many of your DNA triggers, capacitors, influences.
You have the ability for truly expansive mental clarity, exploration, explosion, discovery etc. That [comes] when you are really utilizing that area of your being to truly bring forth what you, in your soul design, mission, and purpose – which is but a reflection of your soul design – are here to do.
So even when you were deciding to come, you were saying – in your own plan and your plan with all of us – “I really want a strong mental-layer body and capacity.”
At the same time, you don’t want to be restrictive of the other bodies because alone – you know that spells isolation and separation. It means you won’t have access to the fullness of who you are.
[This statement resonated with me.]
So no being ever comes forth into form without all of the bodies being present. And part of your journey is learning about the balance and the fluidity between these various bodies.
[I am amazed. Looking at matters this way is entirely new to me.]
And as you come to understand them, you can more consciously access them to build them but also access them to simply give you the support or the expansion that you need.
Steve: But am I like a babushka doll? Am I a body inside another body inside another body?
[Is there some design to it all?]
AAM: That is the way that the humans can construe it in order to understand it, but it is all One. For where you are right now, that [reflects] how you are thinking about yourself and it is a useful construct that you are the babushka doll [for now].
Steve: Should I let go of the notion of the Panchakosas and astral bodies, mental bodies, and causal bodies?
AAM: What we would like you to do is embrace the entire being called Steve.
Steve: Well, just looking at that for a moment, there is a Higher Self, Universal Self and an I Am Presence. How do we understand how all this fits together?
AAM: By not being fully anchored in just your mental body. Emotionally, causally, you know that you are so much more. You know this to be true.
[Yes, I know it to be true.]
So stop this feeling that you need to define each layer or access each layer. Know that this is an integrated self.
[OK! I got it! Integrated, fluid. Thank you! To be experienced and realized.]
Steve: Well, from my past experience, I know that one’s experience of that integrated self will dispel all conflicting thoughts I’m having about it just as one experience of transformative love utterly undermined every thought I’d ever had about love up to that moment.
Is it the case here as well that, once I experience it, all will be clear?
AAM: That is correct.
Steve: Okay, I can wait for that.
AAM: And while you are seeking definition, which is not forbidden by any stretch, but while you are seeking it, it is helpful to others because there is a great deal of misunderstanding about this [integrated self] and, again, about the fluidity of the bodies.
Steve: It has to be helpful, Lord. I wouldn’t be writing on it if it was just of interest to me so I’m glad to hear that it’s of value to others.