I thought this session was a decent shorter one, focusing on a topic that perplexes us all: the justice of suffering. We want justice within the illusion – for suffering to be a thing that is never undeserved – but this undermines its very purpose of refining us as we truly exist in reality. For it to do so, it must seem real but be illusory.

There’s also a hint of something I’ve been very interested in exploring: the way we consciously can push the limit of the “simulation” to the maximum. If I’m understanding the ancient Greek’s ideas on oneness and the illusion, they feel that reality is deep inside the illusion, not something we achieve by rejecting it. We penetrate it by committing ourselves fully to it, while not being of the illusion. To adopt its challenges without adopting its identity seems to be something of the skill or mêtis needed to fully unlock our potential.

The key, I think, is to recognize the illusory nature of our very personalities. They are not us. They are to be used, just like the rest of the illusion, to (paraphrasing Mao) highten the contradictions, expose the illusory nature of the illusion, and thereby call to what is real to manifest more and more purely.

Sidenote: there is great commentary in the rest of the session that echoes some comments I’ve made on relying on the trappings of this philosophy too much. Hatonn says: “There are no sure things, my sister. You cannot put your faith in any outside appearance, even our voice through a channel. Depend primarily upon that which you perceive.” Wise words, since even what they’ve offered us as a framing mythos is incomplete and unlikely to be the substantive truth we’ll perceive sans veil.

I am Hatonn. I greet you in the love and the light of the infinite Creator. I am with you, as always. I have little to add through this instrument on the subject of suffering. The very word in your language indicates how real the illusion is to you. And indeed, this is as it should be. If the illusion were not “real,” you would not learn from it. It would not be an effective catalyst and you would not progress sufficiently under its stimulus.

That which seems to be suffering is precisely as valuable as a lesson problem is in school. You learn the lesson in order that you may pass the test. There are easy tests, and there are hard tests. If one is able to pass a harder test, one advances more quickly, perhaps to the next grade, instead of to the next semester within the same grade.

There are many of those upon your planet at this time who have elected to utilize this particular physical experience in order to obtain the greatest possible lesson, to take the greatest possible test and advance the greatest possible amount. These people have chosen their tests. These people chose to advance rapidly, within a path that is totally made of love. Within the illusion, it may seem that there is suffering. This suffering is a valuable gift. It is burning away the dross, that the gold may appear.

We have spoken earlier tonight, my sister, on the necessity of penetrating the apparent quality of the illusion, in order to perceive reality. Penetrate to the center of this illusion, which you call suffering, and know that in love a perfect being is seeking its path.

Each entity will suffer. Each entity will proceed on its path. For each entity there will be dark nights—and then, the dawn! Do not admire those who seem not to suffer, for it is truly written that the last shall be first, and the first, last. There is one whom you know who is physically, shall we say, abased; this ultimately will cause her exaltation.

Do not dwell within the illusion, my sister. The intellect cannot deal with the reality within it. Seek only to know the Creator. Do you not know, my sister, that all is love?

- Hatonn via Rueckert: January 11, 1976

Originally posted on r/lawofone_philosophy.